[HN Gopher] IRS to Begin Trial of Its Own Free Tax-Filing System
___________________________________________________________________
IRS to Begin Trial of Its Own Free Tax-Filing System
Author : thelastgallon
Score : 350 points
Date : 2024-01-06 15:12 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| niij wrote:
| https://archive.is/qFtw5
| k2enemy wrote:
| > A spokeswoman for Intuit, Tania Mercado, criticized the direct
| file project as a "half-baked solution" and a waste of taxpayer
| money. "The direct file scheme is a solution in search of a
| problem," she said.
|
| Wow, I thought that Intuit would have gone for a little more
| subtlety.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| On the plus side, intuit saying something like this is exactly
| what I want to hear regarding a program like this. I would have
| been deeply suspicious if they were anything other than
| enthusiastically opposed to it.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Or they're saying this because they know the IRS effort
| doesn't have competent people on it (think what happened with
| the healthcare website when it launched) and is just prepping
| the waters for a "see we were telling you along this was a
| bad idea" criticism for congress people to spike it later.
| It's really hard to intuit the strategy being employed so
| best to just ignore them altogether. And if this turns into a
| partisan issue at all (which an unclean launch might because
| people are dumb about government tech in the US), then expect
| the Trump administration to kill this if they win to prevent
| this from becoming entrenched and popular like Obamacare is.
| downut wrote:
| I've used the US Free File Federal Taxes for the last five
| years and it just wasn't a problem, and I have yet to see
| anything that looked like programmer incompetence.
|
| Now, that said, the way you debug your submittal is to
| paste an entire page of error gibberish that looks like
| very low level database error output into an entry box they
| point you to. Sounds gross! Ewwwww! Well actually I've been
| debugging c++ templates since forever and hohum it doesn't
| bother me. However... every single time it decoded the
| problem and told me exactly what I needed to do. It has
| taken me 2-4 tries each year to get it debugged and then it
| sails right through. The final result I've fed into two
| different state forms and that has sailed right through
| too. All free, and not that much of my time.
|
| Now if they can get the UI for normies painless, which I
| suspect is the main programming problem (I don't say that
| UI programming is trivial), this will take off like a
| rocket ship and the US can the join the coterie of
| civilized nations that do this for all their citizens.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| If you're referring to Free Fillable Forms, the error
| messages are not DB errors, but "business logic rules
| errors". They do look like gibberish, but buried inside
| them is a code that can generally give a pretty clue as
| to the error.
|
| I agree that it would be much nicer if they said "The
| amount of line 29 of Form ABCD does not appear at line 18
| of Form WXYZ".
|
| Even nicer if you never had to manually transfer amounts
| between forms.
| downut wrote:
| Oh yes I am sorry; I didn't mean to imply that I thought
| that the DB was throwing an error. What the filing
| process email message body stated looked something like
| approximately "Form line xxx violates schema requirement
| such and such: <more gibberish>".
|
| I was thinking when I scanned the message was that I bet
| I could reverse engineer the problem from this back end
| generated text but why not do what the instructions say
| and just feed it into the parser box? And every time the
| next email message gave me exactly the thing I needed to
| do. It was cool, for a weird sort of nerd.
|
| So no, I was casting shade where the process was right in
| the sunlight: _I made the mistake, and the business logic
| caught it, and told me correctly every time what I needed
| to do to fix it_. I liked the whole process a lot.
| crazydoggers wrote:
| This is why we still have the income tax system that we do.
| It's a $14 billion a year industry. I've talked to people who
| work the lobbying system very hard. There's lots of wining and
| dining to make sure no one messes with the complexity of the
| system.
|
| We need more people who are immune to lobbying in government
| positions. We'll see how this goes.. depending on the next
| election cycle this will either get quashed quickly, or,
| fingers crossed, might fight on against a growing backlash.
| jlarocco wrote:
| > We need more people who are immune to lobbying in
| government positions.
|
| What we need to do is stop pretending people like that exist,
| and come up with a system that works despite people's self-
| interest, greed and corruption.
|
| Maybe what we have is the best we can do.
