[senior_james]

The government would actually love this. Most people are ignorant of tax laws and would just sign a piece of paper to get all of their taxes done. It would be an instant pay raise because most people would never even know if they could write something off. It would also allow them to easily remove the ability to write anything off, without too many people complaining.

What many people don't like to talk about is that yes, places like Sweden have much simpler tax code. But they also removed most ways to actually reduce your tax burden and grow your business (this applies to personal taxes too). You are also required to have a special black box on any credit card transactions, which sends everything straight to the government. This smacks of authoritarianism.

Simplicity might seem better, but it gives us less control over our own taxes.

It's also not really that difficult now. Everyone I know has been doing their own 1040-EZ form since they started to work. It's usually only one or two forms to fill out. If this is too complicated for our society, we truly have problems.

[blackguardx]

Have you ever actually done your taxes by hand? The 1040EZ is supposed to take 7 hours. Back when I did paper taxes and couldn't do the 1040EZ, the 1040 long form took me about 20 hours to do, slightly beating the IRS estimate of 22 hours.

The government has all the information about me. Why do I have to gather it all up and tell them again?

A friend in Finland tells me it takes him 10 minutes to approve the tax documents prepared for him on a Finnish government website. Why can't we do the same here?

[sp332]

The 1040EZ is a single page and has only 2 pages of instructions. How does it take 7 hours? http://datechguyblog.com/2011/04/15/7-hours-for-form-1040ez-... (Link from 2011 but I don't remember it being much different lately.)

Edit: the IRS now says it takes 3 hours to fill out and submit the form, and 2 hours to collect the relevant paperwork, for 5 total. https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1040gi/ar03.html

[sly010]

"1040EZ" is an eaaasssy version of 1040. He is specifially talking about filling "1040".

[sp332]

The part I'm responding to: "The 1040EZ is supposed to take 7 hours."

[jandrese]

How the hell can it take 7 hours to fill out the 1040EZ. The only people who can use that form are the ones with super-simple tax situations. Literally a W2 and maybe a 1099 from your bank. You fill in a couple dozen fields or so and punch some numbers into your calculator and you're done.

I can believe 7 hours for a 1040, because leafing through the 200 page instruction book is hugely time consuming and there is a lot of confusing stuff in there.

[blackguardx]

The IRS has to provide time estimates for every form they have. They even have to give you a notice that the paperwork complies with the "paperwork reduction act."

7 hours was the IRS estimate for the 1040EZ as of 2012. I understand it is down to 5 hours now. The 1040 long form is down to 18 hours. I don't do my taxes by hand anymore, though.

[senior_james]

"The 1040EZ is supposed to take 7 hours"

Huh?

I've had my business for a few years, but I did my 1040EZ by hand many times. It took at most, 3 hours. Most people have one job and you basically just copy all of the info you have from your W2 (which is provided by your employer).

"The government has all the information about me. Why do I have to gather it all up and tell them again?"

So does the government also have all of the info about the gas you write off or anything else specific about your life? If so, the surveillance state is getting pretty bad.

If not, then I will have to fill out the longer forms anyway.

If they don't and you just fill out a form and send it in, you are giving them more money than you should. The end result will be that poor and uneducated people will give more money to the government and the people that actually pay attention will be giving less.

I'm only looking out for the best interest of everyone. You seem to be fighting for the right to be lazy because you don't want to have to think about it, which never leads to anything good.

[jandrese]

If you have writeoffs you can't use the 1040EZ anyway.

Besides, it should be a fairly simple matter for the government to prefill the W2 and 1099/1098 sections and let you fill in the miscellaneous deductions yourself.

[blackguardx]

That was the IRS estimate in 2012.

Your arguments aren't compelling. Even 3 hours is too much. Most people take the standard deduction and don't itemize.

[jakelazaroff]

It's not like you couldn't still go to Intuit or H&R Block if you didn't trust the IRS. There's literally no downside to the government providing this service.

[senior_james]

Like I said, the downside is that most people are lazy and will just fill out the form and send it in because they don't want to deal with it or think about it. You can't get most people to do simple math.

[jandrese]

Isn't this a good thing? People shouldn't have to think about this stuff, there's no reason unless you are doing something special. If you have a simple tax return then why bother making everybody go through the motions of filling in the paperwork to calculate the same thing the government already knows?

If you do have a more complicated situation then the prefilled form at least gives you a starting point.

[jakelazaroff]

Right now, people are lazy and pay Intuit or H&R Block because they don't want to deal with it or think about it. How does allowing people to use a free tax return prefilled by the government make this worse?

[maxxxxx]

With pre filled forms the IRS just tells you what they already know anyway. You are still free to file a return with your own data if you don't agree.