Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> Many countries have deeply complex tax codes.

Can you give an example of any country whose tax code is more than 70k pages long?

Or a country where it requires, by default, taxes paid on money earned while living oversees, depending on a large number of international treaties, case law, and expensive private letter rulings? Or a country that requires you to file a different tax return in almost every state you step your foot in while working remotely? Or a country that requires you to essentially recalculate taxes on a quarterly basis to determine if you should be fined for underpaying estimated taxes?

> nightmare scenario

That’s not a nightmare scenario. That’s just a standard audit. They assume, e.g., zero coat basis, or residency, or it wasn’t used for business, or ... and you have to prove otherwise.



https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/29/15109214/t...

> As of 2014, the tax code was only about 2,600 pages long

The usa hardly has a monopoly on tax code complexity. We're talking about personal income tax right now and I can't find a complexity index for that, but for business taxes the usa ranks fairly low on https://www.taxcomplexity.org/

> That’s not a nightmare scenario. That’s just a standard audit.

The "nightmare" scenario was "you recalculate it from scratch, send it to them, and then they audit you." - a scenario you put forward where this improvement to the tax code (auto-filled returns) results in a world where any time your return isn't what they auto-filled you get audited. That sounds bad, but has not happened anywhere where auto-filled returns have been implemented.


> the tax code was only 2,600 pages - Vox

> “a tax practitioner who relies just on the tax statutes will go to jail” - Tax Foundation

https://taxfoundation.org/how-many-words-are-tax-code/

> nightmare scenario has not happened anywhere

I’d be surprised to learn that any country had zero audits, because their file-free tax system worked for everyone. Is that the case anywhere?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: