Eh, in New Zealand it's been one click digital for a very long time too.
I was told they don't have modern tax forms accross the US because of lobbying from companies like Turbo Tax.
Comment on [deleted]
stoy@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Meanwhile, here in Sweden everyone can logon to the tax authority’s website get a prefilled out form ans digitally sign it in 2 min total.
This has been the norm for me the last 5 years, before that I used the preprinted tax form in the mail, I signed it and sent it back. Done.
The US needs to make it easy and convenient to pay taxes.
livus@kbin.social 8 months ago
Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 8 months ago
In the US, I get to spend a few weeks stressing waiting for various forms to be mailed back, then spend 5 hours answering questions on a tax software, to finally get a result of how much i owe/should pay. Then I do it on one or two competitors to see if the math adds up, and most of the time it doesn’t.
If I’m lucky, it’s only five hours.
stoy@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
A few years ago, I did my taxes on the bus to work…
prole@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Cool!
ohlaph@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I didn’t.
ohlaph@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Thank you .
PriorityMotif@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It’s easy if you only have income from one job. If you have income from any other activities they will not have the information required. Things like rental property income, selling items on sites like Etsy requires inputting your expenses for those activities. Sites like eBay and Etsy will send you an income statement called a 1099. This includes all of the money for all of your transactions including shipping that you charged the customer. So you have to deduct your expenses from that amount, unless you want to pay taxes on money you didn’t actually earn. There are other items that count as deductions as well, including property tax deductions in certain states.
fushuan@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Here in a Spanish province the app had the correct information prefilled with my job changes, the stupid 50 euros I earned from the gamestop craze and all the special savings accounts that were dax deductible. I only had to add the special rent deduction (amount paid and % of that amount that’s was mine), and the app calculated the amount that I was to be deducted from that and my age.
It’s great, in has an explanation of all the deductions, it lets you edit everything before submitting, and it’s free.
PriorityMotif@lemmy.world 8 months ago
That’s basically what free filing is in the US except you have to input your personal information and the information on the tax receipt called a W2 that you receive from your employer. They even call the basic tax form the 1040ez. Then that information automatically populates into your state tax form. Yes, we have to pay federal and state taxes separately.
hubobes@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Not every country has the same relationship to their government. In Switzerland for example our government does not know what we own and earned, we declare it ourselves. It is fully digital but still longer than 5 minutes (takes me around 30 minutes with an income to declare as well a some stocks and other things).
I guess the US has a similar relationship to their government.
normalexit@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The problem is that companies like Intuit have resources/lobbyists and really want to maintain their position in the market.
propublica.org/…/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to…
Your system sounds wonderful though.