I recently learned how big of a scam taxes in America are, not the actual tax rate, but how we actually pay our taxes, all of this. In countries like the Netherlands or Japan or New Zealand, none of this exists. Like if you search how to pay your taxes in Estonia, you get a video that is less than three minutes long. “Should be all fine. So let’s confirm. Submit.” What? How does this exist? These are places where the government operates a free — “Free.” “Free.” — internet portal where the citizens can pay their taxes. Meanwhile, here in the United States, filing taxes has two huge problems. It’s too complicated. And it’s too expensive. The majority of US taxpayers have to pay a private company to help us pay our taxes to the government. Collectively, we spend billions of dollars every year doing this. We spend billions of our precious spring hours tracking down documents, scanning crinkled, faded receipts and just hoping that this little green number goes up. “Right now, the tax code is so complicated, so complex, it is not working for anybody.” Oh, and we also pay emotionally. We worry. We wonder if we’re doing it right. And most of us have wondered what happens if we do it wrong. So why is it that a bunch of other countries have it easy, whereas we get the expensive, stressful, time-eroding version of paying taxes? To understand this absurdity, I teamed up once again with the Times editorial board writer Binya Appelbaum. OK, let’s do this….
