The IRS and me

I do my own taxes. Over the years, I have figured out the increasing number of forms that I have to fill out. They are not that difficult for anyone who can do simple arithmetic and is comfortable with “if …, then …” logical reasoning.

I do not use a professional tax preparer since I figure I will be able to exercise more care since I know the information well and can devote careful attention to it, rather than someone who has to deal with a whole lot of forms and documents. I also do not use the commercial software out of principle. I resent the fact that the government has made a deal with these software companies to not provide their own direct online tax filing system, which would be the logical thing to do. I do not see why I should give my personal data to a private company that lobbies to keep the tax rules complicated so that more people would come to them.
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How tax software companies fought simple tax filing

The way we file taxes in the US is odd. For most of us, almost all the documents that we use to prepare our tax returns are also provided directly to the government, so the government has the same information that we use. We then prepare our returns, send it in, and the government checks to see if we did it right. Surely it would make more sense for the government to calculate our taxes and then send us a statement to check to see if there was any error, the way that credit card companies compile a bill based on all our expenditures and then tell us how much we owe. If we wish, we can check their calculations with the receipts we have. Countries like Denmark, Sweden, and Spain already have such systems. [Read more…]