[spaetzleesser]

You don’t seem to understand how things work. The government would send you a pre-filled tax return that contains everything they already know. You would check that and could then make amendments as needed. It doesn’t make sense to view it as a feature to have to put in the work to fill a tax return from scratch while the government already knows what should be there and will check it.

Like In every negotiation the advantage is on the side of the party who has the most information. The government first disclosing what they know gives you as taxpayer an advantage.

[distances]

There's no advantage though as you have to pay the same taxes in any case. It's about convenience.

[spaetzleesser]

Yes. And overall the country saves a lot of unnecessary work.

[systemvoltage]

Have you ever been to a DMV in the USA and see how dysfunction it is?

So many reasons why I don't support this. Ease of filing is one of the aspects, rather small for me.

1) USA's government is far more incompetent than Dutch

2) If US IRS sends me a prefilled tax form with erroneous income, say off by 10%, sure I can correct it and file it but now the onus of proof is on the citizen to disprove the error. You might say 'Ok, it is just prefiling it, you can always correct it' - future laws will ask for proof.

3) For a small and nimble country like Netherlands it works very well. Voicing concerns in Netherlands is direct and easy. Not here, USA would mess this up big time.

4) Ideologically, I have issues. It would be extremely orweillian and big-brotherish to get a tax bill from the government - yes I know its just 'pre-filling the boxes' but it will creep up from there.

5) I hate paying for Turbo Tax but there is no denying - it works extremely well. USA's federal system with 100% gaurantee would not be as good. We need to go open source, not put more power in the hands of the massively incompetent IRS and more generally Federal Government.

6) Local and State taxes - this would mean absolutely a patch work of systems that are supplied by shitty software companies to local and state governments. Hard pass.

7) Laws would creep up and change to not just say pre-fill the tax forms but would require massive effort from the citizen to disprove the government. If the filing process initiates from the citizen, the government has to go out on a limb to prove that it's incorrect which is how it should be.

8) I would support ease of filing taxes. But hey! We have that. It is called 1040EZ which takes no more than 10 mins for simple taxes. No software required.

9) I prefer totally offline tax filing. I use Turbo Tax but always print out the tax forms. You might think this is old fashioned but I like doing things old fashioned way. I don't want to digitize anything especially when it comes to automated shitty SaaS hired by the government, I have zero confidence.

10) Even without OSS, I just think that $79 + $____ owed taxes is the marginal rate. $79 -> goes to private industry (Turbo Tax, which does a great job) and $_____ owed to the government. I don't want tax payer money to fund a massive national 'prefiling' tax program. I would support getting rid of $79 effective flat tax that only goes to Turbo Tax.

If the only advantage is the 'pre-filling' part, then I much prefer assembling the data (W2, 1099s, etc) myself and file taxes. Period.

[spaetzleesser]

“If the only advantage is the 'pre-filling' part, then I much prefer assembling the data (W2, 1099s, etc) myself and file taxes. Period.”

Why? The government gives you all they know and you can then accept, amend or totally rewrite the return. I don’t see the downside to this.

“2) If US IRS sends me a prefilled tax form with erroneous income, say off by 10%, sure I can correct it and file it but now the onus of proof is on the citizen to disprove the error. You might say 'Ok, it is just prefiling it, you can always correct it' - future laws will ask for proof.”

The burden of proof is on you already when you write your return from scratch. It gets compared to what they know already which is the data a prefilled return would contain.