Just as much a nightmare as affordable health care, pension scheme, good school education, etc. An example as you show that you are an American without saying that you are an American.
I think they are referring to the Affordable Care Act, which was not universal but catered to vulnerable people and such, like a foundation that could be extended. But then, media and Republicans started calling it Obamacare, and soon Republican voters wanted to repell it cause it was "socialism", you know. So it was abolished first thing by the new administration, and the toothless magats who benefited from it had a meltdown (but are still backing the administration because they are that far gone).
Right, but first it was the brainchild of a GOP senator who didn't even present it to the world because he knew his own party would end his career if he did.
Socialized healthcare has been third-rail territory in the US for a while.
Depends on how we're defining "introduce". FDR wanted to institute universal health care but it never got off the ground because the AMA lobbied against it. Medicare and Medicaid, which are public health insurance schemes for people over 65 and people below the poverty line respectively, were established during the Johnson administration in 1965.
Nixon wanted to pursue some form of universal health care but it never got off the ground due to lobbying. The Affordable Care Act, which was a set of regulations and reforms on the health insurance industry passed in 2009 under Obama, initially had a public option but conservative democrats and independents like Joe Lieberman refused to vote for it unless the public option was removed.
That was the last time anything resembling public health care was a serious topic in congress.
Yet people like him, who hate taxes, are usually cool with around 20% of their pay going to health insurance that probably won't even pay out if they need it, and certainly not in full if they do pay out. Fucking Yanks of his ilk; happy to pay more for less, and harder and with more effort, putting the faith in rapacious corporations they refuse to put in anyone, even other human beings of any sort at any level, as long as it means other people suffer.
It's one of those many exampes of European socialist governmental tyrany: around 7% of our wages is stolen from us by the government to fund monthly payments once we retire, called "pensions".
From that day on, we're forced to accept those commie payments.
And not only that: we're also forced to pay less taxes and social security contributions, we have to accept discounts on public transportation, our medicines and health care costs are discounted, and we can't even avoid cheaper movie tickets!
I'm married to an American wife. She's been in the UK for nigh on a quarter of a century and has to make a US tax return every year. That's a shade dystopian in my books.
I could always tell spring was in the air by the way my American coworkers started cursing. /s
I recently opened a new bank account here in Finland, and one of the questions I was asked was, "Do you hold US citizenship?" Not "do you hold local (i.e. Finnish and/or EU) citizenship" or "what citizenship or citizenships do you hold"; no, it was specifically US.
Took me a while to realize why they were asking.
(Do I have to mention that I'm not, nor have I ever been, a US citizen, and am not planning to become one?)
I.... also know exactly how much the government is taking? what? and I know the exact sum every single time I get paid and don't have to save up however much I believe I might owe the government once a year
also, does that person believe the amount of taxes we pay is random every month? ah damn, the government took 90% of my income this month, sorry bro can't, afford rent :(
They clearly don't understand our own tax system let alone anyone else's. Of all the things about the US to defend, they pick our absurd broken tax code?
Exactly! It's not a mentality I can even really understand. I mean, it's a relatively big planet with all kinds of different people that do different things. It's that idea that they are the pinnacle of human development or something.
I think it's just small-mindedness. I don't think that's unique to the US, but it's certainly over-represented here.
Yeah, there's nothing about the US that is specifically super unique on its own. It's the fact that they're outliers in so many things all at once. Like they purposely do the opposite of everyone else out of spite.
I used to think, way back as a kid, that if you got a raise you might end up with actually less money because your tax rate would go up. I think many taxpayers still think this. But the rates are incremental, meaning that the higher rates are only calculated for income above a certain amount. But it's a single table lookup to make things easier.
I once told some friends that my yearly taxes went way up. And one friend said "congratulations" because he knew this meant I had more income. As opposed to the first Trump tax "cuts" where my taxes indeed went way up even though my income stayed the same, because deduction had been disallowed.
It’s really not surprising considering the majority of Americans don’t even know how there own tax system works 😂 especially those who make 40-60k per year…
Yeah, it's in our payslips. It's under PAYE in the UK (Pay As You Earn), and at the end of the tax year, if they think they mistakenly over taxed you, you'll get a letter and get it back (I did one year). National Insurance is also listed on the payslip as NI.
In Canada it's our Income Tax, fed and provincial, and you file at the end of the year any receipts that might constitute deductions and if you reach a certain amount, you get a refund.
