[vkou]

This. I'd happily pay the IRS $30 if they could send me an itemized tax bill, that I could either attest to and pay or contest.

They have all the information they need on me, they double-check my work, just do away with the whole dog and pony show.

[landemva]

> do away with the whole dog and pony show.

Eliminate the personal income tax. Everyone in personal tax side of HR Block and IRS can find some other career which is useful. Rake the beaches or something.

[mangoTangoBango]

Just do a 10% flat federal sales tax + negative income tax if below a certain threshold.

But this is way too logical for the main political parties to implement.

[sillystuff]

> 10% flat federal sales tax

Rich folks only need so many mansions, yachts and designer sweat pants. This would further shift the burden of taxes onto lower income folks who spend 100% of what they earn.

The IRS could just present a form behind a login with an itemized fully calculated tax return with an accept? "yes" / "no". They already have all the information they need, and already do the work when checking returns for errors.

Taxes are a pain because both, corporate capture of government by powerful tax preparation companies and also because a certain political ideology wants paying taxes to be as unpleasant as possible to make the concept of taxes as unpopular as possible.

[thisarticle]

> Rich folks only need so many mansions, yachts and designer sweat pants. This would further shift the burden of taxes onto lower income folks who spend 100% of what they earn.

This is a feature not a bug of that plan. There’s no amount of tax that’s too low when the answer to “How much do you need to be happy?” is more.

[water8]

Well when tax is zero and there is no military to protect your assets thereby making them worthless as they are stolen. So perhaps there is a "too low"

[mangoTangoBango]

Costa Rica does not have a military (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Force_of_Costa_Rica) and yet there are still assets.

[warning26]

Flat tax wouldn't solve the fundamental problem, which is making people calculate their own taxes.

In the vast majority of countries with personal income tax, everything is automatic and individuals don't need to do anything. Political parties in the US have an incentive to make things as complicated as possible to trick people into thinking ideas like a flat tax would be helpful.

[landemva]

I would support federal sales tax (exclude uncooked food at grocery stores and some base amount of home energy use) if federal personal income tax is abolished and if sales tax is implemented and enforced by States (like the current road fuel tax which States collect and send part to feds).

Can't reply to a nearby comment, so -- few rich people have taxable personal income because they either don't receive W-2 income or they hire people to structure and pursue the deductions. In other words, yacht owners are rarely rich people and instead are owned by companies (controlled by rich people) so it is a business expense.

[midoridensha]

Why would they want to do this? This would seriously hurt the corporate profits of Intuit (maker of TurboTax).

[katdork]

why would anyone want intuit to have money they don't deserve to begin with?

oh no! think of the companies.

lol.

[midoridensha]

Exactly! Why should the IRS care about taxpayers? Intuit's corporate profits are much more important to the IRS and the decision-makers in Congress that the taxpayers keep re-electing.