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Comment by beerbajay | Hacker News Reader

Here in Sweden you receive a fully-filled-in tax declaration from the Tax Office. For 99% of people with normal jobs, all you have to do is confirm the declaration on their website OR by sending an SMS OR by calling a telephone number OR by using their app.

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California piloted ReadyReturn doing the same thing 10 years ago. People who chose to use it loved it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyReturn

Anyone used it? I guess it's now been rolled into the main filing system.

Its a lot easier when your entire country is less than 10 million.

In the US, we pay state and federal tax so there may be difference in what you can deduct from one another. For example I didn't deduct my Health Care premiums from Federal because I used the standard deduction. Because of this I was able to deduct the premiums from my State taxes.

This is why we can't just confirm the declaration, too many variables at play someone could use for a deduction.

The telephone thing sounds great too bad its probably too security conscious to allow those methods.

> Its a lot easier when your entire country is less than 10 million.

I just dont understand why do people use this excuse. No one is saying that you have to implement a new idea for all Americans the next day.

Start a pilot project with 1 or 10 million people. See if the idea works. If it works, implement it nationwide.

> too many variables at play someone could use for a deduction.

Going to the moon involves too many variables, are you saying that building an website to handle taxes automatically (or atleast which does most of your work) is more difficult than rocket science?

Many people with "normal jobs" in the U.S. can file the 1040EZ, which at least originally almost fit on a post-card. (http://www.irs.gov/uac/Form-1040EZ,-Income-Tax-Return-for-Si...)

(I wouldn't know, actually; I've apparently never had a "normal job".)

Ireland has a Pay As You Earn system which is usually administered by your employer. Mostly, you do nothing and the money is paid.

Every 5 years, file a P21 to check you're not due any refunds.

If you're self-employed, it's a bloody nightmare.

5 years seems like a long time to wait for a tax refund. Especially tax refunds totalling $2500+ are quite common here in Australia. We have a PAYG system too.

You don't have to wait 5 years, you can request them yearly. They just go back 5 years (I think).

I'm guessing the US IRS wants to avoid giving tax frauds an implied list of everything they don't know. They may be worried that anybody with income not listed on their pre-filled declaration will not report it.

Tax frauds already know 'cash' income (sans withholrding) is often not reported so they're already an honor system anyway (Everyone is really -- even 'cash' is often reported on the 1099 too).

People using tax avoidance schemes through itemization or 'loopholes' wouldn't simply use a standard pre-filled form 1040 either, or rather, they wouldn't stop at that. Same goes for corp returns, dividend and interest income, etc.

With U.S. employers already transmitting wage and withholding data to the federal government, there's simply no good excuse not to 'autofill' it and/or just make the reconciliation & acknowledgement of those values easier other than an entire industry is vested in it being a complicated process most people would rather pay them (or use their products and services) to take care of.

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