They're convinced that everyone who American pays MEGA TAXES! I had a discussion with someone about "why would a professional athlete want to play in Toronto?" (for MLB, NBA, NHL, and MLS). They were convinced that a flat 60% (and I don't even know where that came from because the max fed rate is 33% and Ontario's max is 13.16, so 46.13%) on every dollar, clearly not understanding how progressive rates work.
Plus on the odd occasion that you do pay too much tax, you get it back. A couple of times I've had a letter in the post from HMRC giving me a 200 quid apology, it's a nice surprise tbh.
They don't ( or at least didn't) automatically repay overpayments of less than £10 - you can still ask for it, but it won't be paid automatically. ( Likewise they didn't collect underpayments of less than £50)
Norwegian here, I pay 33% on purpose (as in, I’ve set the percentage myself with the tax bureau and my job collects the information in january of every year) and I get at least half a month’s pay back whenever my yearly tax review rolls along. All of this is pretty much automatic
In America, you fill out your own form. If you get any number wrong, the revenue service corrects it and send you mail about the correction (and an extra payment due or refund given). That means the revenue service already knows what the correct amount is!
The only snag is with unreported income - anything that's not a paycheck, dividend, interest, etc. If it's wages that's mostly independent contractors, household employees, self employed, etc. But income that is not wages or from an institution might not be reported, like yard sale proceeds, hobby income, anything else that's under the table.
But the vast majority of taxpayers get income only through wages, capital gains, dividends, and interest, where the government already knows the amount.
Also, 70% of all American taxpayers get a refund, because employee withholding tends to err on the side of caution.
I should add, the bigget snag tends to be "deductions". Revenue service does not always know how much money you gave to charity, medical expenses I believe are not reported, etc. The big one of mortgages interest paid I do believe is reported.
And if you'd make the IRS simply send you a sheet of the information they have and ask you to confirm/correct the figures, that'd be the same as how we do Swedish taxes.
And when taxation changes, for whatever group of people, it's always a huge issue in the news for months before it becomes reality, so people can prepare accordingly.
In Australia, wage earners have tax automatically taken out of our pay (PAYG). At the end of the Financial Year we receive a "Group Certificate" which shows us how much gross pay we received & how much tax we paid. To do our Tax Return, we simply check if we have any deductions which would have reduced that Gross pay, apply those to find out the tax we should have paid. Knowing that, we subtract that from the tax shown on the certificate, further subtract any Rebates which might apply, then determine how much tax we should have paid. The difference is our tax refund.
It is quite easy, if tedious,but in practice, an Accountant can often find deductions & Rebates that you can't, so it is worthwhile getting it done. for you.
The kicker is, you could still just calculate all of your own taxes and then hold the tax office accountable whenever they have made a mistake. It's a huge time-saver compared to the reverse situation that you have in the US
Yeah, it's literally just that the amount your employer withholds for taxes (which happens in US, EU, and Japan (Others too, but those I know)) they automatically add to your tax return. If you don't file any additional income or deductions, then that is just your tax filling. If you want to control the numbers or add to it, you can do that.
It's literally just the government saying: "hey, we already have this information about your income. Does this look right?". The IRS has the same information but just expects you to calculate everything yourself to get the same numbers.
A lot of this is just Europe vs America. But if you count in all those other countries in South America, Africa, Asia, things are just as varied and complicated. Some countries really have no idea how much income you made, how many bribes you paid to tax officials, etc.
One big difference I think between America and Europe is that because the safety net in America is so bad there's much more charitable giving going on to cover the gaps. And charitable giving is not normally reported to the tax office. For example, I give to a charity that will supply prosthetics to veterans (amongt other things), whereas in many countries they'd think that was stupid because their government already pays for that. In America you can give to charities that provide scholarships for minorities to go to college, whereas in Europe there are good subsidies for everyone already.
And I suspect the European mindset might be "why the hell do you want a rebate on your charity giving, isn't the point of charity to give without expecting a payback??" Except in America the reason the goverment gives this a deduction is to encourage more charity giving to make up for the lack of a safety net.
Any charitable donation (to a registered charity) over $2 is deductible in Australia. It's a key incentive for donating and I believe the idea is similar to the USA: that voluntary private donations help fill in gaps around the edges where government support can't or won't reach.
Interestingly, if a charity does good work then state & federal governments will often recognise this and kick in some of their own grant money also, basically like an outsourced and privatised NFP alternative to running it through the administration. Gives them flexibility to turn the money off and on almost at will, instead of running a department for, idk, training guide dogs for example.
In the UK the government just matches (at a %) your payment directly to the charity if you're paying tax on PAYE. It's not actually a rare concept but it need not be complicated.
But the employer with held PAYE (pay as you earn) is only one component.
If you choose to share your tax file number with your private financial institutions, then they can also automate and report to the government on things like share dividends, savings account interest, personal superannuation (401K) contributions and others like private health insurance if you have it.
When it comes to tax time, it takes me only about 10 minutes because most of it is pre-filled, and I only need to add deductions in my favour for things like charity donations, work-related expenses like self education & professional membership fees, and we also get an hourly WFH deduction to cover household costs such as electricity and internet.
The IRS knows exact how much you own them. They just don’t tell you and if you fail the conformity in complicated rules test, they fuck you. Great system, eh?
Yup, they know exactly what you have to pay, refuse to tell you, actively make it impossibly complicated so that you need to hire services to do it for you (let's be honest, the tax codes are always complicated, which is why you don't tell Jimmy the dock worker who attended school for 4 years to calculate it himself), and if there is a cent of a difference they go after you.
The fact that this system is not only legal, but the standard of the US, is honestly insane from an outside perspective. I live in a country that has a pretty corrupt government, but even here, every month I see on my wage documentation how much tax I paid, how much my employer pays for employing me and everything.
Obviously you can also mess up here, but for an average Joe, it just won't happen. Like if you buy real estate you need to pay a certain tax. As it's not a standard everyday thing, they send you information about it and give options, you can choose to do it in installments or in one go. Until they send that letter, you are not expected to magically figure it out, you get it months in advance of the first expected payment.
Hell, actually the IRS here noticed that an older employer of mine made mistake when I was younger and actively contacted me and said I just need to send in an online form to request it back. The money arrived to my account a few days later.
The crappy system (which is lobbied into being a standard) is so much of a standard, that when the IRS made their own free to use filing system, it was later prohibited from being used because of reasons.
Trump's rich friends got angry people didn't have to pay them to "help" them fill taxes anymore
Since its launch, the multibillion-dollar tax preparation industry and its Republican allies have lobbied aggressively to eliminate this efficient, cost-effective service.
They never trust their government and here we are, they went on to elect a Russian kompromat, a serial felon, tax dodger, pathalogical liar who encouraged his followers to storm to Capitol to “hang Mike pence” becauee he couldnt accept election results. He fires 6000 employees and IRS comissioner.
From what I know, from what I’ve read and heard, the IRS knows exactly how much each person owes. But the people have to work out how much they owe, send it to the IRS, they then double check your maths if you’ve over paid you’ll get a rebate. However, if you’ve miscalculated and sent less than you owe you’ll be pestered till you send the rest otherwise, jail time.
So in answer to your question, yes. The IRS basically outsources their accounting but also end up doing it themselves anyway to make sure you’ve sent the right amount
Dystopian nightmare is when your government knows perfectly well how much you owe them, but they want to test your loyalty and see whether you fall in line or not, so they give you the illusion of independence and see what you'll do.
In the US, the government takes what it wants from your paycheck…
Then you have to figure out what you owe or pay someone to do it (while the government already knows what you owe), and then file with the government to get back the amount overpaid, or pay the remaining balance.
Then they “randomly” audit your filings (for the previous 5 years) to find if you paid them enough…
I prefer the govt. just taking the money without the threats of fines and imprisonment.
They literally show the taxes on your payslip every month, nobody is blindly doing anything. We just don't have to pay an accountant to sort it out for us.
The thing in Sweden is that yes you get the sheet but you can check it your self and see if it is right and you can even get some one to do it for you. Or you can just not spend money and time and goes Yeah this seams right and send textmessage to the tax office and be done.
Interesting statement. I have lived in 13 different countries in my life and paid income tax in all of them. It is true that some countries make an estimate of your tax obligation and do take that out on a monthly basis. It is called PAYG (PAY AS YOU GO) or PAYE (PAY AS YOU EARN).
HOWEVER, all parties are aware that these are estimated amounts and, at the end of the financial year, you then do a detailed tax return where a refund can and will be returned to you.
It is a perfectly reasonable way of spreading the tax burden for the convenience of the taxpayer.
It is not some draconian impost on the part of government.
Get your facts straight before posting please.
Yes, in Australia, if you make more money than normal in one pay period, the Tax Department taxes you for that period as if you make that amount every pay period. This pretty much guarantees a refund.
