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0 pointsspecialist6y ago0 comments

"It’s a balance."

What would that look like?

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3 comments · 1 top-level

BurningFrog6y ago· 2 in thread

One way to maximize revenue would be for every tax payer to be audited every year.

Things like that is what I think about when I hear some of the hardline comments here.

matwood6y ago

> One way to maximize revenue would be for every tax payer to be audited every year.

Oddly enough, the government has the information to do this for many (most?) tax payers every year and send them the forms pre-filled out ready to sign. Unfortunately, the tax prep companies fight letting the government do this.

sokoloff6y ago

Around 1/3 of returns are business returns. I don't think the IRS has anywhere near enough information to auto-file those. Anyone who has charitable contributions (and frankly, probably anyone who is itemizing deductions) also likely has return information which the IRS does not have access to. Anyone who is amortizing discount points on real estate or has stock trades from stocks purchased prior to Jan 1, 2011 is in a situation where the IRS can't auto-file for them. In 2017 (last year of returns before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act rules changes which will reduce the number of those itemizing), about 30% of personal returns itemized.

I do suspect that a lot of "extremely simple" returns could have a pro-forma return auto-prepared by the IRS (and I'd support the IRS trying to permit that, in part because "f*%k Intuit").

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