[HN Gopher] The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax
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The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax
Author : andsoitis
Score : 46 points
Date : 2024-03-22 09:42 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| koala112 wrote:
| Finally. Even with the limited scope it's still a step in the
| right direction
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://directfile.irs.gov/
| willcipriano wrote:
| About half of Americans pay no effective tax anyway, why not set
| a threshold say 100k a year and if you are under it you owe no
| federal taxes and don't have to file anything. Can make up the
| difference by taxing capital gains at the same rate as W2 income.
| Something1234 wrote:
| Because of the earned income tax credit. It's involved and
| stupid how much welfare is done through that program.
|
| Plus congress wants the poor idiots who vote republican to feel
| like taxes are a punishment otherwise how will they whip up
| their base.
| triceratops wrote:
| Correction: they want all poor idiots (I include myself here)
| to feel like taxes are a punishment so that they will want to
| vote Republican.
| asdff wrote:
| Not just the poor idiots, but the rich idiots too. Paying
| taxes isn't so bad once you realize that money was spoken
| for from the minute it hit your checking account.
| triceratops wrote:
| Paying taxes is (mostly) fine. Filing taxes sucks.
| Politicians don't understand that making the filing
| process suck won't change how I feel about paying taxes.
| It will change how I feel about them.
| deprecative wrote:
| Two Santa Claus theory.
| autoexecbat wrote:
| Does the IRS have way to know all of your income?
| willcipriano wrote:
| Your bank, employer, cash app and brokerage all report to the
| IRS so unless you are a drug dealer or similar, yeah for the
| most part they already know it.
|
| Heres the best bit, people working under the table are going
| to be making less than 100k generally so it doesn't really
| matter, anyone making real money will be making big enough
| waves in the financial system to be detected, small movements
| of cash doesn't matter at this scale. The highly taxed routes
| (capital gains) are also already highly policed for tax
| purposes so no transition is needed there.
| jdsully wrote:
| Banks don't report every transaction and even if they did
| it may not be "income". E.g. moving money from one account
| to another is a transaction but no income was earned and it
| is not taxable.
| voxl wrote:
| How does this meaningfully affect the thesis of the
| comment you're responding to? What is the point of
| nitpicking something like this? I conjecture there isn't
| a point beyond "I found someone wrong in a comment you
| spent less than 5 minutes on even though the core thesis
| is still correct."
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| It's not really an answer to TurboTax, because it's not good
| enough. I'll continue to pay Intuit for now. It's relatively
| speaking a small price to pay for something done well.
| nextworddev wrote:
| What is an example of something that TurboTax does better?
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| State taxes as well. The IRS didn't partner with individual
| states for this initiative. They also don't have limits on
| interest income or household income, which make this
| worthless for people who file high income returns.
| metadat wrote:
| Your comments set off my spidey senses; they don't pass the
| sniff-test for a trustworthy, well-informed, pro-Intuit
| stance, especially on message board catering to tech.
|
| Intuit practices the classic rent-seeking behaviors endemic
| to late stage capitalism. Who is this helping? They also
| actively lobby against tax reform because it's an
| existential threat to their cash cow.
| rpdillon wrote:
| This is correct. According the article:
|
| > Direct File isn't perfect--the program is available in only
| 12 states, and it isn't able to handle anything beyond the
| simplest tax situations--but it's a glimpse of a world where
| government tech benefits millions of Americans. In turn, it is
| also an agonizing realization of how far we are from that
| reality.
|
| According to directfile.gov, those states are: Arizona,
| California, Massachusetts, New York, Washington, Florida,
| Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Texas, Tennessee, and
| Wyoming.
|
| I have no great love of Intuit, but this is not ready for prime
| time.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| After using TT and HRBlock for years, this year I used CashApp
| Taxes which is completely free and handles almost all cases
| (except if you earn income abroad and a few other edge cases).
| Surprisingly nice UI that walked me through all the questions
| with links to IRS site with form. Wasn't expecting it to be so
| good. (And I have more complicated than most - rental props,
| investments, W2 plus self employed, college expenses, married
| etc. And it's not trying to upsell anything (no ads, premium ver,
| annoying gimmicks). Looks like Dorsey decided to spend a bunch of
| money to make people's lives easier. I hope it continues.
| Cheer2171 wrote:
| Sounds like your data is the product, then. From
| https://taxes.cash.app/pages/privacy-policy :
|
| > Service Providers: We may share information with service
| providers, as permitted by law, in order to have them perform
| on our behalf activities we are permitted to conduct under this
| Privacy Notice and our Terms of Service. This includes things
| like helping us design or operate our Services, process and
| administer your financial transactions, preventing fraud and
| complying with state and federal law. These service providers
| are authorized to use Personal Information only as necessary to
| provide these services to us.
|
| > With advertising partners who help us run our advertising
| campaigns, analyze our site, run contests, special offers, or
| other events or activities, and track metrics on our behalf or
| in connection with our Services.
|
| > Affiliates: We may share certain information with our
| affiliated companies, such as Block, Inc., formerly known as
| Square, Inc. (the "Company") to help us provide our Services
| and manage your account.
|
| > As Part of a Corporate Change: We may disclose and transfer
| information we've collected to a third party as part of, or in
| preparation for, a change of control, restructuring, corporate
| change, or sale or transfer of assets
|
| The affiliates clause is incredibly broad and would let them
| sell your tax returns to anyone, as long as it helps them
| provide the service. If the service isn't profitable without
| selling your tax returns, then that is all the reason they
| need.
| DeepYogurt wrote:
| Some anecdata, but the freefillable forms interface has a LOT
| more validation on it this year than it did last year.
| triceratops wrote:
| The government requires us to pay taxes. It also requires us to
| file tax returns. It's unconscionable that we have to pay a
| third-party to fulfill our legally-mandated obligations. It is
| way past time for tax filing to be made available for free at all
| levels of government.
|
| (Don't come to me with paper forms or FreeTaxUsa or whatever.
| FREE IRS software should be able to handle taxes of any
| complexity and situation. If they can't handle a scenario in
| their software, they shouldn't be allowed to collect any taxes
| resulting from the law that created the scenario)
| randerson wrote:
| Related, but it's also unconscionable that the tax code is so
| complex. My CPA once had to bring in a specialist because he
| didn't know how to report something. A few times we've run into
| "gray areas" that were "open to interpretation". I double
| checked with a second CPA who said the same thing. This system
| needs an overhaul.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| The IRS should open-source at least the 'rules' part of the code,
| with enough functionality to let people add new forms. I think
| they'd get a lot of contributions and good QA.
| EMIRELADERO wrote:
| The IRS seems subject to FOIA. I wonder if people could get
| together and request that.
| HenrikB wrote:
| FOIA = Freedom of Information Act (United States)
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_(.
| ..
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