And "tell us how much you owe us even though we already know and will punish you if you tell us the wrong amount" sounds like something Rube Goldberg would come up with if he was an out and proud masochist.
The government still takes what it thinks it needs out of our income. The difference is that in America they make us guess how much that is and fine us when we get it wrong. It’s literally the same thing with extra penalties.
It’s also no secret how much they take out. In Australia we have a tax table you can look up to see how much tax you pay on your weekly wage. At tax time you submit a return to claim your deductions. It’s a piece of piss.
What? The government already chooses the number that you owe, they just make you do the work to figure it out. If you don’t trust the government to tell you the real number, you could still just do your taxes anyway to fact check them and then sue if they get it wrong.
The tax preparation companies have bribed congress into keeping the system complex. There are plenty of examples on google.
Over 90% of people use the standard deduction. These people could be sent a post card by the IRS on what they owe or are getting back. If you agree. You sign it and send it back.
Now, let’s assume you do your own taxes and feel you are paying too much and underpay the IRS by $1000. They all ready know what you owe, and you would be getting a letter to pay the balance. Plus fines and interest.
I know how much I earn and what percentage I should be paying. It's not that difficult to figure out if it's wrong and I can appeal it if I think it is. Not uncommon for the government to contact you and let you know if you've overpaid to reimburse you either.
Americans really are on a different planet. They'll defend every scam they've been indoctrinated into believing and call it freedom 😅
I think for most countries this is a slight exaggeration... but yeah the basic premise is accurate. If your income is salary and your assets are real estate or simple financial products, there's nothing to do. But if you run your own business it can still get complicated!
So much of the problems, I'm sorry, the characteristics of the USA stem from distrust of government, which goes back to individualism, which goes back to the selfishness that lies at the core of the US psyche.
Which BTW goes beyond logic and reason in arguments like "Why should I pay for other people's health care?" when that is exactly what they are doing with health insurance premiums, except they're also paying for the CEO's bonus and stockholder dividends.
Of course in any normal country you will get tax deducted from your pay automatically and then you can file a tax declaration one a year. That will then give you a payback usually or (in rarer circumstances) lead to an additional payment.
Isa that NOT the case in the US?
So basically you have to save x% of each single paycheck to pay one a year?
What a nightmare scenario. I can see how at least 10% of the population will be overwhelmed by that and in the end not have enough money set aside to pay those taxes.
And I don't know about other countries, but in the UK it's your employer that does that. And obviously the same things apply with it being available to see the amount deducted.
Oh man I recently saw a stupid take that is similar to this. It was regarding sales taxes and why stores in the US do not have accurate prices on display.
That commenter's opinion was that it's good actually that you don't know the price you will be paying in the end, because it allows you to see how much the government takes. This, of course, is absolute bullshit. The civilized world has these neat things called receipts, which include the separate amount of the total that goes to taxes, so the wrong price on the shelf isn't even helpful on that.
Not sure about all other countries, but the UK Tax offices shows their 'working' in calculating the tax liable, plus they also show how the tax is spent.
They do release that we need to confirm that everything is correct right? That you need to sign the paper they send once a year and that you can do changes if you feel it is incorrect.
There’s a system. It works fine. If you think there been a mistake you can talk to someone who will check and reimburse you if there has been a mistake.
The catch in all this is that, unless you're a tax attorney, you can't even prepare your own tax declaration in the US, you have to go through a tax preparation service. This is thanks to republicans, who, when faced with the possibility of simplifying things so people could understand them better, listened to the tax prep lobby, which has a lot of money to spend.
You can still prepare your own taxes, but you could face penalties and interest if you underpay even due to an unintentional mistake. (Source: I'm American)
‘Then I know how much the government is taking out of me’, this is called your tax statement. A document you can see at any time. Does this guy think the government’s of other countries burrow little tunnels under peoples houses at night and stealth ninja mice take unknown random bits of tax and belly button fluff during their sleep? Please keep telling us more Shit Americans Say.
I’m old enough to remember a simple flat tax was a basic US conservative and Libertarian rallying cry. Now it’s apparently “I have freedom to poorly navigate all the tax rates and deductions of the USA” - while Trump and Elon laugh as they hire a small army of lawyers and accountants to pay an effective tax rate of 0.03%.
Sry, but here op is being stupid. Taxes are deducted automatically everywhere in the world, also in US. Doing your taxes means doing your yearly tax declaration, which you also have to do everywhere in the world. If you fail to do it you will not get tour tax returns and may be hit with unexpected demands for more taxes to be paid.