| bee_rider wrote:
| More transparency would probably be better. Make them wear
| NASCAR style jackets and all that.
| godelski wrote:
| This is always my frustration when people suggest things
| for governments. You cannot design a government that relies
| on people being good. You have to design a government that
| highly discourages bad actors, make it easy to eject them,
| and operates while they exist. It's a crazy hard
| optimization problem and isn't going to work if people are
| just smart or good. And I never understand why people
| suggest fixing government by giving government more power
| and nothing else.
| calamari4065 wrote:
| Maybe spending billions of dollars lobbying should be illegal
| ttyprintk wrote:
| It's not that lobbying is a major slice of $14B, it's that
| they actually spend only $3m and it's effective:
|
| https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-
| lobbying/clients/summary...
| kemotep wrote:
| Notoriously there is also a large contingent of anti-tax
| politicians and citizens that oppose making paying taxes
| easier. Their reasoning being the more friction there is
| the more likely that you will pay attention to how much
| you are being taxed and support their policies that cut
| taxes.
| recursive wrote:
| Not working. I'd pay _more_ for a convenient tax system.
| MenhirMike wrote:
| Which is really the main issue. Offering a more accessible
| free version to file taxes is great, but the real problem is
| the need to file taxes at all for a lot of people. The IRS
| already knows the relevant info: Your employer sends W-2
| information, your bank and broker are sending the various
| 1099 forms for interest, dividends, stock sale gains/losses,
| etc. Same for your spouse and kids/dependents. Don't even
| need to itemize in a lot of cases, since the standard
| deduction is preferable in many years.
|
| Unless you're dealing with foreign income, are a business, or
| do a lot of contract work for cash, I don't see much reason
| why the IRS can't just handle all the taxes automatically -
| apart from the fact that some company wants to charge me $150
| a year to file my taxes and making sure that my tax situation
| (which would fit on a beer coaster otherwise) is as
| complicated as possible.
| Klinky wrote:
| This is a good first step. Ideally it turns into a "verify
| this all looks correct & add anything we're missing" kinda
| thing.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Great way to look at it. It is a significantly smaller
| jump once the Federal system is in place and already
| handling returns for millions/years.
| whakim wrote:
| The article says that "in one possible scenario included
| in the agency's report to Congress, the I.R.S. could fill
| out tax returns with information it already has." We can
| only hope :)
| bmoxb wrote:
| That is how it works in many (most?) countries already -
| the US is an outlier in requiring every citizen to handle
| their own taxes.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| A lot of US GDP is Rube Goldberg machines to skim off the
| economy. Intuit, Visa/Mastercard, private health
| insurance industry, etc. Lots of pushback to be expected
| as government fixes this (FedNow for payments, IRS
| improvements for taxes, healthcare reform, and so on).
| Onward.
| graemep wrote:
| It is how it works for most people in both the countries
| (on different continents ) I have worked in. Only people
| with high incomes or investment income or who are self
| employed or similar need to file their own taxes.
|
| There are also cheap systems even for business returns -
| mine cost PS12 for the company and I will use the free
| HMRC system for my personal return. It might be easier to
| use more sophisticated software, especially if your
| finances are complex.
| usaar333 wrote:
| > Unless you're dealing with foreign income, are a
| business, or do a lot of contract work for cash, I don't
| see much reason why the IRS can't just handle all the taxes
| automatically - apart from the fact that some company wants
| to charge me $150 a year to file my taxes and making sure
| that my tax situation (which would fit on a beer coaster
| otherwise) is as complicated as possible.
|
| I imagine there are heavy software development costs, on
| par with what it might take to build Turbotax itself.
|
| For instance, someone is going to have to figure out wash
| sales. Right now your broker does it, but you can wash sale
| across accounts, which requires you (or more reasonably tax
| software) to both detect this and track the adjusted basis
| in perpetuity. More complex events, like straddles, further
| exist, and even consumer-grade tax software won't handle it
| correctly.
|
| Even implementing the tax code correctly for regular income
| is difficult. Examples of calculating Net investment income
| tax correctly due to ambiguous tax code changes (https://ww
| w.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=271074&...)
