A Norwegian "ENK" ("enkeltmannsforetak"; self-employment) deals with a more integrated state reporting environment, stricter cash-sale controls, more emphasis on formal bookkeeping and VAT/cash-register infrastructure, and a more pre-filled tax ecosystem.

You can get a long way cheating the system if you deal with cash only, as banks etc. are required to report everything about everyone to the government, but these days it can only take you so far.

My understand is that the US is much more depending on self-reporting.

But given that the US has its own industry involving tax reporting, and having lived there myself, I don't believe you when you say it's "simple." ;)

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SoftTalker 4 hours ago | parent [-]

If you have only W2 income ("W2" is the name of the form the employer reports your income and tax witholding on) and no unusual other credits or deductions, then US tax filing is very simple. It is not much more than:

Taxable income = Total income - Standard deduction

Look up tax due in a table.

Subtract taxes already witheld, pay (or refund) the difference.

In most states you also have to file, but this is normally just transcribing a few totals from your federal filing and then computing the state tax due, normally just a simple percentage multiple.

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thatwasunusual 4 hours ago | parent [-]

If it's that simple, how come it's so complicated that the US have an entire business line profiting from tax filing?

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SoftTalker 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Most people never look into how simple their situation might be. They just pay TurboTax $50 and move on with their day.

But also, taxes can get complicated, I'm just suggesting that for many people, with typical incomes and employment, they are not.

When I was in middle school (1970s) we learned how to file a tax return. For some reason this is no longer taught today.

	▲	thatwasunusual 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> When I was in middle school (1970s) we learned how to file a tax return. For some reason this is no longer taught today. We have the same problem in Norway; youngsters aren't taught proper private economy at school, just the "normal maths." Which leads to people getting into financial trouble because of stupid stuff. :/ Thanks for updating me on the US tax system! Hope all is well over there! :)