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Comment by dahfizz | Hacker News Reader

I think it comes down to who people trust.

Americans on the whole don't trust their government quite a lot. If the government just said "you owe X in tax this year", nearly everyone's knee jerk reaction would be that the government is overestimating and cheating them.

On the other hand, you can pay a flat fee to let a third party fight the government on your behalf. That's something that many Americans like the sound of.

I think the real problem is that the tax system is complicated, and turbo tax does a good job of making it feel even more complicated than it is. You can fill out your own 1040EZ, if you even know what that is, but people have this sense that the tax system is full of loopholes and they want to exploit that.

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> Americans on the whole don't trust their government quite a lot. If the government just said "you owe X in tax this year", nearly everyone's knee jerk reaction would be that the government is overestimating and cheating them.

That's why most governments that do self-declaration services make it so you can review what tax rules they based amounts off of. It's not like tax law is super easy elsewhere and without complications. I should never have to pay a fee just to declare taxes to reconcile things for the IRS. That is a basic governmental responsibility to give me that service for free.

> That's why most governments that do self-declaration services make it so you can review what tax rules they based amounts off of.

Right, but since no regular person understands the rules, they can't really double-check. Especially since sometimes you can file stuff under different rules that produce different results, despite both being valid (I say this based on experience from another country, but I suspect the same is true in the US).

> "sometimes you can file stuff under different rules that produce different results, despite both being valid (I say this based on experience from another country, but I suspect the same is true in the US)."

Yes, such circumstances exist in the US too. For instance married couples usually file jointly, but they could chose to file separately which results in a different effect.

It's the same problem as with auto repair and medicine. It's nice that we have competing providers, except we don't have the expertise to judge their performance.

> except we don't have the expertise to judge their performance.

Well, this is a bit different in that regard. Last time I tried it, it was free to put all my info into turbo tax and see what my amount owed would be, and then it would be a fee to actually file. I assume most tax software works that way.

So it's actually very easy and objective to see the performance of these systems. It would obviously be a big hassle though to spend a whole afternoon playing with all the different tax softwares.

I can assure you the secret sauce in "exploiting" tax law is almost never in choosing one thing or another during filing (there should only be one optimal answer once the facts are already created), but in tax planning. The tax software even hints at that. Paying for tax filing itself is basically a low-level scam.

Tax filing is very complicated and ridden with risk if you don't check the right boxes.

"there should only be one optimal answer once the facts are already created"

Yes, there should be. The reason why accountants can make a living filing taxes for fee is because that optimal answer is often difficult to find.

"Paying for tax filing itself is basically a low-level scam."

Not for me it isn't. If a private company can create a service that makes filing a lot easier and safer, I will gladly pay the fee.

> 1040EZ, if you even know what that is

I think you buried the lead here. American public schools, part of the American government charged with teaching children and funded by taxes, don't teach kids how to pay taxes to the American government (maybe it sometimes happens, but it's certainly not standard.) It's ludicrous.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but how are schools supposed to teach kids how to pay taxes when it's such a convoluted specialty that requires college level education to learn?

For most people it isn't that complicated, but public schools don't teach kids even the bare basics like "you can get the paperwork at public libraries and post offices."

Eh, I think you could teach 90% of how taxes on wages, investments, and property work in a simple class for teenagers. It's the other 10% that takes years of study and legal expertise--but the vast majority of people don't need that 10% more than a few times in their lives (e.g. if they get very rich, retire, have to handle a complex family financial situation, or are otherwise massive outliers), and hiring a tax attorney at those times is probably a good idea regardless of whether or not you learned the basics in school.

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