On one side, civil society groups this week launched a coalition to promote the move toward a government-run free-file program. On the other, tax preparation firms like Intuit and H&R Block have been pouring millions into lobbying to try to stop the idea cold.
Are there that many self employed? Most other countries seem to handle this the, imo, sensible way, where employees are auto-taxed, and the self employed file their own.
100% agreed, the complications are part of the equation but shouldn’t stop us from making a basic system that works for most people. As long as there’s a way to manually enter and categorize exceptions in the form of assets, extra income, investments, etc it would work for almost everyone.
For w2 employees that makes a whole lot of sense, for the self employed it doesn’t really seem possible for the govt to calculate
Are there that many self employed? Most other countries seem to handle this the, imo, sensible way, where employees are auto-taxed, and the self employed file their own.
According to bls.gov
15 million people were self-employed in 2015, or 10.1 percent of all U.S. workers
So then why not have a system that works for the 90% of people who are employees?
100% agreed, the complications are part of the equation but shouldn’t stop us from making a basic system that works for most people. As long as there’s a way to manually enter and categorize exceptions in the form of assets, extra income, investments, etc it would work for almost everyone.