(01-02-2021, 06:48 PM)KodiakJag Wrote:

(01-02-2021, 12:43 PM)mikesez Wrote: In the US, your employer pre-pays an estimate of what you will owe over the course of the year.
But you are still obligated to fill the forms out and do the real calculation yourself at the end of the year.  Private services like TurboTax and TaxAct step in the gap and fill out the forms for you, but, in my opinion those guys are making money for nothing.  The IRS already knows what your forms should look like; they should just send them to you, and you can review them, and decide whether to agree and sign or whether to dispute something on them.

Mike, how is the IRS expected to know if you bought a house, had a child born, donated money to charities, etc. if all they had was your payroll info?  It's more than just filling out the forms with all the info the IRS has on you, it's filling out the forms AND providing the info that they don't have.

They know more than you think.  Even though charities don't have to pay taxes, they are expected to declare what they receive with the IRS.  Anyhow, most people don't itemize, meaning their charitable contributions are irrelevant. 
If you have a mortgage, your lender is filing interest statements with the IRS the same way your employer does. Your broker also loops the IRS in on your investment activity, and your bank or credit union loops them in too. Any tax form you get from them, that same info already went to the IRS.
The IRS probably wouldn't know about how many kids you have, birth and death, or if any of your kids aren't dependent on you anymore.  So yes, you'd have to correct that aspect.  But that's like 5% of the work.  The other 95% is busy work they dump on us for no good reason.  It's a gift to H&R Block and others.  Those guys have excellent lobbyists.

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