Rental contracts must be registered with the authorities where I live. Not only to report income, but also to prevent illegal renting.

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piker a day ago | parent [-]

Okay so you obviously live in a country with a far different system. The U.S. tends towards a “trust but verify” approach. Both systems have their positives and negatives

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linsomniac a day ago | parent | next [-]

>The U.S. tends towards a “trust but verify”

The impression I get is the US tends towards a "protect the lobby income streams" approach. Specifically related to taxes: the IRS has the majority of the information it needs to just send you a tax bill/credit. And cases where they don't can be rectified by submitting that information which isn't (like rental income, which AFAIK you are supposed to be reporting and paying quarterly taxes on anyway).

The reason they don't seems to largely be that the tax prep industry has lobbied to keep it from happening, and shut down "free file" by the IRS.

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elmer2 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

How is it protecting any 'lobby'? There are many free options. I've been filing taxes since I was 15 without the help of an accountant.

The government would love to just take the money out anyway, it would mean the average person would pay no deductions and have more taken out without them even knowing.

It's better to have some friction when it comes to taxes, so the population has an idea of what's being given to the government every year.

When it's invisible, like in your country, citizens don't actually know what they're paying and the government can just spend it with no accountability.

A similar example of this is the gas tax. It's not separated out and the government continues to raise it and blame the oil companies for the increase in cost.

	▲	linsomniac 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>How is it protecting any 'lobby'? This topic was about the IRS "free filing" service, which was shut down in part because Turbo Tax and other other tax filing services had lobbyists pushing for it to be shut down. https://news.bgov.com/daily-tax-report/tax-prep-gop-aligned-...

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twoodfin 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

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hendiatris a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think you might be misunderstanding that phrase.

	▲	piker a day ago \| parent [-]
		probably

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cwmoore a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Quizzically, the old Russian proverb “trust but verify” is not the experience I expect from US governments, but rather “punish if caught”.