The temptation is always there: include every last bit of income you earned last year on your tax return -- or not?
New research has found that we're more likely to do the right thing in situations of moral conflict when it requires little to no effort. If income information is automatically entered into our tax return, we may be less likely to alter it to something that is incorrect once it's there.
However, the passive response can promote cheating, too. When faced with a blank return, we may conveniently "forget" to fill in those bothersome boxes for things like extra money made on investments, which might push our taxes higher.
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Want Honesty? Make It the Easiest Choice, Suggests Research
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 26 2015, @07:52PM
I mean, taxes are important and all, but how much respect do you think people can have for the whole process when they see we're wasting trillions playing world police, the government using tax money to conduct mass surveillance on the populace, and rich people paying barely anything thanks to all the loopholes they've gotten so good at exploiting?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday November 26 2015, @08:31PM
I mean, taxes are important and all, but how much respect do you think people can have for the whole process when they see we're wasting trillions playing world police, the government using tax money to conduct mass surveillance on the populace, and rich people paying barely anything thanks to all the loopholes they've gotten so good at exploiting?
It does make you wonder whether the author wants honest people or gullible people with this strange emphasis on paying taxes.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 26 2015, @08:41PM
you can close the loopholes by designing it with java multicore. can the us gov afford java multicore? please reply!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 27 2015, @04:46AM
taxes are important and all
Taxes are not important. Taxes are wanted by big governments so they can give government jobs to people who could not get jobs otherwise. And to run huge international wars; it keeps their friendly war industries in business. And to pay jobless to stay jobless. And the homeless to stay homeless. There are few things taxes should be going to: 1) People unable to work for health reasons. But that is abused too. 2) Scientific research that private industry is unwilling to do.
Taxes are what gives the local currency its power. Without taxes, the local currency would go out of fashion. And the government won't be able to control you any more.
High taxes cause governments to get too big. Just like feeding your dog meat and snacks all day will cause him to get too fat. With little taxes, governments will be forced to stay small and unable to take away your rights and imprison you. Most governments need dieting.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Friday November 27 2015, @04:58AM
I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization. [quoteinvestigator.com]
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 26 2015, @08:11PM
nobody will need to lie when java multicore causes singularity. java multicore will save us all.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday November 26 2015, @08:15PM
Why are we filling in income at all if the government already has all the income information?
In short, it seems like an entrapment bait.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Snow on Thursday November 26 2015, @08:29PM
Just a guess....
Your employer fills out your income on a government form and sends it to the government. You also get a copy.
So how would you get that information into your tax software? Query the government's servers? How do you prove you are who you say you are? What's to prevent me from putting your information on my tax form and then hitting submit to be shown all your earnings info?
It's just easier to make millions of citizens manually type in their figures. No liability/privacy issues.
Just my guess.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday November 26 2015, @08:54PM
So how would you get that information into your tax software?
Why should I put it into my tax software at all? The government already HAS that data.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Bobs on Friday November 27 2015, @12:50PM
The issue is there is a strong lobby to keep tax returns complicated, there are few people willing to lobby / contribute money to simplify returns.
for years now, Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, has fought tooth and nail to prevent automatic tax filing from becoming a reality, lobbying against bipartisan legislation to introduce it with the help of a powerful tech industry trade group and conservative anti-taxers like Grover Norquist. Intuit and its competitors in online tax prep don’t want the government cutting its market share. The tax-crusaders want to ensure that paying the government remains as much of a painful, resentment-generating slog as ever. And thus a potent alliance has been born.
from http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/04/14/turbotax_maker_s_sleazy_pr_campaign_intuit_doesn_t_want_the_irs_to_make.html [slate.com]
The idea, known as "return-free filing," would be a voluntary alternative to hiring a tax preparer or using commercial tax software. The concept has been around for decades and has been endorsed by both President Ronald Reagan and a campaigning President Obama.
...
it's been opposed for years by the company behind the most popular consumer tax software — Intuit, maker of TurboTax. Conservative tax activist Grover Norquist and an influential computer industry group also have fought return-free filing.
