is taxation as fucked up in other countries as it is in the usa? rules set up to encourage people to have to pay some shady third party to know how much they owe (even though the irs could tell them directly).
In March or April, everyone gets sent their pre-filled tax form for the previous year. You can change it as needed, for example adding income from a side hustle, or making deductions -- though those are fewer and less complicated than the US from what I understand. Many common deductions (e.g. for mortgage interest) will be pre-filled too.
Most people will not need to change anything, and so can approve the pre-filled form through text message or digital signature (or phone robot for old people iirc). If you do need to make changes, it can be (but doesn't have to be) done online without too much trouble. Don't get me wrong, it's not always trivial, but it seems significantly more pleasant than what I hear about the US system. And, again, the vast majority of people just have to send a text message some time in March or April.
But I don't know if the deduction helps with that. People buy what they can afford, so the "discount" is probably consumed by higher interest rates and inflated prices. It can also be argued that it's a form of regressive taxation: the rich are eligible for bigger mortgages, and therefore have more to gain from the policy.
Personally, I would like to see it removed. Any serious attempt to do that it's probably political suicide, though, since it would have a noticeable impact on many people's finances. And who knows how it would affect the housing market. Maybe if it was done gradually over many years.
With the current interest rates it's an ideal time to pass any tax changes anyway - they won't hit new mortgages nearly as hard as 10 years ago, and the housing prices can use some downward pressure anyway.
It's literally IDENTICAL in USA yet there's a hellscape come tax time. The IRS already has all th e info they need and know the amount. Lobbyists (intuit & H&R block) have made it worse for decades. Crazy isn't it?
I moved here from the USA and it feels simpler for the average person. You don't declare how many withholdings you get (I always used 0 so I could get some money at the end of the year), you just tell your employer your tax class and everything else is handled, and any refund is based on if you paid too many taxes somehow (there are some situations where you might have overpaid taxes inadvertently, like if you have a change in income part way through the year, and if this is the case when you file the return they analyze your income data and give you a refund).
('Normal' income tax is taken through 'Pay As You Earn' by employer's payroll, you only ever receive net pay; capital gains, dividends, 'innovation', etc. have tax free thresholds that mean you don't have to worry about it until (if) it's big. And then you can just file it online (or paper) directly with HMRC (IRS equivalent), or pay a tax advisor if you want of course, but that's certainly exception not norm.)
Much easier in Romania, if you have only employment income nothing to do. For capital gains or other incomes basically a single form, only 10% flat taxes so you know what you owe.
All in all, revenue tax takes about 5 minutes a year for me to check that what they have is correct (since I am salaried, which is the easy path), and maybe 5 more minutes to adjust my monthly tax rate.
Be an adult.
You are getting scammed by the government, who have made it burdensome to report all of this income. A tax professional or a service like Intuit are trying to help here. If the government wanted to make this process easier for the small percentage of people like you, they would have done so, but they haven't, because they have weak volition and desire for creativity.
Furthermore, my taxes take me less than 1 hour per year. I prefer the current system where I tell them what I think I owe.
If they told me what I owed, and I disagreed, what recourse would I have? I guarantee it would take more than an hour.
I'd have to drive several orders of magnitude more than I do to spend tens of thousands of dollars on gas each year.
I'm tired of arguing with malicious people on the internet.
No; under every actual proposal, people who have these complicated deductions and other specialized needs can still file exactly the way they do today so that they can get their taxes calculated properly.
And making sure that >50% of Americans—in particular, the >50% who have the simplest taxes, which correlates highly with lower income—don't have to "spend 1 hour and $39 per year" with private companies to accomplish their legally mandated tax filing is a very good thing, even if it were to actually increase the inconvenience for the wealthy and complicated.
Which, again, this wouldn't.
So please put aside the ad hominem attacks, which I believe are against the HN guidelines anyway.
...but the thousands of dollars my wife paid directly to the government two years ago for her green card application which still is not done is totally fine?
If there was an Intuit for green cards, I would be camping outside to be the first to give them my money.
Further, you make this point in a later comment:
> I'm tired of arguing with malicious people on the internet.
I don't see anything remotely malicious in this thread other than people not agreeing with your point, and this whole thread seems to be pretty healthy. With that in mind it's quite interesting to me that you're implying that this healthy discussion is malicious.
You'd file your taxes exactly as you do now, losing nothing.
But that's not my real issue with your comment. I agree adults have to tough things out sometimes. But toughing out a problem that doesn't need to exist is macho nonsense. You might as well insist that people get rid of their indoor plumbing, because we got got along fine without it for most of human history. You can go dig your own outhouse if you want, but don't suggest somebody else is inferior for not going out of the way to make their life harder unnecessarily.
I am not saying that you should tough something out for no reason. I have electricity coming to my house to make my life convenient, which I pay for. I have water coming to my house, which I pay for.
But I cut my own grass manually. Why? Because I felt the prices offered to me were not fair, and that the job was not complex or hard.
Either you pay a tax professional if you feel the work is too complex and the price is acceptable, or you do it yourself.
You can try to fight the government on this one, and you might win (even I hope you do), but at what cost? Certainly it is not cheaper than $39 a year.
Wait, what? Are you actually arguing that electricity is a convenience?
I agree that the modal W2 worker does not need such a booklet. But they don't need to fill out tax forms at all. The correct solution is not to make them pay $39 for software they don't need. It's for the IRS to say "Here's what we think we owe you and why. If you don't like that, go and fill out the forms."