[motbob]

Maybe it's "bull pucky" to you, but I have vivid memories of my parents agonizing over taxes as a child. The agony they went through is much ameliorated now due to advances in technology.

And thank you for the link, but this news segment basically is big on opinion, low on specifics. Feel free to link me to a detailed article on how non-U.S. countries handle self-employment or dependent tax issues and whether/how those things are easier elsewhere.

[chrisseaton]

Most importantly, most countries do it by simply having much higher thresholds for complicated tax rules applying to you.

In the UK quite a few people don't pay any tax at all, and the vast majority don't pay enough tax to have to file any return.

What impact does a dependent have on your tax that needs to make it so complicated? I have relatively complicated taxes due to two jobs and some unusual deductions, but having a child doesn't really have any impact on my tax return in the UK.

[motbob]

Well, if you are a simple family where everyone is biologically related and living together, then things are pretty simple in the end. The issues come up with mixed families, divorced parents, etc.

As for the dollar values, if you make $30,000 and have 2 kids, you can usually get a $6,000 tax credit or more. The U.S.'s support for working low-income families is carried out through the tax system. Put another way, tax credits are one of the U.S.'s most important social safety nets.

[mixmastamyk]

Not a problem, you enter dependents into the wizard, and take them out when/if they move out.

No matter the situation, they accept your word for it. If an audit occurs you will have to prove things with documentation and be held liable for mistakes or fraud.

It's basically a five-minute task that you appear to believe should make tax filing take hours?

I did taxes once in NZ, you go to a website where they have all the data ready. Then you go next, next, finish, adding a deduction or dependent here and there. Takes 15-30 mins.

[bluGill]

Children are hard if the parents are separated. You get child support to figure out. And who gets what share of the tax credit is tricky as well. (This is one way for one parent to abuse the other - file fast and claim all the credits, whoever files second now has to prove the first did the wrong thing at their expense)

[RankingMember]

A task being easier than it used to be doesn't mean that task's process shouldn't be improved or that its existence shouldn't be questioned altogether as a matter of course.

[motbob]

True. But I think progress over the years is a better metric for whether things are in a good place, policy-wise, than "some other country does things better." So I'm not grumpy about the state of the U.S.'s internet infrastructure, but I am grumpy about the state of the U.S. health care system (for example).

[kleer001]

> Maybe it's "bull pucky" to you

and a lot of other people too

> big on opinion

&

> Right now, the system we have is pretty good. > I have vivid memories...

Sounds like the whole discussion is rife with opinion.

BTW, you have my sympathy, but your story doesn't shore up your argument. It only sounds like tax filing in the States has gotten better. And better locally is not best globally, by a long shot.

In general the States has been shot through for so long with so much corruption (aka special interests and campaign contributions and lobbying) that the citizenry has a perversely skewed idea of what is normal. /rant

[aksss]

True that the US tax system used to be a lot worse and a lot more vindictive. See the hearings during the nineties that led to IRS reform. Horror story after horror story.

But that doesn’t mean it’s a great system now. I would favor dropping exemptions and moving to a lower flat tax, for instance - taxes by postcard. Probably never that way for businesses, but for 9-5ers, it should be way more straight forward than it is now.

[bluGill]

Taxes when you were a kid were probably a lot harder than they are now. There are not nearly as many deductions to try to figure out.