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Comment by elthran | Hacker News Reader

Not just Japan, also true for the UK with our Pay As You Earn system - you get assigned a tax code, and the appropriate amount is automatically deducted from your payslip. No need to file anything, and refunds/demands get generated automatically each year if you've been changing jobs/not working/other odd circumstances meaning that the amount you paid doesn't match what you were expected to

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And if you DO need to file a tax return (e.g. earning over 100k, certain types of income) you can (in most cases) do it for free on the HMRC website with a guided system.

>Not just Japan, also true for the UK with our Pay As You Earn system

It's true for most of the world. It's a bit like metric vs. imperial – the US is the odd one out.

The "Pay-As-You-Earn" system was introduced in Australia and the UK during WW2 lol. The US has the same system its just been implemented extremely poorly

It's not that it's implemented poorly. It's that 1) the federal government collects multiple kinds of taxes out out of your paycheck. Social security, medicare and regular income tax are different. Income tax rates are progressive while the payroll taxes are flat but capped at a certain amount. 2) Additionally forty-two states have income taxes as do dozens of local municipalities. Consider that they also don't treat residents and non residents alike.

Consider a couple who live in New York City, where one partner works in Connecticut and the other works in New Jersey. There are potentially 6 different entities collecting income tax there.

That being said - fully agree - tax filing software should be free for everyone.

Furthermore, a number of states are starting to require tax returns to be filed even for short durations of working in the state for business purposes.

Yep, that is called a "jock tax."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jock_tax

wow now that's a killer feature that might be just enough to get me to move there than somewhere else. More governments should be looking into replicating this.

> the appropriate amount is automatically deducted from your payslip

Lol I wish they deducted the appropriate amount.

> No need to file anything

Not true - many still need to file a self assessment, just like in the US.

If your income does not change then it’s the appropriate amount. If your income increases or decreases you may end up paying too much or too little. Then there’s deductibles. It’s quite nice getting a cheque at the end of the tax year for a few thousand.

Singapore we pay tax for the previous year on a month to month basis. It’s good but I imagine if you end up with less pay than the previous year it could be a strain on life.

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