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Comment by wood_spirit | Hacker News Reader

Right, when the Europeans say the tax is paid as you earn and the authorities let you file differences free and easily, they mean the vast majority of tax payers. It is rare to be the exception.

Whereas I guess American Exceptionism (tm) means you all have to pay a rent seeking company to file taxes…?

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That only works if all of your income comes from your employer, and is thus reported directly to the financial authorities and subject to withholding.

It is not that rare at all for Europeans to have other sources of income, and thus to have to file their own taxes.

In Ireland, and I think many other countries, if you have under 6k non-employment income, it’s ~trivial; you fill in a form on the website. It only gets complicated over that (though you would still typically do it all online; the form just gets _a lot_ scarier)

As an European with multiple sources of income, all that boils down to is literally excel style fill in the boxes deal. There's even free tools that can handle the simple formulas if I don't trust my calculator enough. 1 hour a year at absolute worst; definitely no space for a finacial parasite to latch onto.

Yes, and what do you think it is like in the US? It works exactly the same way.

You have a very simple tax situation. Many people do not.

In the US, if you just have wage/salary income and an investment account, and you lived the entire year in one state, your taxes are also very simple. You can fill everything out yourself in one evening, or pay $100 to do it with tax preparation software.

But things can rapidly get complicated. Did you move from one state to another during the year? Do you live in one state but work for an employer in a different state? Are there any credits or deductions you're eligible for? Or god forbid you live abroad, at which point you're dealing with double-taxation treaties and the like.

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