alt Hacker NewsLet’s say I rent a spare bedroom my home to someone; who’s going to report that income if not me?
If your income is actually fully reported to the IRS (W-2 or various 1099) filing taxes is a breeze anyways. Use one of the several free (as in beer) software to take a picture of your forms and it generates the right form that you can submit electronically to the IRS.
Replies
Rental contracts must be registered with the authorities where I live. Not only to report income, but also to prevent illegal renting.
You add that manually to your prefilled forms. In countries that have automated these things, there are often even wizards that ask you to confirm such things before you can approve and send the prefilled forms. Tax authorities put together as much as they can from their sources and you only have to add the missing parts, if there are any. And done.
I am pretty shocked that you'd defend the system of tax reporting in the US. Have you seen:
[Intuit: Lobbying to Save TurboTax](https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=67211)
Can I assume that you also oppose healthcare reform?
> Let’s say I rent a spare bedroom my home to someone; who’s going to report that income if not me?
How many people are in this situation? Or have other forms of income that are not part of their full-time job payroll? I know I don't, and most of my personal circle.
Even if 'only' 50% of the population is covered by the situation of having solely one income via payroll, that's still half the country not having to faff about with tax forms or tax software.