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| Note the proviso, taxes should be automatic "for _a lot_
| of people. " Will taxes be automatic for Warren Buffet?
| No. For GE? No. For Suzie Q. Public? Yes.
| CrendKing wrote:
| I have no idea what "wash sale" is. I only heard that
| term when I was reading the help page in TurboTax, which
| I'm effectively forced to use.
|
| Seriously, I doubt there is more than 100k people in US
| that have this "wash sale" any year. I'm so tired of
| every time someone suggests automatic tax filling, there
| is always one guy bring up some tax term that 99.99%
| people never heard of. Sure, if auto tax filling doesn't
| solve your wash sale calculation, feel free to go back to
| TurboTax. Let the other 99% people who have one job and
| no other complicated tax situation skip this yearly
| nonsense.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Literally anyone that owns stock could generate a wash
| sale.
| sseagull wrote:
| Beware the paradox of averages. I bet a lot more than 99%
| of people have _some_ wrinkle with their return.
|
| One person has a wash sale, another has some real estate
| stuff, another became disabled, another has child care
| stuff, another has education credits, etc etc etc.
|
| Actually now I am curious how many people file the
| "simplest" return (wage only, standard deduction, and
| absolutely no other adjustments).
| ghaff wrote:
| It's probably less than 99% but it could be the majority
| in a given year.
| avrionov wrote:
| IRS already audits at least 10% of the returns. They
| should have the entire tax system implemented as a
| software. It is madness that this part was hidden from
| the wide audience.
|
| As many software projects, the internal system may not be
| appropriate for external use, but still they should have
| components very long time ago.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| >IRS already audits at least 10% of the returns. They
| should have the entire tax system implemented as a
| software
|
| The audits are accomplished by a human re-doing the
| return with the submitted information. (As no surprise,
| the low-complexity returns are often chosen)
| worik wrote:
| > but the real problem is the need to file taxes at all for
| a lot of people.
|
| Yes
|
| In New Zealand where I live most people do not file at all.
| Tax is all "payroll tax" and sales tax
|
| I have just joined that system myself (after several
| unpleasant years of not being on a payroll. Whew!
| LargeTomato wrote:
| I worked at a government "lab" (MITRE) that maintained the
| IRS system. The system was allegedly so complicated that if
| the tax code and the software conflicted, the software won.
| The stack is legacy and intentionally on minimal life
| support.
| nerdponx wrote:
| > intentionally on minimal life support
|
| Key word: "intentionally".
| protomolecule wrote:
| "There's lots of wining and dining"
|
| You mean the congressmen are bribed by free food and alcohol?
| Asking as a non-American.
| kirubakaran wrote:
| This should shed some light:
|
| Bill Gurley: "2,851 Miles"
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9cO3-MLHOM
| GreedClarifies wrote:
| From the article and from a poster below:
|
| "For the pilot participants will have to enter their own
| financial information, the I.R.S. said."
|
| It is indeed a complete waste of taxpayer money unless they
| actually prefill with the IRS' data.
| dimal wrote:
| Consider it an MVP.
| simtel20 wrote:
| Why would you say that? If a taxpayer can copy the fields
| from their w-2 and have it provide a straightforward and
| correct filing without trying to divert them to dark patterns
| trying to steal money from them, that is a huge benefit.
| SMAAART wrote:
| So it's an endorsement from Intuit.
| jacobyoder wrote:
| ...and Intuit knows a thing or two about "half-baked
| solutions". ;)
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| Too funny. So it's a solution in search of a problem... that
| they also try to solve?
| loceng wrote:
| Industrial complexes, all of the obvious ones, have gone too
| far; it only takes one to push for unfair-unreasonable terms.
|
| The next step of citizen's countering Intuit's particular
| complex is for automatic tax filing to occur.
