[foxglacier]

Doesn't America have uniquely complicated tax that requires you to keep all your receipts to claim all sorts of confusing deductions? How can the IRS know what you spent your income on if you don't tell them?

I've had the misfortune of having to fill in a W8-BEN-E form [1] and the first time, I just gave up and refused to work with the client because it was too complicated. The 2nd time, I got an LLM to tell me how to fill it in. Just look at the dense jargon - nonparticipating FFI, deemed-compliant FFI, Restricted distributor, International organiztion (hint, that's the wrong answer), Excepted territory NFFE, Passive NFFE, Direct reporting NFFE. There are 32 of them! What the hell is all that? Well 99% of cases are just one of those buried among the rest but you wouldn't know which without some advice.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw8bene.pdf

[thayne]

For most people, those deductions are less than the "standard" deduction you can take instead. For most of the people who do itemized deductions, it's mostly just your mortgage payment and state taxes, which the IRS already knows about, and maybe charitable donations.

And even if you do have a lot of things to report, why not just report those things directly and let the IRS calculate your taxes, rather than you having to do it, fill out a complicated form, then the IRS does the calculation anyways to make sure you did it right?

[ptmcc]

The majority of Americans are W2 wage earners that take the standard deduction.

[simoncion]

> Just look at the dense jargon ... There are 32 of them! What the hell is all that?

For every form I've ever had to file with the IRS, there's a corresponding set of instructions. Those instructions inevitably have a definitions section and/or define the terms in-line.

The instructions for form W8-BEN-E are at [0]. The definitions section starts at printed page 4 and continues through to printed page 7. Some terms you mentioned (like "Excepted territory NFFE") are not in the definitions section, but are described in their own sections.

I'm definitely not going to claim that it's foolish to consult with a tax lawyer (or similar such thing) when one is significantly uncertain about one's taxes. I'm definitely going to object to your implied claim that the IRS dumps a bunch of jargon on you and leaves you to rely on general-purpose search engines to figure out what the fuck they're talking about.

[0] <https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/iw8bene.pdf>

[cactacea]

Just follow the instructions? From your linked PDF:

> The time needed to complete and file this form will vary depending on individual circumstances. The estimated average time is: Recordkeeping, 12 hr., 40 min.; Learning about the law or the form, 4 hr., 17 min.; Preparing and sending the form, 8 hr., 16 min.

[simoncion]

> Just follow the instructions?

I spoke in objection to one very specific claim:

> [The] implied claim that the IRS dumps a bunch of jargon on you and leaves you to rely on general-purpose search engines to figure out what the fuck they're talking about.

Feel free to imagine that I was addressing something else. It's a free country and all.

You also might want to look at the estimated average time for a non-business taxpayer to complete a 1040. If the 1040 estimate methodology is typical, then those estimates are pretty pessimistic.

[foxglacier]

Yea I did look at the guide but it's a huge amount of work that I wasn't prepared to do just to make a couple of hundred dollars from one client. Imagine you start at the first option:

Nonparticipating FFI. A nonparticipating FFI means an FFI that is not a participating FFI, deemed-compliant FFI, or exempt beneficial owner.

OK, then what's an FFI, a participating FFI, a deemed-compliant FFI, and an exempt beneficial owner? That's 4 other definitions to look up just to learn you should not choose option 1 of 32. If you keep track of this intermediate knowledge, it can help you skip some other options but you have to look ahead and see that possibility and find a way to store all these intermediate conclusions so that when you wake up the next day you haven't forgotten if you're an exempt beneficial owner or not - and by the way, before you even begin, you have to work out if you're a beneficial owner - exempt or not.

Once you've decided you're not an FFI, you look to see if you're a "Certified Deemed-Compliant Sponsored, Closely Held Investment Vehicle", which doesn't have a definition in the guide! What now? Try to find it in the Internal Revenue code?

By the way, the one you called out - "Excepted Territory NFFE" doesn't actually have a definition at all in the guide either and it refers you to "Regulations section 1.1472-1(c)(1)(iii)". Maybe if you're clever, you can set aside these difficult ones in case you discover an easy right answer first, but that gets back to designing a system to manage the intermediate knowledge and design your search strategy. Yes, you can do it, but also it's stupidly burdensome.

[simoncion]

That's a lot of words to agree with my objection to

> ...your implied claim that the IRS dumps a bunch of jargon on you and leaves you to rely on general-purpose search engines to figure out what the fuck they're talking about.

I never suggested that satisfying the requirements of complex parts of the tax code would -somehow- not be complex. I even indicated support for talking to a lawyer when confused:

> I'm definitely not going to claim that it's foolish to consult with a tax lawyer (or similar such thing) when one is significantly uncertain about one's taxes.

