[ams6110]

This story is disingenuous. For people with "simple" tax situations (no itemized deductions, etc) the forms are already very simple.

The scenario they paint with chasing down form after form simply does not happen for most people. For most people it's one page.

But the idea that your taxes can be pre-computed by the IRS is fantasy beyond that, unless the tax code is significantly changed.

Sure they know your W2 income and some other standard stuff. How do they know your self-employment or business income? How much you gave to charity? How do they know what unreimbursed expenses you had? How do they know how many kids you have? How do they know your marital status?

I guess most of that could be addressed by just eliminating all deductions and allowances but even at that there are a lot of things they simply cannot possibly know until you, the taxpayer, tell them.

[mancerayder]

In the UK you only have to file if you have particularities like that which you describe. For everyone else, the PAYE system seems to deduct the right amount ("withholding" in the U.S.). It's simple enough that not everyone needs to file: https://www.gov.uk/self-assessment-tax-returns/who-must-send...

[bwanab]

Not really. The IRS really does know your W2 and all your bank and investment income. If you've worked for several different companies, you often have scattered investments that you have to chase down that, in fact, they already know. There's really no reason why they couldn't provide you with pre-filled forms for all that stuff. Sure, there's stuff they don't and can't know, but for most people those are the simple things (how many children, marital status.

[dragonwriter]

> How do they know your self-employment or business income?

If it's 1099 income, they know it for the reason that the 1099 gets filed with the IRS, as well as a copy going to you.

> How do they know how many kids you have?

That doesn't change very often, and there is interaction with the federal government which easily could be, if it isn't already, shared with IRS for the most common reason for changes in the positive direction.

> How do they know your marital status?

Again, that doesn't change frequently, so mostly they have a good basis for it by assuming whatever it was he previous year.(For this and the preceding, and a lot of similar status issues, it would be easy enough to move the data collection to a pre-filed form—for regular workers you could collect it, or changes to it, as part of the W-4—instead of the equivalent of the current retrospective tax return, expanding the accuracy of precomputed taxes and reducing the need for supplemental retrospective filing.

But, yeah, you'll probably always need an option for at least supplemental filing for information that differs from information the IRS has from other sources or is outside of it.

[vonmoltke]

> If it's 1099 income, they know it for the reason that the 1099 gets filed with the IRS, as well as a copy going to you.

1099s have the wrong cost basis information for ESPP and vested RSU shares, so the IRS does not know what the correct tax is when those are involved.

[dmitriid]

Somehow all the stuff that’s trivial in any other civilized country becomes “fantasy” in the US

[LorenPechtel]

Most people do not have income that doesn't already show up in the IRS records. Yes, there are those of us who are self-employed and would still have to fill out stuff. Charity? Most people don't itemize and if you don't charity doesn't matter. Unreimbursed expenses? Didn't that get eliminated this year? Kids? Same as last year, if that changed you modify the return. Marital status? Same thing.

Personally I wouldn't gain that much from simply a pre-filled return (I'd keep B and D and chuck the rest) but many would.

[jon-wood]

For most people that’s not a problem in the UK. Partly that’s because all employed income has to be reported to HMRC by your employer, and party we just don’t have the same system of tax deductions - you can’t write off charity donations, and expenses are only deductible by companies. For children you have to register for child benefit payments with the government.

Even for the self employed it’s generally a pretty simple process of filling in your income and expenses and then everything else is calculated for you.

[PaulAJ]

If you have other income you can just go to the HMRC web site and fill in the forms on-line. I've had to do it a few times, and its not a big deal.

If you have a simple one-off event (like a capital gain when selling something) then you can just write a plain ordinary letter telling them about it and they will sort out the tax bill for you.

[mixmastamyk]

You go to their website and choose from a radio button, text box, or two. But, you probably knew that already?

[hdfbdtbcdg]

Your government definitely knows your marital status and how many kids you have.