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CA State Offers To Prepare Simple Tax Returns
Makarand writes "California is ready to roll out a program for taxpayers where the
state will
offer to fill out their tax forms for them if they are simple enough. Taxpayers
will merely have to go online, download and review the completed forms prepared
for them and confirm their return. This program is supposed to save money
for the state, reduce tax related headaches for many and bring into the
tax system those who are not paying any taxes currently.
The state will take information it already receives on W-2 wage statements,
put it in the right boxes on the tax return, and do the math."
New Zealand has been doing this for several years now - the only difference being that we don't get to look over the completed forms, which I have always been a bit leery about. But if you get to see what they have done, I think that this is a Good Thing.
> and i JUST switched my residency to georgia!
> oh well, i suppose i'll just have to console
> myself with all this extra untaxed cash.
Yeah, and the worst public schools and one of the highest crime rates in the country.
Hurray for rugged self-reliance!
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The tax code is simple enough in New Zealand that most people simply go with what IRD asseses, and that's usually right.
The only reason it's not national is
Sorry, unless the next thing you said was "politics," then you are wrong.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
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It's mostly due to our referendum system where any nutjob with a few dollars can collect signatures and get his idea placed on the ballot. That's where property tax caps, no healthcare for illegals, medical marijuana, definition of marriage, stem cell bonds, etc... all came from.
you'll have to document all of your purchases to qualify for the "spending up to the poverty level" rebate
Nope. A check for the amount of tax that would be charged at the poverty level comes every month. See the FAQ.
The tax system is too complicated... we need the Gullibility Tax. Now, I will cut-and-paste something.
Simply put, the Gullibility Tax is a tax on slack-jawed credulity. If you are enough of a rube to believe that "Fair Tax" is anything but Orwellian doublespeak for a tax system that screws working people to help a small number of idle rich, then send me all your money now.
It's simple, and it's vastly biased in favor of the rich.
The poorer people will be spending 100% of their income (or close to it), while the more wealthy you are, the more you will save, which means you spend vastly less.
Hell, they PROMOTE this fact, saying taxing consumption is better than income, because those with no income will still have to make purchases.
It's always good to have a tax system that is extremely biased towards the rich, makes it harder on people who save their money (basically doubles the burden of inflation), and charges people just as much when they are making plenty of money, as it does when they are out of work and can't afford extra taxes.
What a stupid tax system.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
In Japan, if you're employed with a salary under 20 million yen (~$180k) and you don't have any other significant income--which covers a pretty large fraction of taxpayers--you don't even have to send in a tax return in the first place; your employer does it for you and you see the result on your December or January paycheck (we call it nenmatsu-chousei, end-of-year adjustment).
Good or bad? I dunno, but it's sure less of a pain than writing up a 1040 every year that says I don't owe the IRS any money because I earned it all abroad.
In sweden I have been doing tax returns via internet since 2003 or 2004. You just log in on the swedish IRS webpage, using the national internet-id system "bankID" (its platform indepedent). When you are logged in you find a bunch of html forms (income, profit on capital, etc) prefilled with numbers, just as the ordinary tax return. You also see how much return on tax you get or if you must pay more tax.
If everything is ok, you just click "send in", if you think something is wrong, you just change the numbers, give a motivation, and then click "send in". Just like with the normal declaration.
Also one can do the tax return via SMS; if everything looks good, you can SMS a code to a certain number, and voila, done. However, this sms-tax-return does not allow for altering of the declaration. But most people does not need to anyway.
There is also lots of other stuff to do on the swedish IRS webpage using BankID, such as checking the "tax-account" (its like a bank account, but on this only tax gets in and out) to see if the return of tax has come yet. Normally amounts above 100 SEK is automatically transferred to ones normal bank account (this is also configured via the webb).
It works really good. "E-government", as it is called here, is a good idea.
YOu, sir, aren't paying attention (or possibly didn't really read up on the plan).
/.!).
(You are a SIR, aren't you? One never knows, but this is
The rich get taxed. The poor get taxed. Under the current plan, there are returns based on overpayment, and some other things (such as family size v. income). The tax backets are useful, and they usually end up helping the poor (I know, cause I'm there--for now).
Under the fair tax, everyone gets a rebate check monthly. This amount is enough to cover a very basic set of necessities, and would actually end up being more than most poor families get in returns each year. For the rich, it would represent so very little money as to be ridiculous.
You claim that spending is so little for the rich, but you seem to forget your statistics (as have others). Even though the rich person doesn't spend much continously (although that is arguable), there is a tendency to spend in large chunks--frequently more than I make in a year will be spent in a moment--$30k for a wedding, $20k for a boat, $50k for a new car, $1000k for a new house (or more), $$$$$$ for a new jet (ultra rich).
These are figures that I will never spend. Now these may not represent monthly or yearly purchases, but for many of the really rich (foolishly rich), a new car every year is no big deal. I'll be lucky if I get to buy a brand new car in the next 10 years. There are enough celebrities and whatnot that spend in this fashion to keep the average amount spent in a given year fairly high!
Thus, the rich will, as always, be paying the lion's share of taxes, and getting a poor return on it. After all, the government isn't known for being ultra efficient (spend _all_ your budget boys!).
Finally, I am of the understanding that with the FairTax, that initial investment will also be taxed, thus helping raise the amount sent to government coffers. It would also reduce the size of the IRS, thus reducing the drain of collecting taxes.
I think that anyone who is against the FairTax isn't paying attention!
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
Pay attention--the rebate check to cover spending up to the poverty level addresses this. Sheesh. Read something.
I don't mean to be offensive, its just that people who bash the fairtax are seeming to fall into two categories:
1. those who have heard something bad, and are parroting what they've heard
2. those who don't understand it because they only read part of it.
It takes very little to understand that the FairTax plan is robust--it handles things like poverty line spending, and those who live at the higher end of the curve. Don't you think that these "obvious flaws" are obvious enough to those of us who support the plan to be seen and addressed?
When someone comes to me with a detailed analysis and then says, "Hey, I've run the numbers, and it doesn't work", then I'll sit up and pay attention. IN the meantime, let us all work on making the FairTax a reality.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)