| a_gnostic wrote:
| The W2 doesn't count as voluntary, unless you bear witness
| against yourself, by filing for a return and identifying
| yourself as a taxpayer -waiving your 5A rights.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| What would be awesome is if the IRS software would automatically
| prefill all the data and forms sent to it. It would be nice of
| your W-2, 1099s etc were all included and all you had to do was
| verify the information and enter any income not already reported.
| gigel82 wrote:
| You mean like they do in ... every other country on earth?
| asia92 wrote:
| Not canada
| mdtusz wrote:
| I had high hopes that SimpleTax would have been bought by
| the CRA, but sadly now it's been absorbed by Wealthsimple
| instead.
|
| Still worth using though and is pretty straightforward and
| easy to use.
| mig39 wrote:
| For the last couple of years, my T4, pension, RRSP, and
| some of my pension forms have all been imported
| automatically into CRA, and then into Turbotax.
|
| So maybe it's an optional thing for some employers?
|
| Of course, would be great to just skip the Turbotax
| portion.
| xav0989 wrote:
| I think that all employers are now required to input the
| T4/remuneration information in a way that CRA can
| machine-process it, which allows them to make it
| available to third-party systems like TurboTax or
| SimpleTax.
|
| But yeah, for the large majority of us, having the option
| to skip TurboTax and just use a pre-filled, government
| generated tax return would be great.
| worik wrote:
| Canada does not exist.
|
| It is a lie by MSM
| wolfgang42 wrote:
| _> In one possible scenario included in the agency's report to
| Congress, the I.R.S. could fill out tax returns with
| information it already has, like data from W-2 wage statements.
| For the pilot, however, participants will have to enter their
| own financial information, the I.R.S. said._
| chewmieser wrote:
| Gift article: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/05/your-money/irs-
| tax-filing...
| ProcNetDev wrote:
| opensource it, please.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| For reference, Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts,
| Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas,
| Washington State and Wyoming are participating.
| freedomben wrote:
| For those who don't know, of those 12 states, only 4 actually
| have income taxes. The other 8 do not.
|
| This whole system stinks. The overly complicated tax code, the
| sleazy corporations making tons of money on it, the entrenched
| politicians and bureacrats who make a living on it, etc.
| hackernewds wrote:
| We can still appreciate progress. And this is progress.
|
| Although if the IRS is gonna audit when I under pay, they
| technically already know how much I owe. Why not just tell
| me? Reckon it's since people also over pay, and there's no
| refunds for doing that.
| ghaff wrote:
| Not at all clear the IRS won't refund overpayments. I've
| gotten a check in the distant past when I double-paid
| something.
| wolfgang42 wrote:
| I have overpaid my taxes several times due to clerical
| errors, and each time the IRS sent me a letter explaining
| what happened and a check for the overpaid amount, _plus
| interest._ One time I forgot to deposit the check, and
| after waiting a year they automatically sent me a
| replacement along with a reminder of why it was they owed
| me money. My general impression is that they're tedious and
| bureaucratic, but scrupulously inclined towards accuracy in
| both directions.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Reckon it 's since people also over pay, and there's no
| refunds for doing that._
|
| Sure there are. I've gotten refunds from the IRS when I
| made a mistake on my tax return and overpaid.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yeah I wonder the same question about UK taxes. If you
| self-assess they'll still say "actually we calculated your
| tax and got this number so you owe us PSX".
|
| The vast majority of people don't need to file taxes but
| even then it somehow still comes out wrong and you
| occasionally get a refund.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| So...they know very little actually. We just got a nasty
| tax bill from the IRS because when my wife gets an RSU
| grant, her company sells some stock to pay income tax for
| that grant. Little did I know, that generates a 1040 for
| the stock sale (to pay ordinary income taxes) with a cost
| basis of zero! Instead, you have to adjust the cost basis
| to the entire sale (or even more!) via supplemental
| information. Annoying, so I had to learn a bunch of tax
| rules over one day on the weekend, and in the end the
| amended return said the IRS owed us money.
|
| It's crazy stuff like this that means the IRS can't really
| calculate your taxes for you.
| ghaff wrote:
| Cost basis stuff has improved over time and I haven't had
| problems recently that I know of but I'm sure there are
| still issues.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I'm surprised they can't just the cost basis directly.
