Banks are obligated to report the holdings you own, brokers are obligated to report both what you own and any gains/losses you have endured over the year, land and home ownership is also reported, many deductibles are reported (f.ex. daycare is a deductible and that is automatically reported). Basically most things are reported automatically and if there's anything else, like a long commute (which for some unknown reason is deductible), there is a simple form on the web site you can fill.
Details aren't going away because tax policy is used to incentivize or disincentivize activities. Mandate reporting for what you can, provide an exception process when that isn't feasible. A majority of citizens can have their taxes done for them by the IRS, so do so.
This is a non-issue. Of course the government won't know everything for everyone. That is the reason you get the chance to make changes to your return. And even then, it'll still be a little easier than doing the same return in the US.
Even with a system of "not so many details", a few things are simply going to slip through the cracks but this isn't going to affect most people.
Sure. The IRS obviously isn't doing this for everybody. But what percentage of the population do you think has crypto gains, overseas earnings, or business expenses each year?
I pay something like $120 to TurboTax annually to file federal taxes and taxes for two states. I've got a W2 from my job, dividends and gains/losses from equity sales from my brokerage, 1099-Rs for my IRA and 401k, a 5498 for my HSA, and a bunch of deductions for charitable giving, which I perform through my DAF. Every single one of these forms is submitted to the government with complete information needed to compute my tax burden, except for the cost basis of my RSUs which is against some idiotic law to report to the IRS. Fix that, and the IRS can send me a bill. What percentage of the population do you think has more complex taxes than me?
