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Comment by CrendKing | Hacker News Reader

So much BS in these lines. For whatever record IRS already has on me, there is nothing my version of the filing can change. It's not like I can arbitrarily remove an 0 from my AGI and "challenge" IRS to accept my version. Then why demand me to repeat the duplicate information? "keeps citizens aware of the tax burden" - Sure if some people want to be aware, but I'm sure many people don't care about and can't reason about every tax change. Seriously, how many of you ever read a news about a new tax and "talked to your congress representative"? All these are just giant waste of time to majority of the population in the country.

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> there is nothing my version of the filing can change.

The IRS can say "this is not a valid business expense." You can say "it clearly is a valid business expense and should be deducted!"

The IRS can say "this is contractor income." You can say "it clearly is an down payment for subcontractors, you can see the money leaving here!"

These are two obvious problems you could have, and it doesn't even require dishonesty on the IRS' part. Maybe one of your subcontractors is trying to cheat the system and is jamming you up?

For most people, you won't have these issues. For those that do, what difference does it make to fix it vs making it all on their own?

> what difference does it make to fix it vs making it all on their own?

That sounds like a big difference to me. The former would require government knowledge of every single transaction you make/receive, while the latter does not.

It isn't. Most people only pay tax on their income, which is already sent to the IRS. Just pre-file it and ask the payee to approve it. If you have more complicated taxes, you can just decline the pre-filed and file your own, like you already do.

Well, you've flagged the point. These people, about 10% of the population, that own small businesses are in the minority. They're likely to be an explicit disadvantage in this system. This is a segment that you probably want to use tax policy to protect, not harm.

Further.. it feels like the goalposts have moved on this since it last came up. I don't need the IRS to do my taxes for me, I just need to be able to login to the IRS, pick a form, fill it, and submit it.

E-filing should be free and available to everyone. If you have that, I'm not sure what the value of having it prefilled for me is. In particular, if you just have a single W2 to work from, there could be a 1040-SUPER-EZ where you just enter a serial number from your W2, have it fill from that, and then submit.

You can make this easy without putting everyone under the thumb of the IRS.

Why would they be at a disadvantage? As a small business don't you keep your business accounts separate to your personal accounts, and have an accountant to at least audit them each year before submission?

> They're likely to be an explicit disadvantage in this system

How are they at a disadvantage? Before, they had to do all their filing themselves, after, they have to also do all the filing themselves.

I think you are both right. There can be a process for business and personal. The two are different, why lump them together?

> Seriously, how many of you ever read a news about a new tax and "talked to your congress representative"?

You and I don't do that, but rich people and companies do, if a tax increase is going to impact you and I by $100 it's barely worth the email that will be ignored. If a company is going to be hit by $100m, then it's well worth spending $1m to carve out an exception.

> All these are just giant waste of time to majority of the population in the country.

It works too. Tax return day is ingrained in the American Psyche through cultural output (TV), there is a constant undertone in the US that taxes are bad and the government is stealing your money.

Get rid of tax day and make 70% of the country not have to worry about it other than a line on their payslip and as well as making things far more efficient for both the taxpayer and the government (thus reducing government spending), it changes that cultural balance. Few will care about taxes, and that means the pressure to introduce a 0.1 cent drop in tax (which is structured to benefit someone on $150k by say $2 a week, but benefits people like the Koch Brothers by $200k a week) goes away.

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