| ghaff wrote:
| In years/decades past figuring out cost basis through
| options and acquisitions could be a real nightmare. To be
| honest there have been times when I've thrown my hands up
| and just come up with a plausible average.
|
| But as I wrote, I think things are mostly pretty good
| these days. But who knows with things like RSUs you have
| limited visibility into.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| True, but 99.5% of Americans don't get RSUs. There are
| other cases like business expenses and unusual
| deductions, but again most people don't have those. So
| the IRS can probably only calculate taxes for 80% of
| Americans. (I'm guessing, not an expert)
| glasshug wrote:
| The program is for federal tax filing, not state tax. I think
| you may be misreading this line:
|
| > Most of those states don't tax income at the state level,
| but the four that do...will guide participants to a state-
| supported tool that they can use to submit their state
| returns.
|
| Which means it's _more_ incomplete in states with income tax
| (federal return through IRS pilot, state return through a
| state system) than in states without income tax (just federal
| IRS pilot return).
| practicemaths wrote:
| I just file my taxes by hand and mail it in. Somewhat less
| concern with 3rd parties holding my information and losing it to
| leaks/hacks.
|
| It is free.
|
| A little obnoxious but the forms do have instructions/directions.
| fsmv wrote:
| I heard that this sometimes takes them much longer to process
| the returns that way. Has that been your experience?
|
| One time I reproduced the forms in a spreadsheet following the
| instructions and it wasn't much different from doing the online
| wizards. I would have liked to mail it in but I just paid to
| e-file anyway.
| practicemaths wrote:
| My experience has been that it can be relatively faster.
|
| That is, the last time I filed online it took I think
| practically a year before they got to it (I think the year of
| the pandemic)
|
| I figure there's so few people filing by mail these days that
| they're able to process them faster than the huge amount of
| online filing.
|
| I'm guessing they're separate teams (online vs mail). However
| I have no idea.
|
| Regardless mailing has worked better for me the last couple
| years.
|
| Additionally I do not have to use the third party ID verify
| thing (might just be for accessing information on irs.gov)
| that I am just sure is going to have a breach and can not for
| the life of me fathom why our government (Federal) needs a
| private company to verify the identity of a citizen via
| government (State) resources.
| bombcar wrote:
| The IRS just does some very simple checking and then mails
| your refund (or accepts your payment) - the actual
| processing/checking of the return can happen months if not
| years later.
| LamaOfRuin wrote:
| My understanding is that it is generally under control now,
| but a couple years ago their processing of paper forms was
| in fact so backed up that the physical space was over
| capacity. There was a fair amount of news coverage of this,
| including photos of the cafeteria in one of their
| processing centers being packed with paper awaiting
| processing because there was nowhere else to put it. At one
| point they also basically declared paper processing
| bankruptcy and just told people if they had mailed
| something and were still waiting for a response to just
| send it again because the first one was probably a lost
| cause.
| downut wrote:
| Now our family unit is not cash starved and can afford to
| wait, so in the past, before I started using the US Free
| Filing system I described in another comment, I always mailed
| in both US and AZ income tax forms. Sometimes it took a
| couple of months. The US form I think was pretty prompt
| occasionally.
|
| Now we're also not talking a lot of money. +- a couple of
| thousand, usually less. But you would have to compare apples
| to apples which would be the e-file fee vs. the compounded
| inflation rate for the time difference in receiving,
| presumably, your refund. I suspect it's a wash.
|
| You need to also factor in the ${turbotax} fee and/or the
| accountant, as well, if you don't actually fill out the forms
| yourself.
|
| Fun fact: We moved from AZ to GA last year, and dutifully
| filed in each state. I am pretty familiar with AZ due to
| filing our own taxes for most of 25 years, but GA is much
| more complex, verbose, and quite stupidly, even aggressively,
| vague.
|
| I produced a spreadsheet for my wife to evaluate that
| presented my first time interpretation of the GA partial
| residency filing. We're both B.S. ChE, she's an MS ChE, I'm a
| MS App. Math. So we know our numbers. The tables were low
| risk, low refund, medium risk, medium refund, high risk, high
| refund. She chose medium risk. Fine with me.
