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by runako 1405 days ago
> the government might be tempted to abuse its control of both tax laws and ubiquitous tax preparation software.

Could you describe a scenario where this could be the case? What kind of things would abusive tax prep software do? Would it lie to get people to overpay? Why would the government take that approach instead of just levying directly from people's accounts and/or reducing their refunds?
2 comments
captainoats 1405 days ago
The government is naturally incentivized to maximize revenue. Individuals are incentivized to pay as little tax as they can, legally. Private tax prep software is pretty aggressive about identifying all possible deductions to reported income. The government would not be as motivated in designing their own system. You can see this in the paper filing forms, they have detailed instructions, but almost nothing on how to reduce tax paid, besides things like the child tax credit and earned income tax credit.
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runako 1405 days ago
> The government is naturally incentivized to maximize revenue

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation. The tax law is what it Congress decides it is. The law depends on taxpayers to report their incomes as well as deductions and other facets of their financial lives (e.g. household size, addresses, etc.).

A government-run tax prep site couldn't necessarily pull in all of your deductions, that's correct. But it also couldn't necessarily pull in all your income (especially business income, offshore income, etc.). It's mostly neutral in that respect.

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missedthecue 1405 days ago
But most Americans have at least a few deductions. How many Americans have offshore income? Especially the ones that would be relying on gov. tax prep?

In this case, it is mostly one sided

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runako 1405 days ago
See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32513370

Roughly 90% of Americans file using the standard deduction ($13k for a single person, $26k for a married couple filing jointly). Median household income is ~$67k, so the median household is not itemizing.

The remaining 10% of people would not be bound to use the free public system.

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missedthecue 1405 days ago
You can qualify for a number of deductions without itemizing.
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runako 1405 days ago
Correct, but in that case there is no impact to your taxes.
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nightski 1405 days ago
Well the U.S. tax system is heavily dependent on deductions which the IRS often does not have information on. So I'd imagine a lot of people would go with the default when in reality they might be able to save money.

That said, Trumps tax law greatly increased the standard deduction so it's not as big of an issue any more.

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runako 1405 days ago
> tax law greatly increased the standard deduction so it's not as big of an issue any more.

As of 2019, only ~11% of filers itemized. It would be a good idea to have a public website where 90% of filers could do their taxes for free.

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nightski 1405 days ago
I agree but was just pointing out one method through which this could be turned against filers. If the standard deduction was greatly reduced it could cause taxpayers to pay more tax than they needed.

Personally I hate the fact we have so many deductions. I'd love a simplified tax code but I think that would be a tough sell.

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