Wtf, when was the last time they actually paid anything for taxes? For the vast majority of US citizens they have their taxes by their employer before they even get paid. When we file taxes we are literally just resubmitting paperwork the government already has from our employer to confirm that what the employer sent to the IRS is correct and stating that we want the standard deduction.
There is 0 reason the IRS couldn't send a postcard (or hell in the modern age have a website you can tick a box on) that asks if we want standard deduction or will be filing additional paperwork along with a prepaid return envelope for our taxes.
This Dumbass really thinks that in the countries where the govt does your taxes for you, that you get no chance to look at them and question them if there's an error?
The American government knows how much you owe, refuses to tell you, and puts you in prison if you fuck up the calculation they already did. And we have the nightmare system?
I just want to add here that the sole reason they do it this way is because tax preparation companies have “lobbied” (aka extorted) the government to do so in order to further pick the pockets of the citizens.
Or, you could have a system where week by week, your employer deducts the income tax from your wages and pays that to Inland Revenue as determined on the IR form you will out when beginning your employment. That way, you don't have to waste time at the end of the fiscal year filling out a tax return.
Instead, all you have to do is wait for a letter or email from Inland Revenue informing you as to whether they owe you a refund for overpayment of taxes, and how much. Or if you owe them for underpaying your taxes. And if it's the former, they'll notify you when the refund is paid.
It's a fairly straightforward system we have in Aotearoa, as it simplifies the income tax system in my country.
So as an Australian we also 'do our taxes' and I have a question for those who don't. Does that mean you don't have ways to lower your tax burden through deductions?
The reason we do taxes here is because we can claim deductions to reduce our tax payable, for most workers that results in a nice bonus of some tax paid back, those with more than a primary income may have to pay extra.
But it's more about getting some of the tax you've paid back by claiming deductions, the government knows what you've earned but they may not know what deductions you are entitled to.
Do you not have deductions?
A deduction is an amount that lowers your taxable income, say you earn $50,000 you have $1000 in deductions so now the tax office deems your 'taxable' income as $49,000, through the year you've been taxed as having a taxable income of $50,000, so now the tax office owes you the difference.
I used simple numbers there but everyone's situation will be different and the numbers will rarely be so round
You do exactly that in Sweden too. Once a year, the government sends out a full report to everyone of their whole tax situation through the last year. Plenty of eligible deductions are included here automatically. There's a number at the end which is how much they owe you or vice versa. If you have no other deductions or corrections to make, you just login on the tax office website and hit approve, and that amount is in your account in a few weeks (or they give you a date before which you have to pay them). On that same website you can add other deductions that they can't possibly know about. Like I always add deductions for "travels to and from work" with the distance travelled before approving mine, which gives a nice bonus every year. It takes a bit longer to get the money because they have to go through it and verify it (like if I claimed I travelled a billion miles that would obviously not check out).
In case this genuinely confuses any Americans... I get a payslip each week that shows me my total earnings before tax / deductions (basically just hourly wage multiplied by hours worked).
From there it shows me all the different deductions from that total. The largest deduction is tax which goes to the government (around 20% for my tax bracket, but as high as 40% for the highest bracket). I also have a few others like Student Loan payments, and a small percentage is automatically funnelled into a retirement fund (which my government contributes to based on how much I put into it - the more I put in, the more my govt puts in, so I'm incentivised to put in a fair cut of my wages).
Finally, it shows me my total earnings after all the deductions have happened. This is the money I actually receive into my bank account. This is a nice system, because it makes it very easy to budget for things (like retirement, and SL payments, and taxes) because many of my expenses are simply just paid for up front before I even get the money.
This is not a perfect system either, of course. Often the government DOES actually take a little more from you than they should (usually caused when you started the year in one tax bracket but ended up not actually meeting that threshold - like you stopped working for a few months or smth - so you were taxed at a higher rate on the money you made while you were working. Generally this is no more than a few hundred dollars), which is why at the end of the tax year they will simply calculate how much they over-took and give that money back to you, in full. (Or you can do this calculation yourself and submit a tax return, if you really don't trust them to do that for you).
The advantages of this system are that you're never really in a position to overspend money that you needed for something else. It's much easier to spend responsibly. The government over-taking from you does happen, but it's never more than a tiny percentage of your income, so it shouldn't make a difference to your week to week spending, and you do get that money back each year which can feel like an extra paycheck. No, it's not perfect, no system is, but the downsides are very manageable.
