Tax Day doesn't have to suck this much. At least not for most people. The Internal Revenue Service knows what you make. They know if you typically take the standard deduction. For a lot of Americans, they could just fill their their taxes out for them.
Having the IRS auto-prepare American's taxes would save billions of dollars in tax preparation fees and hundreds of millions of hours in time spent filling out tax forms. Politicians ranging from President Obama to Ronald Reagan have supported this tax change — but there are some very rich companies and some very powerful activists standing in its way.
For much more on this subject, ProPublica's investigation of Intuit's lobbying against automatic tax filing is the best look at why a policy with so much bipartisan support for so long can't seem to pass Congress; the Sunlight Foundation has even more lobbying numbers here. Wonks will want to spend some time with economist Austan Goolsbee's white paper on how automatic filing could work in practice. And you can read Intuit's case against California's ReadyReturn system here.
Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?
Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:
First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.
Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.
So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)
If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.
Yes, I'll give $5/month
Yes, I'll give $5/month
We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and
Google Pay. You can also contribute via
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66094116/Screenshot_2016-03-24_13.02.48.0.0.0.0.png)