Hacker News Reader

Well Intuit has tried very hard to prevent that and so far has been successful.

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...

Or just abandon Income Taxes (57% of US households don't pay any anyway) and embrace Land Value Taxes to fund State and Federal operations. Apply a credit for each child of the owner living in the dwelling to encourage house ownership.

I mean, Texas essentially runs that way (minus the credit) and I wouldn't exactly call it a utopia here.

I'm not sure I like the idea of land value taxes though I concede there is a better argument that government expenses correlate better to land owned than to income.

I think the issue is less about expenses and more about what the populace will tolerate handing over.

The one thing that's good about land value taxes is (perhaps) that they correlate more with wealth, so politicians who get rich from the state at least have to pay tax for their fancy houses.

There is a whole industry around improving digital services the US Government provides (and State governments as well).

Check out 18F / USDS sometime.