Here's what Perplexity.ai said:
However, filing separately as a married couple generally disqualifies you from the EITC because it could potentially be used to circumvent the income limits of the credit. For example, if one spouse has a low income and the other has a high income, they could file separately to make the low-income spouse eligible for the EITC, even though their combined income would be above the limit for the credit
If the government can't keep track of the money they take that they're supposed to give back because they shouldn't have taken it in the first place then they shouldn't take it in the first place. 🤷 They use it all year long to earn interest which we never see even though it's our money they're borrowing and to many of us that interest could make a huge difference.
If it weren’t for credits and deductions filing taxes would be easy. It’s the tax breaks that make it complicated. I can’t imagine the amount of extra personnel the IRS would need in order to track and account for every tax break a couple hundred million people qualify for.
It's 2024, there's no reason at all it shouldn't all be automatic.
I think a lot of people would have serious reservations about every aspect of their life being instantly and automatically added to a central government database. Yeah, pretty much everything you do is recorded by some government agency somewhere, but ONE agency knowing everything about everyone sounds like a privacy nightmare. Hackers breach ONE system and suddenly everything is out.
They already have all the information, they're clearly just mismanaging it.
They don’t, though. The IRS doesn’t know where your kids go to daycare, or how much you’re paying for it, until you claim it as a deduction on your taxes.
Then how do they "catch" people? The data is there or they couldn't.
They audit you, and you provide proof of what deductions you qualify for. If you say you paid $10,000 for child care, and you have paperwork from the daycare to prove it, then you’re good. If you said you paid $10,000 for child care and it turns out you don’t have any children, you’re kinda fucked. Same goes for things like charitable donations. The IRS has no idea that you donated to a cancer charity unless you claim it as a deduction. If they audit you, you’d better have proof of the donation.
And how do they know to audit? Because they have the information already and they can make you a modern indentured servant if you can't get out of it.
If you claim 17 children as deductions, you’ll probably get audited. If you claim a new Ferrari as a business expense deduction, you’ll probably get audited. The IRS is not some evil omnipresent overlord looking to lock you into a life of servitude, and the people trying to convince you of that are: 1) very wealthy people trying to avoid paying taxes, and 2) the actual people trying to lock you into a life of servitude.
The reason is one half of our elected officials want the tax paying process to be as difficult as possible
Because of the particulars of US tax code, individual tax liability is a function of income, information voluntarily provided to them. At least, the accuracy of the info is voluntary; submitting a w4 is required on hiring. Since you can claim five dependents and then file with zero, the government won't know what you owe until you file.
Some people use this incongruency to pay almost nothing during the year and pay in at filing. Others do the opposite to avoid underpayment.
Tax prep industry has helped to make the process disgustingly opaque, and I sure wish it was simpler.
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!