[tialaramex]

1. There exist politicians who believe that forcing you to fill out the paperwork reminds you that taxes are evil. They're doing it for your own good, see?

2. There exist tax preparation companies which profit enormously from doing the paperwork for you and they'd miss out on that profit if the government just billed you.

[koheripbal]

The real reason is that Americans owe money on more income than the gov't is aware of, and if you're going to omit income, they want you to explicitly lie about it so you can be prosecuted for it.

[symlinkk]

They could still send you a bill that lists your income and has a note that says

“If you had any income that is not reported here, report it on irs.gov/…. Failure to do so is punishable by …”

This would make things significantly easier for 90% of the population.

[toomanyrichies]

This is what I'd think as well. If they wanted to corner someone into explicitly lying in order to allow for prosecution, wouldn't they still be doing so by claiming non-standard deductions which they weren't actually eligible for?

[cube2222]

That's exactly how it looks like in Poland.

[dragonwriter]

> they want you to explicitly lie about it so you can be prosecuted for it.

Since “they” also define what you can be prosecuted for, that’s a bit of an odd justification even before considering the fairly strong evidence from both tax prep lobbying and anti-tax candidate behavior (including occasionally saying the quiet part out loud directly about the pain in the process being necessary to keep tax burden front of mind for taxpayers) that the two reasons cited by the grandparent are, in fact, the dominant factors.

[Ekaros]

Now is the punishment important part or eventually reclaiming it? In systems where taxes are done by agency and unreported income is found they still have to pay. Was pretty common with cryptos some time ago here.

[notyourwork]

> 1. There exist politicians who believe that forcing you to fill out the paperwork reminds you that taxes are evil. They're doing it for your own good, see?

Which ones? I don't agree or disagree, but I think it's a good practice to call out politicians when we make claims they do something. That way it gives a more clear line of sight to your claim.

[tialaramex]

Basically all followers of Grover Norquist. So, almost all Republicans who were around before Donald Trump.

[cle]

It's because they don't actually know how much taxes you owe. They aren't omniscient (thankfully) so they don't know e.g. how much in deductions you should have.

(I agree that #2 is a big problem, but I don't think it's actually the reason we file taxes.)

[maxerickson]

People mostly take the standard deduction.

(85-90% of households in recent years)

[jandrese]

Yes, but only because I got capped out on deductions before I exceeded what the standard deduction would give me. Increased my tax burden about 1.5% overall that year. Not as much the next year because I had much less charitable giving. Sure am glad I'm getting to pay for all of the stuff those rich people aren't anymore thanks to their massive tax break.

Oh, and my taxes are supposed to increase even more once the Trump tax holiday for the middle class expires in 2025. Luckily for corporations it is permanent for them. That tax plan was the most blatant government handout to the 1% and for some reason 40% of Americans think it's the best tax plan ever.

[maxerickson]

A majority of people took the standard deduction prior to the changes too, just not quite such a big majority.

In any case, the standard deduction does have the effect of significantly reducing the administrative burden of taxation, and it crosses off one of the arguments used in favor of pointlessly complex tax filing.

[bananabreakfast]

It will be far more now after the Trump tax bill as well.

You now have to be able to deduct over $24k to not take the standard deduction.