|
| Both AZ and GA refunded something like 50% higher than what I
| filed and expected.
|
| Some sort of emoji here.
| rdiddly wrote:
| If you're looking for a fast turnaround I would recommend
| filing earlier in the period -- like as far in advance of
| April 15th as possible, i.e. as soon as you have all your
| supporting materials. As you get closer to April 15th, you
| are non-linearly further back in the queue.
|
| I can't really make an authoritative comparison of filing
| methods because I'm mostly a die-hard paper filer and have
| only ever e-filed maybe twice in my life at most. And it was
| long enough ago that I barely remember, and in fact never
| really cared, how fast my refund arrived. I embrace and savor
| the luxury of simplicity. When will my refund arrive? Answer:
| sound of one hand clapping. It's a reminder I put in the
| calendar for like, mid-June, to the effect of "Hey did I get
| my tax refund yet?" Usually the answer's, yep, and you
| dismiss the reminder. I can't be arsed (as they say in the
| UK) to be more interested in it than that.
| ghaff wrote:
| Honestly, I'm rarely getting enough of a refund to care; I'm
| more commonly writing a check.
|
| In any case, I'm complicated enough I just outsource to an
| accountant. Yes it's expensive but I've never had an issue
| even with very thick tax filings.
| rdiddly wrote:
| I'd go further and say it's less obnoxious than the
| alternatives thus far. It has always bothered me for example,
| having to enter into some weird murky relationship with a
| private company as a third party, in my communication with the
| government. (That's also true for the categorically similar but
| unrelated outrage of a few years back where you could get a
| better response from some agencies by engaging them on Twitter
| than you could through their actual communication channels.)
| And say what you will, the piece of paper doesn't try to
| "cleverly" redirect me to some irrelevant paid service. It has
| no functionality. I'm the one with all the functionality. And
| just to amplify your point about how it's free - Yeah there's
| no way I'm ever paying one red goddamn cent for any of this;
| I'm already paying the taxes!
| saxonww wrote:
| Not sure it covers the 3rd party concerns, but
| freefilefillableforms has been around for a decade or longer.
| It's fillable PDFs of the IRS forms with all the instructions
| available, and basic calculation abilities.
|
| No restrictions on income, etc. but federal returns only. You
| get an email from them within 24 hours of whether your return
| was accepted or not. It's still obnoxious but for easy returns
| it seems better than buying turbotax or whatever people use
| instead.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| Will unfortunately probably have to use ID.me because an IRS
| decision-maker's cousin owns it.
| arbuge wrote:
| I have a hard time understanding why the IRS doesn't at least
| have a basic web portal for individuals and businesses to do
| simple things like update addresses, send secure correspondence,
| check on the status of correspondence, file forms electronically,
| etc. A lot of paper forms and letters, human resources and time
| could be saved with such a system, even if it doesn't actually
| provide for any tax computations itself.
| nerdponx wrote:
| The answer is a combination of industry lobbying (see elsewhere
| in this thread) and partisan politics that result in
| deliberately under-funding the IRS (for a general notion, see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast, and for more
| directly relevant events see
| https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted)
| jethro_tell wrote:
| Because they are constantly under resourced so rich people can
| use the 'IRS sucks' line to get everyone else on board with
| their ability to do tax evasion.
| eddd-ddde wrote:
| As someone from Mexico, it's honestly insane that our system
| works as good as it does compared to the US.
|
| 1. All my incomes are automatically filed. 2. Each month I say
| "yes this is correct" on the website, and pay immediately via
| any bank. 3. At the end of the tax year, the system calculates
| if they own me money automatically, I give it my bank account
| and in some days I have my return.
|
| It even handles tax deductibles and everything.
| gameshot911 wrote:
| Mexico system is crazy complex and confusing.
|
| An archaic, windows-only Java app to generate pairs of
| password-protected keys, which then have to be fed back into
| the system to declare your tax status. And they expire every
| so often, so you have to track down your old keys from years
| ago and remember the password. Confused? Just set up a SAT
| appointment, they'll be with you in... weeks.
|
| Having to declare your tax categorization multiple times per
| year.
|
| Facturas that companies will only generate for you for a
| limited amount of time, and complicated questionnaires to
| fill out if you DO want one so you get the right type.
| Assuming they'll even give you a factura at all.
|
| I fully admit that I have an incomplete understanding of the
| system, this is just what I've seen my wife try to deal with.
| And she's the equivalent of a 1099 so her situation may be
| more complicated.
