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Notes -
The hostility of the IRS is quite a thing to behold. Way back when, when I was still on Reddit, I ran into a thread where someone asked for advice on what to do with some income they, or someone in their family didn't declare. In my naivete I asked why don't they just come clean, and got told ny someone else this could land them in prison. Now I don't know if this was just Redditors spreading Redditisms, but I was rather surprised. This actually works in Europe! If you actively confess before they catch you, they don't even charge interest.
The first indication that DOGE was going off the rails was when Elon proudly tweeted that he had shut down the IRS Direct File program. That might be the most out-of-touch thing I have ever seen him do.
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There is much to complain about Finnish taxes but the tax office's customer service certainly isn't one of them. I haven't heard a single complaint about them and apart from the rather long queuing times on phone (billed as a regular private phone number, not as a typical expensive service number) and some services only being open a few hours per day, their service has always been excellent and friendly. Taxes are of course calculated automatically and most changes and declarations can be done online but if you need to do something Right Now, you may need to call them on the phone.
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