ggBarabajagal

@ggBarabajagal@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tax time⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  But how do they know what they know about your income? Didn’t you (or your employer on your behalf) already volunteer this information to the government in the first place? Or is your government monitoring your private financial transactions without your express consent?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tax time⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If you need to check it, then maybe they are not calculating your taxes for you, so much they are taking their best guess and asking you to sign off on it. If their best guess is as good (or better) than yours, there is no difference in practice. But there is still a difference in principle: whether a citizen is permitted to declare their own income or whether the government is obliged to determine it for them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tax time⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The IRS calculates an employee’s taxes based on the income and withholding information provided to the IRS by the employer. The employee “volunteers” his tax information (and IRS witholding payment, if any) with each paycheck. The accounting for all this is listed right there on the paystub.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tax time⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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.