> But plenty of other countries have those too and manage to not have an insanely complex tax-filling regime?
Citation needed. How can you have a non-complex tax filing regime when you have so many deductions and credits that only the taxpayer knows about or has documentation of?
When I donate to a charity, they don’t report my donations directly to the IRS (nor should they - we don’t want the government to be collecting data on everyone’s charity giving). I have to collect the letters they send me at the end of the year and total my donations in order to deduct my charitable contributions. The government never even knows what charities I donated to unless I’m audited and they ask for proof.
> that only the taxpayer knows about or has documentation of?
Therein lies the rub, I suspect; other countries do know about what you're doing with the deductions and credits which means the tax office can handle all that for you - and, indeed, they are much more suited to be handling this - rather than pushing it onto each individual to try and scrabble together once a year.
I suppose we can add "incoherent fear of the government" to "corporate bogeyman" to the list of reasons the US has a messed up tax situation.
> (nor should they - we don’t want the government to be collecting data on everyone’s charity giving)
You do if there's specific tax breaks for doing that.
Citation needed. How can you have a non-complex tax filing regime when you have so many deductions and credits that only the taxpayer knows about or has documentation of?
When I donate to a charity, they don’t report my donations directly to the IRS (nor should they - we don’t want the government to be collecting data on everyone’s charity giving). I have to collect the letters they send me at the end of the year and total my donations in order to deduct my charitable contributions. The government never even knows what charities I donated to unless I’m audited and they ask for proof.