[malloc2048]

In the Netherlands our IRS equivalent does prefill the majority of the requested information automatically as in many other countries, I noticed in other comments.

Obviously this means they are able to gather lots of data from different other government agencies (e.g. annual income is usually prefilled) and banks (so bank account / savings numbers are prefilled)

For the majority of people the convenience will probably prevail over any thoughts about the data collection going on in the background.

Also, for us, at least in the Netherlands and maybe also in many other countries, we are usually happy about all this data sharing, because it saves us filling in many forms / bureaucracy.

If you move to another city, you hardly have to do a thing, the old/new city will automatically inform many government agencies about your new address.

I personally also consider this as very convenient, I am pretty much accustomed to all this data sharing also because the data has to be provided to whomever needs it, and is legally accustomed to receive it, anyway.

However, after reading the linked article, it made me think.

I now wonder,are there people who read what happens in my country and who gets the shivers? E.g. from a privacy perspective?

[lmm]

The IRS already has that information (and one could argue that they need it to enforce that tax is paid correctly, though that's a separate debate). Preventing them from using it for citizens' benefit doesn't improve those citizens' privacy at all, it just props up the tax prep industry.

[kelnos]

This type of -- understandable -- confusion comes up every time there's a discussion about the American tax system.

The IRS already has all the same information that your country's tax authorities have. Employers, banks, investment firms, etc. are all required to report these sorts of income to the IRS.

Unfortunately, companies like Intuit (and other tax-prep juggernauts) have lobbied to bar the IRS from making it easier for people to do their taxes. And they've convinced a disturbing number of US citizens that this is right and correct, because if taxes were streamlined and easy to do, that sneaky, evil government would slip through even more taxes, and no one would even notice. Somehow, enough people buy this nonsense that nothing changes.

[deafpolygon]

Here (NL) the laws around data sharing are very strict about who can and can't access this data. Rest assured, it is very good here and sets a reasonable balance between privacy and necessary data sharing.

[RickJWagner]

No shivers from me (an American). I think I'd prefer your way of doing it.

[nemo44x]

It also means you aren’t thinking about what you’re paying so often. Of course they do the magic work of taking your money from you, for you. People probably don’t even notice it, how nice.

Taxes, although necessary, should be painful to pay. Every last bit should be accounted for and legit.

If anything governments should send you a receipt detailing where all your tax money was spent.

[kiba]

Trust me, nobody's thinking about what they're paying for. More often, they're just stressed.

If you want to educate the taxpayer to be more well informed, there's way better mechanism than inflicting pointless bureaucratic misery and anxiety.

[kelnos]

That's nonsense. It's amazing that Intuit and the others have been so effective at their propaganda that they can not only convince people that they are too stupid and lazy to notice when the government tries to add new taxes, but that it's their patriotic duty to make their lives harder in order to counter that stupidity and laziness.

I also suspect most people don't really realize how much tax they pay under the current system, since W-2 employees have the bulk of their taxes automatically deducted from their paychecks and paid throughout the year. Sure, the total number ends up on the tax return, but the number of focus is always either the amount due or amount to be refunded. People doing their taxes by hand, either on paper or by filling out the PDFs directly, may be more likely to realize these numbers, but anyone who uses TurboTax or goes to a mass-market accountant like H&R Block might not even notice.

Regardless, I would much prefer a system where the IRS sends me an email telling me my tax return is ready, and then I can read it over, edit it if there are things I don't agree with or deductions the IRS didn't know about, and then sign it and be on my way. If that sort of system causes people to ignore it and just approve it without reading it, that's on them, and I'm sick of the idea that I have to suffer (and spend money on a CPA[0]) because others might -- might! -- treat their tax returns like a click-through software license agreement.

[0] I use a CPA because I have enough income sources and line-items that doing it myself would be annoying, time-consuming, and error-prone. But everything that ends up on my tax return is still data the IRS already has, and I expect that if they were legally allowed to prepare my return for me, it would be accurate, and I wouldn't have to do much (if anything) in order to approve it.

[RhysU]

This. Everyone should pay quarterlies and employers should not withhold. People should feel the visceral pain of having their money taken away and be inconvenienced by the complexity of the tax code. Then we can have real discussions about what is worth funding with taxes and how to structure them.