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Comment by starcraft2wol | Hacker News Reader

> return-free filing like most other large economy countries.

Taxes in the US are not objective. The IRS doesn't have enough information about you to determine how much you need to pay.

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This is effectively false for the vast majority of tax payers. Tax preparation services can still exist for the relatively small number of people that require it.

> This is effectively false for the vast majority of tax payers

If you are imagining W2 workers with no business activity, children, inheritance, donations, property, or investments, I think this is actually a tiny portion.

So collect the data? In Germany it is standard to classify workers based on marital and child status[0]

[0] https://neotax.eu/en/blog/tax-classes-steuerklassen-in-germa...

Children and property are easily handled by the IRS; people with more sophisticated needs (inheritance, meaningful donations, investments) could still hire a professional to adjust what the IRS calculates. That's effectively what's happening now anyways, its just the IRS doesn't let you take their calculation at face value, you have to file your own and see if it matches.

Instead they could just send you "This is what we calculated" and you can do nothing (probably 90% of people) or file as we do today for the special cases you mentioned.

> Children and property are easily handled by the IRS

Please explain. Which percentage of the year did the child live at each household? Is the property your primary residence? Did you rent a room? What amount did you spend on property upkeep or interest?

Across my working lifetime, even with many of those things at some point in time, most years the IRS has (or can obtain) everything they need.

Heck, nearly 90% of households take the standard deduction.

The IRS should send a pre-filled form with an amount owed (in either direction). If you agree, you sign it, and make any payment/refund. If you disagree, you add your deductions and whatever else needed, similar to today.

It's false for something like 45-60% of tax payers. That's not a "vast majority", and that's just based on people who have previously used deductions. The IRS can't do this with small business owners for similar reasons.

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