Hacker News Reader

Comment by whitemary | Hacker News Reader

I'm struggling to see the profit potential in this.

I wouldn't call it a profit, but the IRS has little to no incentive to minimize the tax burden on the tax payer, so there is a potential for them to reduce deductions and increase their collections.

Private tax preparation companies lobby to keep the IRS from doing it automatically. https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...

Wow, that never occurred to me and I hope most civil servants genuinely do not think in terms of trying to line the pockets of the federal government as if it exists as a separate entity in its own right and not merely a means to make a functional country of which Americans, presumably including most civil servants, are citizens and theoretically would like it to be an economically healthy country that can pay government employees, cover the cost of services etc but there really shouldn't be a profit motive.

From working and talking to folks at the IRS, the have much more first hand knowledge of how the federal government fails in spectacular ways (try going through the hiring process). They lament the government and it’s problems more than any other population in America.

There's a false dichotomy here. The claim isn't that IRS officers would individually increase collections via incentives like a commissioned salesman. It is that tax accountants do have an incentive to reduce their client's overall tax burden. I hope you can appreciate this distinction. Take care.

It probably didn't occur to you because it's a bit of an absurd idea. IRS employees have zero incentive to somehow twist the tax code into getting you to pay more than you owe. They don't get commissions or bonuses based on collecting more taxes or penalties.

Regardless, I think the GP poster doesn't understand what the IRS is empowered to do. They just enforce the tax code; they aren't allowed to change it.

This is a common misconception. The mission of the IRS is to collect taxes and enforce the tax code. They don't make the rules and cannot make you pay more than you legally owe. An audit can just as well prove that you paid too much tax as you paid too little. It just so happens that there are far more people looking to skirt their full tax liability then people who mistakenly overpay. I did the latter once and got a check in the mail a few months later for the overage.

Where is the incentive for the IRS to help you to reduce the total amount owed during the filing process?

There's a difference between just asking, "Does your business have any expenses? Okay, what are those?" and actively pursuing the deductions a tax payer may be eligible for.

A tax preparer has every incentive to help a tax payer find the correct and legal deductions. Nowhere in my comment did I say anything about changing the rules or paying more than someone owes. Not sure why this bad faith reading of the comment is so prevalent?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com