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| >I have a hard time understanding why the IRS doesn't at least
| have a basic web portal for individuals and businesses to do
| simple things
|
| They do have such a portal which does some of the things you
| list and several other things too.
|
| https://www.irs.gov/payments/your-online-account
| arbuge wrote:
| Yes, I know about that. It has a limited subset of the
| functionality I mention - for individuals. Does not exist for
| businesses.
| arealaccount wrote:
| Would be interested to see how the $60-250M annual price tag
| breaks down.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| I jest, but imagine them auditing you for entering numbers in one
| session and changing them later before submitting
| olliej wrote:
| H&R Block and Intuit to begin their trial of "even bigger bribes
| to politicians"
| raybb wrote:
| Shoutout to Code for America for getting the state filing system
| going in New York. That's a lot of potential.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Are there current or future opportunities to assist with
| remaining state integrations?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| If free e-file is so wrong then why is the IRS allowed to
| distribute forms to citizens with easy instructions?
|
| How do people against free e-file justify their anger, unless
| they are employees of a company leeching off taxpayers' money
| like Intuit?
| themadturk wrote:
| I think those are the most vocal opponents.
| _ihaque wrote:
| For anyone interested in why the system looks the way it does, I
| recommend patio11's insightful recent blog post, which is
| nominally about payroll systems but ends up discussing the
| history of taxation in the US because that's the origination of
| many of these systems:
| https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/payroll-providers-pow...
|
| A relevant quotation for much of the discussion here:
|
| > And, relevant to the question of whether Intuit controls U.S.
| tax policy: it can't, because that would imply they have wrested
| control from Norquist. Norquist considers a public filing option
| a tax increase by stealth and opposes it automatically.
| nvr219 wrote:
| Norquist is so flipping ridiculous.
| leereeves wrote:
| When phrased that way, it sounds ridiculous. More accurately,
| however, what Norquist and ATR want is for people to be aware
| of taxes. In their words (from the article): "More than any
| other public policy, the way the government raises revenue--how
| much, at what rates, under what circumstances, from whom, and
| for whom--has the greatest impact on our economy's
| performance."
|
| And even the article admits that making taxes easier to file
| has the side effect of "decoupling public sentiment and policy
| changes" (that is, making "tax increases by stealth" easier):
|
| > ATR [Norquist runs Americans for Tax Reform] is
| institutionally skeptical of withholding, because they believe
| that withholding allows one to increase taxes by stealth. I
| don't think it is excessively partisan to say that, if one
| phrases that claim a bit more neutrally as "withholding
| increases tax compliance by decoupling public sentiment and
| policy changes," the people who designed the withholding system
| would say "I'm glad the National Archives makes our design
| documents so accessible. We wrote them to be read!"
| koolba wrote:
| > "More than any other public policy, the way the government
| raises revenue--how much, at what rates, under what
| circumstances, from whom, and for whom--has the greatest
| impact on our economy's performance."
|
| A perfect world would have people writing a check for their
| entire annual tax just before stepping into the voting booth.
| consp wrote:
| > A perfect world would have people writing a check for
| their entire annual tax just before stepping into the
| voting booth.
|
| That would definitely be a horrible idea. No, I won't vote
| for drivable roads because I just payed my taxes, potholes
| be damned. And afterwards complain about the potholes
| anyway.
| koolba wrote:
| I never said you don't get to vote if you don't pay your
| taxes. Nor that you have to pay taxes to vote.