So to be very clear: If my government were stealing money from me, it would be impossible to hide. I know exactly how much I earn an hour, and I know the hours I work. I can figure out how much I'm earning a week and often I've already calculated that total before I get paid. From there, I can see all the deductions made to that total, including how large the deduction is. Any deductions occurring that I don't understand would be an instant red flag, or if any of the deductions were larger than they should be. It would be immediately obvious.
Yeah. Living in the US after growing up and working in England it’s crazy. There’s this entire for profit industry built up around filling your taxes, and they’re actively inhibiting things from getting simplified. It’s just so on the nose for the US.
As an American you can get credits and cuts if fudge them the right way. But I may have a very loose understanding of it but doesn’t the UK’s tax system just take it as stated and at the end of the fiscal year whatever was not needed or whichever is refunded back to you?
Again I may be way off course and be misunderstanding with something else but that’s kind of how it was explained to me. If I am wrong, I’m sorry 😩
The govt is still going to take as much as they think you owe, they are just needlessly getting you to do the math and punishing you if you make a mistake.
I honestly dont understand his argument. He font trust the government to take out excstæy what they need.
But i mean what does it change if he does his taxes? They still know excatly what he owes them anyway so it does not matter if he disagrees with them. The only this youre doing is funding lobbyists and potentially paying a accountant.
For me personally, despite the government doing my tax returns I still go in and check in my deductibles are correct.
if anyone needs a quick course on uk paye. I used to teach how to manually calculate tax. it's simple and tax (on a cumlitive code) is self correcting with big changes in income.
At 10:30pm one night, my wife fell backwards down our stairs and hit her head on a nearby table. The ambulance took her to hospital. The doctor saw here immediately. She had a CAT scan. She stayed overnight for observation. She was discharged in the morning with painkillers and a letter to take to her GP.
Guess how much this cost. If you guessed nothing then well done. Just handed over her Medicare card and walked away.
How about you give me a ball park on what it would cost in MAGA land.
In Australia we have P.A.Y.E (pay as you earn) where employers take out your taxes each pay and forward it to the ATO (Aust. Tax Office). They have a tax table where you can see how much you get taxed depending on your income. At tax time you submit a tax return and claim your deductions and get a refund.
It’s pretty simple.
I suppose that would make sense if you couldn't read the summary that the gov would send for you to sign.
I supose this guy also doesn't realise that you are free to do your own calculations as well if you want.
There's actually a really interesting history behind attempts to simplify the tax system in the US along these lines. They keep getting stymied by companies like Intuit (TurboTax) and H&R Block who stand to benefit from people having to do their own taxes.
Over here in Germany, we pay 40% of our salary in "social benefits insurances". However, only 20% of it is paid by our salary and the other 20% of it is paid by our employer.
It is taken off our payment immediately.
So in essence, we see for example: "400€ paid for healthcare" but in truth. We paid 800€ for healthcare. The other 400€ are simply hidden costs, which are obviousely part of the calculation employers do when hiring people.
So when I'm earning 3000€ a month. I pay about 600€ in social insurances and 400€ in taxes getting me around 2000€ net wage paid out. But in truth, I'm actually earning 3600€ a month and paying 1600€ of it in taxes and social insurances. But 600€ of those are hidden from me, to trick me into thinking the social insurances aren't actually as draining as they are.
Well, in canada, we get some taken off in each pay, but then if the gvt did not receive your taxes report , they wouldnt know what crédits you are eligible to use .
They defend a system that they are 100% sure will screw them over if they don't double check everything themselves all the time.
How is that even possible?
Dude doesn’t even understand his own tax system… unless he’s self employed, the government is already taking out taxes from each paycheque.
The part where they do their taxes each year is to see if they qualify for any tax cuts or had other income that is also taxed. “Doing your taxes” isn’t when you pay taxes - it’s a yearly adjustment to verify you paid what you’re supposed to (theoretically, in reality we could all see there are plenty who don’t pay what they should, but I digress)
Also I’ve seen a lot of people say that the IRS already knows what you owe. No they don’t. The entire point of doing your taxes is to figure out which things apply to you. Classic example: you donate $100 to charity. You can claim that on your taxes to get some credit. How does the IRS know you donated to that charity? When you tell them, which you do by doing your taxes.
I can do that in the UK. I even have an online account where I can check up on HMRC and query things. I don't need to pay a "tax preparation" company to do it for me.
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u/Spirited-Top3307 3d ago
Just as much a nightmare as affordable health care, pension scheme, good school education, etc. An example as you show that you are an American without saying that you are an American.