[iouwhldkfjgklj]

Are you European?

I'm European. I've lived in the US a couple of years.

The thing is.... you're NOT charged to file your taxes. Filing your taxes is free. People have the option to pay a company that helps them file their taxes.

The peculiarity of the US isn't that you're charged but that the government's own system is shit (which is why many people choose to pay). This isn't uniquely American. I'm sure there's other countries where filing your taxes is a pain - though maybe not in Europe (?).

[michaelmior]

> the government's own system is shit (which is why many people choose to pay)

The reason the government's system has historically been terrible is because of lobbying on the part of Intuit (maker of TurboTax) and others.

There was a great episode of Patriot Act a few years ago that discussed this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xQQkzWhMOc

[aljabear]

the government's own system is shit, because Intuit has an interest in keeping it shitty. If it weren't, like other modern countries, you wouldn't pay them to help you with it. So they lobby heavily to keep the government from modernizing its system.

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...

[jupp0r]

Germany's system is shitty without Intuit. They don't have a monopoly on this.

[junon]

Germany's system doesn't penalize you for doing nothing if you're just a worker. That's very different from the US.

Last year I had an error on a form. The finanzamt sent me a letter (from a real person). My partner was able to call and ask some clarification questions. We filed the correction and it was no big deal. I wasn't in any risk of going to jail or being the target of a lawsuit.

Yes, getting a tax advisor (Steuerberater) here is very difficult, and sometimes necessary. But otherwise, the system is way less intrusive than the US's in my opinion.

Slow, sure. But not dangerous.

[xboxnolifes]

> Last year I had an error on a form. The finanzamt sent me a letter (from a real person). My partner was able to call and ask some clarification questions. We filed the correction and it was no big deal. I wasn't in any risk of going to jail or being the target of a lawsuit.

This is almost verbatim what would occur in the US as well if the IRS believed there was a mistake on your tax filing. People just keep repeating false information about the IRS year after year, and nobody fact checks anything they read from random people on the internet, that now everyone thinks if you miss a zero on your tax filing you committed a felony or something.

Calling US tax filing unnecessarily annoying and in-need of improvement just isn't enough for some people. They need to make up stories and baseless claims to spread fear or something.

[jupp0r]

It's totally illegal in Germany to lie on tax forms. Whether you'll be sentenced for an honest mistake or not is a different matter, I don't think you would in either jurisdiction if it's something minor.

[junon]

Lying and making a mistake are two different things. The IRS penalizes you for both.

[jupp0r]

The IRS sends you a notice to correct your return if they find a mistake. You fill out the form and send it back. Matter solved.

If it's a simple arithmetic error, the IRS will sometimes silentliy fix it for you and you'll never know.

[lotsofpulp]

I would not say it is shit. Free fillable forms is pretty easy for 99% of people. You start filling it out, and there are pdfs of all the instructions available next to the form you are filling out.

[paxys]

The complexity of these forms combined with the fact that getting them wrong is a felony means that filling them out without any help is out of reach for the vast majority of the population.

[basil-rash]

Getting them wrong isn’t a felony. Refusing to pay after they inform you you were wrong might be a felony.

But they won’t tell you you were wrong for a few years, during which time interest accrues.

(Source, just paid 5k in taxes+interest for the 2021 year after IRS sent me a letter saying my stock selling profit calculations were off by 4.5k. I think they were wrong (I was certainly wrong too) but I can file an update and get a refund on my next taxes if so. Better to stop the interest accessing while I figure out my bases)

[Analemma_]

> the fact that getting them wrong is a felony

Why do people keep repeating this? It's so obviously wrong I can't believe that saying it can be anything other than bad faith. I have miscalculated my taxes twice now: in both cases, the IRS sent me a letter explaining the mistake and what I still owed, I wrote them a check for that amount, and that was it. No "felony" or even the faintest hint of one was in play. The letters even had an apologetic tone and suggestions for how to set up payment plans, as well as multiple ways to dispute the charges.

[ghaff]

Because it satisfies their narrative that you're basically forced to use tax prep (human or machine) to file and therefore the fact that you can actually do so for free is a false choice.

[wyre]

It might be similar to the inverse of xkcd.com/1043 (Ten Thousand), in that something has been repeated so many times people believe it to be true. Thinking about this more I'd bet the myth that miscalculating your taxes was an exaggeration based on anti-tax rhetoric.

[antisthenes]

Getting them wrong is certainly not a felony.

In the vast majority of cases the IRS will just send you a letter asking you to pay what you owe.

[hot_gril]

With fees, which can be steep, and you might have to dispute what you owe, and the return payment might get lost... But yes, not a felony.