|
| I'm saying those that do pay taxes should have the
| totality of the amount of their income that is going to
| the government in mind when they head to the polls.
| OfficialTurkey wrote:
| What in the libertarian nonsense is this? Why not make
| people ride public transportation or use a public restroom
| or sit in a park or read about the history of the
| interstate system or visit a national park just before
| voting?
| consp wrote:
| > And even the article admits that making taxes easier to
| file has the side effect of "decoupling public sentiment and
| policy changes" (that is, making "tax increases by stealth"
| easier)
|
| How on earth is this possible? Instead of not having any
| clue, you actually get to see everything. My taxes have been
| automatic for years and I still have to approve every step of
| them along the way and I get to see and approve everything
| which had been filled in. The big difference is I now not
| have to spend hours researching everything if it remains the
| same as it was last year and only check if it changes.
| tpmoney wrote:
| Two psychological mechanisms I can think of for this:
|
| It's one of the reasons why every company in the world
| wants you on auto pay. It's a lot easier to keep you as a
| customer through the price hikes if it's only a line item
| on your bank statement rather than an explicit payment
| you're making every month. If most people are the same
| every year, then a small increase from one year to the next
| barely gets noticed because people are going to be looking
| for changes to their records, not changes on the bottom
| line, so the fact that the bottom line is 0.5% more this
| year will be more likely missed in the face of answering
| "are the records the IRS claims they have about me the
| right ones".
|
| The other is related to the concept of "price anchoring".
| Approving pre-filled numbers becomes more about validating
| that your information is correct, rather than determining
| (and looking at) the tax value for the year. It pre-assumes
| the amount owed is correct (in both the calculated and the
| policy sense) and sets the expectation that you probably
| owe whatever the pre-calculated amount is.
|
| Whether it actually plays out in reality and tax payer
| behavior is up for debate. but certainly there's a reason
| why so much of sales and financing tactics throughout
| commercial world tries very very hard to steer you away
| from the actual math when you pay for something.
| proc0 wrote:
| They should also work with companies and have an opt-in for
| automatic filing since a lot of people just have one job. Not
| only do you have pay them a chunk of your salary but you have to
| also do the work to report it accurately according to a
| complicated system.
| ghaff wrote:
| If all you have is a modest W-2 and are taking standard
| deduction (most people in the US) it would be nice if the IRS
| pre-filled out a form. It's also pretty simple to just fill out
| a 1040 in those circumstances.
| bubbleRefuge wrote:
| The whole thing needs to be thrown out. All of it. Federal income
| taxes are unfair and unnecessary. Since it had been demonstrated
| (via MMT) that taxes do not fund the Federal government, -they
| back stop and support the currency- then a better solution is a
| Federal real estate tax . Simple to administrate. IRS and Turbo
| Tax are gonzo. Put these folks to work on real rather than
| contrived problems.
| terminous wrote:
| Flagged as irrelevant to topic of discussion.
| worik wrote:
| It is wrong, not irrelevant
|
| The right of, and purpose for, the state to tax is very
| relevant to the methods used
| kelnos wrote:
| At the risk of doing what I'm about to ask you not to do:
| please don't comment just to talk about moderation decisions.
| It's boring and doesn't add to the discussion. If you want to
| flag or downvote, simply do it and move on.
|
| > _If you flag, please don 't also comment that you did._[0]
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| worik wrote:
| > Federal income taxes are unfair and unnecessary. Since it had
| been demonstrated (via MMT) that taxes do not fund the Federal
| government,
|
| That is incorrect
|
| MMT does not propose that the state can fund itself without
| tax, except for some seriously deluded proponents who have lost
| their grip on reality
|
| The use of resources by the state requires those resources are
| unavailable to other actors
|
| Money is a slippery and an abstract concept. But it must always
| connect to physical reality
| cpursley wrote:
| Can we just have non-file tax system like other civilized
| countries? You know, like the ones that are able to provide for
| good roads and healthcare and housing? Often at even lower tax
| rates than America?
| gumballindie wrote:
| Can you name those countries? In the uk we work for the
| government and health care, education and roads are bust.
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