You guess with a calculator and detailed instructions. Educated guess.
Here in Sweden they just come finalised. There may be occasions where you’ll need to make changes, but that’s literally never happened to me. “Doing taxes” involves me logging onto a website, skimming over a page or so, and then digitally signing it using my phone. Takes less than five minutes.
Here in the US, we have companies who offer their services to prepare taxes for you, and they spend an unreasonable sum lobbying the government specifically to not do what you lucky folks have been getting all along. Just can’t have the US without unfettered capitalism ruining things for average folk. :(
You do engineering with calculator and detailed instructions, educated guess. You do mechanics with detailed insturctions. You do cooking with detailed instructions. You do rocket science with calculator and detailed insturctions. Just be built diffrent ladies! It’s not THAT hard or an entire predetory industry, JEEZE FELLERS! /s
Are you suggesting that putting a number from box A into box B, and subtracting box C from box D, is as hard as rocket science???
In reality -
Me: $600
IRS: are you a billionaire?
Me: what if I am?
IRS: $600 is too much
Just a PSA, the IRS recently instituted some kind of AI algorithm that is re-flagging a lot of things that have already been resolved… a friend got a bill for $1500 which they had earlier sent a letter of apology for. He doesn’t actually owe anything, it’s just the glitchy algorithm sending the old bill out again.
If you don’t understand why you owe more, don’t just give up and pay it. The IRS can make mistakes too.
Years ago they actually sent me a check because they thought I should have taken a deduction that I didn’t. I didn’t want to get on a gotcha list, so I sent back a letter explaining that the deduction was not proper for my situation, and they responded that if that was the case, I needed to file an amended return. That was way more energy than I wanted to spend on this issue, so I just ignored the check… until the next year, when they mailed me another one with a tartly-worded form letter about the importance of promptly depositing it, and again the year after. At that point I figured if Uncle Sam is that desperate for me to take the money I’d indulge him. At this point I’m well past the statute of repose for any potential issues that created, so I think I’m in the clear, but I guess we’ll see.
Meanwhile here, come tax time I get a letter and only people that have special things going on like stuff they would get subsidies for (like installing solar panels or insulating), will have to alter what the letter says. Most everyone else can ignore the letter as all their taxes have been paid in full or they get something back.
How it actually works is that the IRS doesn’t known how much you need to pay. You provide your income and taxes already paid throughout the year then the IRS says “yeah, looks about right for what you made” or here’s money back you paid to much or didn’t pay enough. It only gets complicated when you have huge amounts of money.
That’s still dumb AF, they could easily do like many other countries do and send you a breakdown of what you owe/getting back and why. You look it over and go “looks good to me” and have to do nothing or “This part is wrong” or “I qualify for Y tax break/incentive/credit” and then file some proof and you’re done.
But the tax prep companies lobby really hard to keep things as difficult as they are
Your employer is required to submit the amount you were paid and the taxes that were withheld. The IRS knows how much you owe assuming that is your one source of income and you don’t have deductions beyond the standard.
Exactly. The IRS has TONS of information on every individual and business. There may be some unreported items, but that’s the exception to the rule.
The IRS has a “transcript” with all of the many reported transactions associated with each person/entity. And you can request this transcript, which many people with complicated tax situations do so they can verify that everything is reported correctly and their records match the IRS data.
