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Comment by alistairSH | Hacker News Reader

For those lower-income tax payers, is there really any reason to have an end-user initiated return?

With no itemized deductions and only wage income, the IRS already has everything that is needed. They should just mail/email a pre-filled form. If everything is correct, no action needed (other than paying any taxes due). If something is wrong, that bumps you into the existing "pay TurboTax" model.

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The only hole I can see in this plan is that it would require our government to change a standard for the better.

how does the IRS know you only have wage income? if you also have cash or some other income that's not automatically reported then their pre-filled form would be wrong

Then you have to do changes to the form yourself. I don't really see the problem. That's how it works in a lot of countries.

But it doesn't work that way now, therefore it can NEVER work that way!

They don't, but most tax payers will only have wages, and for them, the no-file system is easier. For those of us with investment income, itemized deductions, or anything else, we do the same as we do now. Still not perfect - my taxes aren't that unusual, but I still feel like I need a CPA to do them some years - but I'll take anything.

Objection--it shouldn't be the same as it is now. Rather, the IRS should mail you the pre-filled portion and you should be able to use any portion of it you can in filing your own taxes.

The pre-filled return should also have a QR code that allows tax programs to obtain the data.

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