Intuit has spent about $11.5 million on federal lobbying in the past five years — more than Apple or Amazon. Although the lobbying spans a range of issues, Intuit's disclosures pointedly note that the company "opposes IRS government tax preparation."
from http://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-maker-of-turbotax-fought-free-simple-tax-filing [propublica.org]
a more recent and in-depth look at the current lobbying against it by Intuit: TurboTax Maker Linked to ‘Grassroots’ Campaign Against Free, Simple Tax Filing [propublica.org]
To sum up: some people want filing taxes to be a big complicated mess.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 26 2015, @09:19PM
All the tax software like turbotax can already import W2 wages from some central service. I do all my taxes offline so I have no idea how they verify your identity but its been an option for like a decade. I doubt it has 100% coverage though. Probably relies on your employer handing it over to a big data company like equifax. [nbcnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 26 2015, @09:35PM
I think you meant report that data to the irs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 27 2015, @04:45AM
> I think you meant report that data to the irs.
Nope. The entire point of my response was to say that the data source is NOT the IRS. Since you made the effort to post such a dense response I decided to make the effort to find out how it works for sure in order to counter-act the stupid and achieve balance. Turns out the payroll handler must be signed up with the tax software company. At least that is what the turbotax website says:
Your employer's payroll provider needs to be a TurboTax Import Partner. [turbotax.com]
If they're not, you won't be able to import.
https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1934390-how-do-i-import-my-w-2 [intuit.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by kbahey on Thursday November 26 2015, @10:03PM
In some Nordic countries, you get a form from the government once a year with all the income that was reported given to you. You just sign the document and return it. No tax preparation necessary.
In Canada, we have started on a path of what may turn out to be this same end goal. You register to login to the government site, via an authentication via your bank. That gives a level of confidence that you are who you say you are. The government then has some information that helps with tax preparation. My accountant used that data for the past two years. You just sign a form authorizing him access to that info.
If that evolves enough, we may end up in a form with everything on it, and you amend it for additional income, and we are done.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning [2bits.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 27 2015, @04:48AM
That will never happen in the US. The tax software lobby is very protective of their profits. [turbotax.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 27 2015, @04:59AM
Correct link: The tax software lobby is very protective of their profits. [techcrunch.com]
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday November 27 2015, @12:02AM
You wouldn't need tax software. The IRS calculates your taxes and sends you the bill along with the calculations for verification.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 26 2015, @09:03PM
they need java multicore. it has wait() and notify() primitives. java multicore will help here, because its java.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday November 26 2015, @10:22PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday November 27 2015, @12:46AM
By using Form 4070 or 4070A [irs.gov]. The former by the employer, the later by the employee.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Friday November 27 2015, @07:28PM
Which is another reason to do away with tipping. Automatically generated returns don't need to be perfect to be useful for people.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Thursday November 26 2015, @08:45PM
Managers seem to love doing some gamification with procedures, but not in the way that TFS is talking about. Instead they make it so that reporting a problem leads to pointless extra work for the reporter and grumbling from managers, but pretending everything is peachy and pencil-whipping the documentation leads to peace and harmony.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 26 2015, @09:01PM
Braking news
(Score: 4, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday November 26 2015, @10:19PM
New research has found that we're more likely to do the right thing in situations of moral conflict when it requires little to no effort.
I really can't imagine any circumstance where that would not just be obviously true. It seems almost tautological.
If income information is automatically entered into our tax return, we may be less likely to alter it to something that is incorrect once it's there.
I'm not sure if that's about effort, or more about plausible deniability. If you see that correct information has already been put on a form, surely you're going to assume that it is known to be correct by the other party, and thus any attempt to lie about it would be futile.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 27 2015, @03:36PM
I modded you up for the simple reason that it is the only relevant comment here (though your comments are spot-on anyway). The rest seem to be from a bunch of fucktards who bend every fucking topic back to their favorite ax to grind.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 27 2015, @08:00AM
Are you trying to claim there's a moral right-vs-wrong component to paying taxes to the U.S. Government?
Guess I'll try to read the article when I stop laughing.