[Waterluvian]

In Canada I push a button in my tax app to populate everything from the government database. I then add the things they don’t know about like donations, make some choices about my RRSPs, and then file. Maybe ten minutes?

One year I totally screwed up and they fixed it for me, giving me a considerably larger return than I filed. So I’m really happy that auto button exists now.

[tredre3]

Data access is a good step, but it would be nice if the gov provided tools to do a declaration online. Of course the Provinces would need to get on board.

I don't like relying on third party apps. Especially that they're now all cloud based so they keep a copy of all your financials and it sucks. Turbotax even does a credit check (via equifax) on me once a year for god knows what reason...

[maccard]

In the UK it happens automatically for the vast majority of people. You don't even need to think about it.

[gerdesj]

PAYE (Pay As You Earn) is automatic for all employees. Anything more complicated involves a P11D ie "benefits".

Self assessment nowadays gets all P60 details pre filled in. I run a closed company with two other directors and 20 odd employees. My tax affairs are pretty simple - I don't do anything fancy. It takes me abut 30-60 mins to fill in the HMRC SA questionnaire online. I get a tax calc at the end and I cough up my tax. Dealing with shares etc is pretty straightforward because there is statutory reporting - ie each year you get a standard form declaring all relevant amounts and what to do.

Taxation in the UK is pretty easy to deal with unless you want to take the piss, in which case you don't have a leg to stand on.

I've been on the receiving end of a HMRC audit and I don't recommend it. Bizarrely I came out better off when they found some additional things I could claim for, which more than offset my cock up that caused the audit, including the fine! That was for a former small business I ran (pre IR35) and I had an accountant, that I promptly fired for obvious reasons.

[EduardoBautista]

The US is also "pay as you earn" and automatically gets deducted from salaries. For most people working as employees, the tax return is just for you to confirm your numbers with the government's, specify any deductions if necessary, and see if you owe any extra or are entitled to a refund.

I am honestly surprised that learning how to fill out the IRS form is not part of the high school curriculum.

The 1040 form is only two pages long:

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf

The software to make this isn't too complicated. This has more to do about being able to legally distribute it since an open-source solution could have been distributed already, but there is too much liability in doing so.

If you want to add e-file to the software, you have to be approved by the IRS and that's where the lobbying/corruption comes into play.

[maccard]

> For most people working as employees, the tax return is just for you to confirm your numbers with the government's, specify any deductions if necessary, and see if you owe any extra or are entitled to a refund.

In the UK, for most people working as employees there is no tax return. There's no numbers to confirm, no deductions, no extras.

[arcticbull]

Until 2018 there was a 1 page version called 1040EZ

[mancerayder]

What's the story behind its disappearance? I remember filling that out when I first started working long ago.

[Fawlty]

Yeah, at this point a bunch of European countries have this setup. As long as you don’t have a complicated source-of-revenue situation (which is true for vast majority of population), you just confirm the tax return on a governmental app and you’re done. It’s extremely convenient, after they implemented a couple of years back, the time needed for tax return each year got down to maybe 2 min if you can use a computer.

[Ekaros]

Some take it even further. Inaction is considered approval. So you do not even need to confirm anything at all. You are likely to get tax return on your account automatically. Or a bill send at you. Or you can update details if needed.

Still, you have some years to ask for correction even after that, but as usual it is somewhat more complicated.

[maccard]

It's not even that hard if you have a discrepancy. Here in the UK, if you end up with a discrepancy (starting. Anew job, or benefits changes) and it's wrong, 98% of the time a single phone call will resolve the issue.

[markdown]

Fiji too. Employees never have to file taxes unless something unusual happens.

[anticensor]

Turkey too.

[jessriedel]

I found the Canadian process much closer to the US process than what you describe. "Everything populating from government databases" didn't happen. I entered in stuff from my T4 slip by hand. Some financial firms linked to TurboTax, some didn't, and even the ones that did took almost as long to get working as doing it by hand.

[jonas21]

It's a similar level of difficulty in the U.S unless you have a really complicated tax situation. All the major tax apps integrate with the payroll companies, banks, and brokerages, so it's just a few clicks to authorize it to import your data.

I used to do this and never spent more than 10 or 15 minutes on taxes either.

[hedora]

Are you unemployed, and therefore not obligated to file? The flowchart for that takes about 10 minutes. For anything more complicated, I don’t see how you can possibly complete, review and file your federal and state returns in 10 minutes.

For one thing, it takes more than 10 minutes just to buy a copy of TurboTax.

I typically budget 4-5 hours to fill out the taxes, and give myself a few days to find any missing forms, or call tech support for random corner cases that like to arise.

I also spend at least 2-3 hours a year dealing with donation receipts, etc.

I still regularly either overpay by 5-6 figures, then need to file an amended return, and/or get a (usually mistaken) letter from the IRS or FTB demanding more money.

If that doesn’t happen, I often get mailed a check refunding money with (taxable) interest because they took too long to process my return, which causes direct deposit to fall through.

[jonas21]

For me, it was typically:

1. Log in to TurboTax and click through a few welcome screens (1 min)

2. Enter employer and AGI - TurboTax pulls in the rest of the W2 (1 min)

3. Enter bank credentials - TurboTax pulls in interest income (1 min)

4. Enter brokerage account credentials - TurboTax pulls in dividends and capital gains (1 min)

5. Enter charitable contributions manually (2 min)

6. Click "no" to some tax situations that don't apply (2 min)

7. Click populate state return from federal, then click "no" to a few more questions (2 min)

8. Enter credit card number and e-file info (1 min)

Total: 11 minutes

I don't see how it can take you more than 10 minutes to pay for TurboTax. You just enter the credit card number on the screen where it asks you for it. And you don't need donation receipts to file your return. If you're audited, you might have to find them (mine are all in my email), but audits are rare.

[javagram]

If you have to deal with “donation receipts” you have an unusual tax situation.

Most people (87%)[0] are better off taking the standard deduction rather than itemizing. Taking the standard deduction, your donation receipts don’t matter.

If you have just W-2 income then filing through tax software is very quick. Not sure if it’s 10 minutes or 30 minutes but not that much time.

[0] https://taxfoundation.org/blog/standard-deduction-itemized-d...

[hedora]

The chart in the thing you linked says most people with 90th percentile income should itemize, and that there’s a greater than 10% chance you should itemize if you make median income or greater.

Of course, figuring out if you should itemize requires the same amount of paperwork as actually itemizing.

Anyway, even when I was a student with nothing but W2 income, I still had to find my W2, and get a 1099-INT for my student checking account. That took more than 10 minutes.

Before that, I had to figure out how to figure the tax on my high school income, which also took more than 10 minutes.

[underlipton]

You underestimate the number of people who a) work for crappy businesses that screw up payroll, b) don't have a bank account, and/or c) traded stocks with Robinhood/Webull or traded crypto last year.

[jonas21]

That's irrelevant to this discussion.

a) If they screw up payroll and the numbers reported to the government are wrong, you'd have to correct that even if the government sent you a pre-populated form (and if they screw up payroll, but the numbers are still right, then that's also what gets imported into the tax software).

b) If you don't have a bank account, you didn't earn interest from the bank, and there's nothing to report.

c) Robinhood, Webull, and Coinbase all integrate with TurboTax. If you were trading crypto without using an exchange, then yeah, that'll be harder to report. But this will be equally hard regardless of whether the government sends you a pre-populated tax form (which won't include these trades).

[underlipton]

a) Well, not quite. As it is, you have to work with your employer to get it fixed. If the government is responsible for populating the form correctly, then you notify them, and they go to your employer. This is the difference between disputing overtime underpayment with your boss and getting the DoL involved. I'll let you guess which is less of a headache for the average worker.

b) If you don't have a bank account, paying for tax prep services becomes more complicated. You're also probably using shadow banking services that don't allow you to import info. Have fun doing it manually.

c) Ostensibly. In practice, they all had massive issues with correctly reporting cost basis and other important figures. So even with using an exchange, you had issues to deal with (again, manually).

So, I'd say it's all quite relevant. Your quick dismissal of such concerns is a large part of the problem.

[gaganyaan]

Do you pay for those tax apps? That's the problem. I don't want to deal with some shitty company. The IRS already knows everything, I should be able to deal with them directly for free.

[Insanity]

Which tax app is that?