If you'd slowed down and thought carefully about what I wrote, you probably would have spent less time overall than it took to write up your comment.

Speaking of reading too quickly:

> ...you look to see if you're a "Certified Deemed-Compliant Sponsored, Closely Held Investment Vehicle", which doesn't have a definition in the guide!

Did you read the part of the form to which those instructions apply? Those checkboxes are part of the FATCA Status section. Isn't it clear that you are to look at the FATCA regs for additional definitions?

[foxglacier]

My point is that the form is too burdensome. You said there were instructions in the guide, implying that makes it easy enough. However, even with the help of the guide, it's still too much work. You're suggesting consulting a professional which is ridiculous. This is not even "one's taxes", this form is specifically for people not paying tax to America. I can only assume it's even more difficult for people who do pay American tax.

Don't forget that this is for a random one-man business in another country doing a $100 job for a US client. The cost of what you're suggesting is completely disproportionate to the value of the transaction.

> Isn't it clear that you are to look at the FATCA regs for additional definitions?

Not at all. The form tells you to look at the instructions, not the FATCA regs. I have no idea what FATCA regs are or what FATCA even is. That's just more obscene over-complication.

Yes, the IRS does dump a bunch of jargon on you and leave you to Google it. "Google" here means searching the laws and regulations but probably Google itself because it's easier.

[realusername]

I highly doubt that it's more complicated than the French or German tax system.

[sofixa]

Based on what?

The French tax system is pretty simple. Taxes are high, but simple. The website you use to file your taxes is also pretty simple, and every single field has a button that explains what it is about and in which cases you should write stuff inside.

The only annoying parts are if you have accounts outside of France, you have to declare them. And if you get dividends/capital gains in foreign currencies outside of the EU, you have to calculate yourself how much tax you owe using a bunch of tables per country and currency.

[realusername]

For basic taxes yes but you have annex forms which are 20 pages long in the french system.

[Thorrez]

20 pages? My 2024 full pdf from turbotax was 644 pages.

[QQ00]

644 pages? WTF

[xeromal]

80% are just boilerplate text with one text box per page. It's shitty paperwork but it's not 644 pages of tons of input. There person you're replying to probably owns a business or works in multiple states or something goofy like that. They're on the upper end of complicated

[sofixa]

Yes, and? Nobody would fill all annexes. They are annexes because they're not part of the common path, and are only needed in specific scenarios. Their length is kind of irrelevant.

[terminalshort]

This is exactly the way it works in the US. All the really complex parts are never even used by 99% of people.

[nsteel]

They make even the simple case more complicated than it needs to be. In these other countries, most people don't need to file anything, it just works with what the state already knows. You don't have to provide a load of supplementary info to get the correct outcome. I can only guess you think this way because you've not done taxes in another country.

[tietjens]

For a truly uniquely complicated tax system please move to Germany.

[thesumofall]

While I fully agree that there are a lot of complicated rules for edge cases, for simple (non self employed) cases it is very straightforward. In fact, you don’t have to do anything at all in many cases and still won’t be screwed over as the German IRS will assume typical deductions. There is an official free filing software and if you spend 20-30 USD a year you’ll get access to super easy to use professional filing software. My situation is more complicated than most and I spend 2hrs a year for my entire family

[fragmede]

Why stop there? If you reside in multiple countries, then it really gets fun.

[ainiriand]

When you say America you certainly mean USA? Or is America a country now?

[bluebarbet]

Technically, America is neither a country nor a continent. But the USA is the only country on either of the continents of the Americas to have the word "America" in its official name. Give the Americans a break.

[foxglacier]

I think this is a cultural difference around the world. In my county, people call it America. USA sounds a bit wanky or what Americans themselves call it. It doesn't matter because everyone knows what you mean.

[drysine]

[flagged]

[array_key_first]

America is colloquially the USA. The Americas is something else. South America is something else. North America is something else.

[drysine]

That time has passed.

[Dylan16807]

Now you have me really curious. When did "that time" start, and when did it end?

[1718627440]

Maybe it started, when the USA became the global power in the half of the 20th century and it stopped when they lost being the free and aspiring country others countries think they should model after, which might be in 2001, or when they openly started extorting their (former) allies, which is under Trump.

[drysine]

Well, in the 90s there was almost total adoration of the US in Russia and America meant only one thing - the US.

Decade later the US lost most of its soft power due to the abuse of its dominant military and economic position in the world and then lost its dominant position too with the rise of the economies around the world.

People now see the US as a strong state on the lands of native Americans on the continent called North America.