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Comment by drstewart | Hacker News Reader

Maybe you, as an infinitely wise European, can explain this page: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/self-assessment-c...

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The vast majority of people in the UK don't have to fill out a self assessment because their tax situation is simple and handed by their employers. For the people who do have more complicated tax arrangements, the process takes like 10-15 minutes on the HMRC portal and importantly it's free.

So all these commercial software offerings for SAs exist just for fun? I guess I just don't understand why these exist. Europeans have yet to explain this adequately.

Can you show me the free option that existed in HMRC's portal for non-domiciled statuses? I can only find websites that contradict your point:

https://www.dtaxfiler.co.uk/blog/residence-remittance-sa109

>You will need to use commercial software that supports the SA109 form (such as DTax Filer), You cannot submit the SA109 form through HMRC’s free online service. . If you do not use compatible software, you will need to print and post your tax return instead.

Clearly they're lying and you should correct them post-haste.

Those are accounting packages that can submit your tax return for you automatically based on your figures.

You don’t have to use them, there’s a free electronic form. But it’s easier if you’re using an accounting system to just plug the numbers straight in.

Congratulations, you now magically seem to understand what TurboTax is.

>You don’t have to use them, there’s a free electronic form.

If only the IRS also had a free fillable form you can use: https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...

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