Would it be wrong to make tax reporting online only?
Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2014 10:51 am
To clarify, I meant, would it be wrong to retire every 1040 (and all its version), 1065, 1120, and every other tax form and make all online-reporting only?
A bit of info you should be aware of:
There are already third party sites that handle returns for a price. They can also handle tax payments for individuals and corporations. What I'm suggesting is making irs.gov the last tax site you'll ever need.
An argument against this is "My taxes are way too complicated to be done online. What would we do if a site was lacking a section we'd need? We'd get penalized for not making the correct report." The IRS is aware of every kind of tax form it receives and the rules around them.
Another thing to think about is, the IRS likes third parties handling their web reports, because they can't be at fault for mistakes done by a third party. Making the irs.gov site be the only way to report would make the IRS liable for errors on this system, moving the blame from the individual to the government entity.
How would it work?
"Set it and forget it" or enter the numbers in manually.
1099s and W2s would be phased out and instead, links between individuals would be made through tax user accounts on the IRS page. If you are an employee all the information needed will be reported by your employer already, as it currently is done. Interest accruing accounts would also be linked, for live reporting, or entered in manually as per the date at the end of the reporting period.
The interface would focus on being intuitive and require minimal data to be entered in by the taxpayer; it wouldn't resemble paper documents.
It would also allow you to access your entire tax history and give a list of entities trying to gain access to parts of your tax history, which you can approve or reject, without ever having to print out a transcript.
There's a lot I haven't covered, but this should be enough to argue against or for this change.
A bit of info you should be aware of:
There are already third party sites that handle returns for a price. They can also handle tax payments for individuals and corporations. What I'm suggesting is making irs.gov the last tax site you'll ever need.
An argument against this is "My taxes are way too complicated to be done online. What would we do if a site was lacking a section we'd need? We'd get penalized for not making the correct report." The IRS is aware of every kind of tax form it receives and the rules around them.
Another thing to think about is, the IRS likes third parties handling their web reports, because they can't be at fault for mistakes done by a third party. Making the irs.gov site be the only way to report would make the IRS liable for errors on this system, moving the blame from the individual to the government entity.
How would it work?
"Set it and forget it" or enter the numbers in manually.
1099s and W2s would be phased out and instead, links between individuals would be made through tax user accounts on the IRS page. If you are an employee all the information needed will be reported by your employer already, as it currently is done. Interest accruing accounts would also be linked, for live reporting, or entered in manually as per the date at the end of the reporting period.
The interface would focus on being intuitive and require minimal data to be entered in by the taxpayer; it wouldn't resemble paper documents.
It would also allow you to access your entire tax history and give a list of entities trying to gain access to parts of your tax history, which you can approve or reject, without ever having to print out a transcript.
There's a lot I haven't covered, but this should be enough to argue against or for this change.