336
IRS vows to digitize all taxpayer documents by 2025
(arstechnica.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
336 points (99.1% liked)
News
37872 readers
565 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
7. No duplicate posts.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
I think they already do in a sense; that's the standard deduction. If you want to maximize your returns you might be better off itemizing though, and that option is what makes everything complicated (I suspect they'd have a hard time sending you a bill for everything you itemize... I don't know that they really know everything you could itemize; I think that really only comes up when it's suspicious/you get audited).
i.e., if they did that, you'd basically get fewer options, and maybe less money back(?)
87% of people take the standard deduction. Just give people a bill (or I dunno, take out the correct amount to begin with) and allow people to contest or do an itemized deduction if they disagree.
Several countries have already figured this out, ot isn't rocket surgery. The government has a pretty good idea what you owe, and send you a bill. If you want to take another route, you're free to submit your own taxes, but the vast majority don't need to do anything like that. There's no reason we couldn't use the same system, if it assumes standard deduction that would cover the vast majority of people. Anyone who wants to itemize would be free to, it just wouldn't be automatic, so essentially, nothing would change for them. Well, almost nothing, the difference is if they take too long they have a safety net standard deduction already filed and done I guess.
Even when you take the standard deduction, only had one job in one state for the tax year, and have no investments or other income (ie. the only way your taxes could be simpler is if you don't have any income and someone else pays all your bills), it's still complicated to file taxes manually. Many other developed countries will automatically calculate the most common scenarios for most taxpayers, and only people with unusual situations have to do any manual calculations (or pay a tax preparer).