Comment on Tax time

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ggBarabajagal@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

We have a “voluntary” tax system in the U.S. – that’s always been the situation. “Voluntary” doesn’t mean that that you can choose to not volunteer to pay your taxes. It mostly just means that the way we run things, by default, it is each citizen’s responsibility to calculate and pay their taxes each April.

American taxpayers filled out 1040 forms in the days before computers, a lot like they do now. The IRS selected certain fillings for audits, just like they do now – sometimes because of an apparent discrepancy, and sometimes just at random.

It would be a lot more work, take a lot more resources, and be prone to a lot more error and lawsuits, if the IRS tried to calculate everyone’s taxes for them. Even now that we are in the days of computers, it is much more efficient for the IRS to only audit a fraction of the filings submitted each year.

I’m also pretty sure our “voluntary” tax filling system has something to do with the Fourth Amendment and other privacy concerns. A lot of Americans very strongly believe that it is not the government’s place to be all up in their private business.

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