Anyone got a tldr for a Brit staring at a paywall?
It's nothing new for a frequent reader of HN. California ran a trial of automatic tax filings in 2005, Intuit persuaded the IRS to adopt no such system, the government mandated a free file system run by the commercial providers for eligible people, the providers used dark patterns to direct free file eligible users to paid options. Current democrats and former california republicans are quoted as being for actual automatic filing, some anecodotes from people who had been pushed by the software companies to paid options.
Then in the UK if you have more complex tax affairs, then you have to fill in a self assessment on the government portal (where it already knows most of your tax information, and you are pretty much just making disclosures).
And it's VERY rare that people have to hire an accountant (only for people who own businesses, or individuals with the moxt complex tax affairs).
Well in the USA they don't have any of that, and everyone has to file their own taxes. The USA has the capability to do automated tax like in the UK, however the companies who sell the tax software petitioned the government to make sure that they didn't implement it so they can continue to get $$$ out of everyone else.
If taxpayers aren't forced to confront the details of their tax payments every time they do a filing, they're less likely to complain about high taxes (this comes with the implication that high taxes are inherently bad, which depends on your political leaning)
Taxpayers may just accept the automatic deduction without realising they're being overcharged in the event of an error, for years at a time.
How much they actually care about such arguments vs the threat to their business model is subjective, but it seems the majority on this site (and myself) don't buy it.
What they don't mention is that this free filing offer is used by significantly less than 5% of the eligible taxpayers. Probably because Intuit advertises it very little and within the product very heavily hints that you should switch to a paid product instead.
Accountants will tell you “I’m not a tax guy” and tax guys will tell you “I’m not an accountant”
Taxes are so convoluted and constantly changing that a separate class of number crunchers are maintained for it.
(I’m sure someone could wear both hats, but in my experience they don’t or can’t. Too many requirements for maintaining both?)