<story><title>Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/opinion/filing-taxes-in-japan-is-a-breeze-why-not-here.html?ref=opinion&amp;_r=1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>caseysoftware</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s good evidence for this. That was part of the reason the Feds pushed employers to do withholding &amp;quot;on our behalf&amp;quot; during the 1930s. Prior to that, taxes were filed quarterly and then only a small % of people. But people actually saw how much they paid.&lt;p&gt;Withholding was a clever and subtle way for us to never see part of our paycheck so then any tax return we get feels like a bonus when it was actually just an interest free loan to the government.&lt;p&gt;Another way to look at it.. people here talk about $Xk that they make but it&amp;#x27;s always pre-tax. Ask the same people what they make post-tax and I&amp;#x27;d wager less than a quarter can answer it accurately.</text></item><item><author>pharrlax</author><text>Overlooked in this article and comments is the influence of one man -- Grover Norquist.&lt;p&gt;He runs an extremely influential organization that administers a sort of purity pledge that, for most Republican candidates for Congress, is necessary to sign in order to avoid being primaried.&lt;p&gt;He has decided that making taxes easier to do would make people more okay with tax increases, and so he has decreed that support for the kind of systems other countries use is a violation of this pledge. His excuse is that such a system would effectively slightly increase taxation by preventing people from getting away with taking erroneous deductions. This excuse is obvious, total bullshit.&lt;p&gt;Grover Norquist wants taxes to be painful because he wants people to dislike government and the concept of taxation in general. Thus, Republicans in Congress must take the same opinion or risk having their purity stamp revoked. Thus, no reforms get passed.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps this is one area Trump can do some good; certainly he&amp;#x27;s much less beholden to the traditions that bind the old guard (for better or for worse).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kelnos</author><text>Yep, it&amp;#x27;s all just psychological warfare.&lt;p&gt;The destruction of the tax prep industry in the US would make me so happy that it would overshadow any negative feelings I might have about my tax payments being more transparent to me.&lt;p&gt;The numbers quoted in the article are insane.  Over $10 billion that could be spent on actual useful economic output, wasted.  Hours and hours of individuals&amp;#x27; time, wasted.  It&amp;#x27;s disgusting.&lt;p&gt;In some ways I find the preservation of the tax prep industry to be even worse than Trump&amp;#x27;s recent attempts to protect&amp;#x2F;resurrect coal industry jobs.</text></comment>
<story><title>Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/opinion/filing-taxes-in-japan-is-a-breeze-why-not-here.html?ref=opinion&amp;_r=1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>caseysoftware</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s good evidence for this. That was part of the reason the Feds pushed employers to do withholding &amp;quot;on our behalf&amp;quot; during the 1930s. Prior to that, taxes were filed quarterly and then only a small % of people. But people actually saw how much they paid.&lt;p&gt;Withholding was a clever and subtle way for us to never see part of our paycheck so then any tax return we get feels like a bonus when it was actually just an interest free loan to the government.&lt;p&gt;Another way to look at it.. people here talk about $Xk that they make but it&amp;#x27;s always pre-tax. Ask the same people what they make post-tax and I&amp;#x27;d wager less than a quarter can answer it accurately.</text></item><item><author>pharrlax</author><text>Overlooked in this article and comments is the influence of one man -- Grover Norquist.&lt;p&gt;He runs an extremely influential organization that administers a sort of purity pledge that, for most Republican candidates for Congress, is necessary to sign in order to avoid being primaried.&lt;p&gt;He has decided that making taxes easier to do would make people more okay with tax increases, and so he has decreed that support for the kind of systems other countries use is a violation of this pledge. His excuse is that such a system would effectively slightly increase taxation by preventing people from getting away with taking erroneous deductions. This excuse is obvious, total bullshit.&lt;p&gt;Grover Norquist wants taxes to be painful because he wants people to dislike government and the concept of taxation in general. Thus, Republicans in Congress must take the same opinion or risk having their purity stamp revoked. Thus, no reforms get passed.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps this is one area Trump can do some good; certainly he&amp;#x27;s much less beholden to the traditions that bind the old guard (for better or for worse).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>djstein</author><text>&amp;gt;Ask the same people what they make post-tax and I&amp;#x27;d wager less than a quarter can answer it accurately.
just sad. so many people skip basic budgeting..</text></comment>