[Clips] Letting the IRS Do Your Taxes for You

[Peter Gutmann]

"R.A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com> forwarded:

>Imagine that filing your tax return was as simple as receiving a completed
>form from the Internal Revenue Service, signing it, then waiting for a refund
>or writing a check.

Some countries have been doing it this way for years.  For most wage-earners
all you get is a year-end statement from the tax department telling you how
much you owe or will get back, and that's it.  Saves both the tax people and
the masses a lot of unnecessary work (and since the US 1040 form is the most
horrific tax form of any country I've ever seen, it'd save even more work
there).  The only people who then still need to manually submit paperwork are
ones with irregular incomes, if you've made a tax-free donation, or there's
some other irregularity not handled by the automated system.

Peter.