Comment by bonesmoses | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bonesmoses | Hacker News Reader

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The annoying part about all of this is that our taxes are already done. Due to various required forms for businesses, the IRS pretty much knows exactly what you make and how you did it.

Banks file forms. Charities file forms. Employers file forms. They know how many kids you have, they know how old they are, they know if you own or rent, and how much your mortgage is and the interest being paid. They have info on your outstanding student loans. Except for the edgiest of edge cases, there really should be no surprises. Even a moderately powerful desktop should be able to precalculate the taxes for everyone in the country in less than a day.

Why is filing taxes even a thing anymore? Hell, at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if Facebook could do our taxes for us due to all of the info they have. Our tax system is stuck perpetually in 1960, and it's just sad to watch.

As I said in the other posting of this, it is already done at some point. You get most of your tax forms before the IRS does, and you submit your tax return before the IRS processes most of them. They can't verify the information on your 1098s, 1099s, and W2s until the businesses that generated those forms submit their taxes and the IRS processes them.

Yeah, I didn't see that there was a previous post; sneaky. In any case, that just accentuates my point, really. Were this more automated, the businesses wouldn't need to file either. If forms were handled more like an API, i.e. filed when expenses/income happens, it would all be live info.

The government bitches about the digital age stealing their income, but they're not even trying to adapt. Nobody anywhere should have to "file" anything. The very act of buying and selling means it's already on file somewhere, and that means a live view is possible.

Unless you're using computers from 1960...

Many if not most businesses file taxes and tax forms on a monthly or quarterly basis. Between 75% and 100% of the relevant data is already in the IRS's hands. Businesses also generally don't wait until the deadline to file.

Only businesses that withhold taxes from employees, and then only on the employees. Principals who are not classified as employees, those who qualify as "family employees", and 1099 contractors do not report anything until the end of the year.

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