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Comment by JMTQp8lwXL | Hacker News Reader

The tax code is complex because of many special interest groups that get their carve-out. Even if you completely ended all lobbying from the tax preparation industry, how much simpler would taxes actually get?

If you want a straight flat tax (or a progressive one), you'd need to get rid of the mortgage interest deduction, charitable deductions, all these things to refine the tax calculation to a very simple formula. And you bet those special interest groups would never let that happen, even if the tax preparation industry didn't lobby.

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Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We can and must improve things iteratively. Just because we can't fix everything doesn't mean we shouldn't fix anything.

The issue is that the reason why governments have tax cuts for certain groups is because that's how they win votes. Tax codes are so complicated in almost every democratic country in the world specifically because such complicated tax codes serve a purpose.

The difference between governments is who is getting the tax breaks. Progressive governments give tax breaks and stipends to ordinary workers, while conservative governments give it to corporations and the wealthy.

In order to gain or stay in power you need to make sure your key supporters are looked after. This is as true in dictatorships as it is in democracies.

>The issue is that the reason why governments have tax cuts for certain groups is because that's how they win votes.

Isn't that an oversimplification, though? Governments also use tax cuts to shape behavior.

I would argue that shaping behaviour is another aspect of looking after your key supporters.

If you put taxes on speculative trading, such traders won't vote for you -- but people who are against speculative trading will. If you give speculative traders a tax cut, the inverse happens.

It also obviously will shape behaviour, but if that was the only purpose then the government wouldn't be fulfilling their primary purpose: trying to stay in power as long as possible so they can achieve whatever they set out to do.

If you're a career politician, "Stay in power as long is possible" is the thing you set out to do.

The mortgage interest deduction is all but gone now for most people. Since the new tax code gets rid of dependent exemptions, and replaces it with a larger standard deduction (24K for married filing jointly), combined with the cap on SALT taxes, most people won't have a large enough mortgage interest (plus max 10k property taxes + state income tax) deductions to exceeded the standard deduction.

The net result is that there wasn't much movement up or down in taxes for typical homeowners (married, children, middle class home). Which means that with fewer people benefiting from the mortgage interest deduction, there may be hope that it goes away in the future. Either that, or it will stick around since it is a benefit for wealthier Americans (who have more political control).

The IRS already knows how much you should owe in most cases. They could send you a filled in tax form with spaces for corrections, and if looks right, you’d just send it back. This would require no changes to the tax code.

This is how it works in my country, although it's done through a website. I usually have to make one or two edits for deductions I can claim and I'm done in 5-10 mins.

This is a separate issue. TurboTax like software could still exist for people with more complicated tax returns. For the majority the government can just calculate it.

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