[HN Gopher] GSA Eliminates 18F
___________________________________________________________________
GSA Eliminates 18F
Author : patcon
Score : 256 points
Date : 2025-03-01 17:38 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nextgov.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nextgov.com)
| dralley wrote:
| Stupid, pointless destruction. No part of this is efficient. 18F
| and the USDS were effective tools for modernization.
| purple_ferret wrote:
| Elon literally said they would be 'deleted' for being 'far
| left,' specifically for working on direct file.
|
| Yet, people still seem baffled by what's going on and refuse to
| accept the maliciousness behind his and Trump's actions. He
| came out against a public technology service!
|
| It's like Bill Gates being confused about USAID being
| dismantled and being willfully ignorant that the people
| dismantling it believe he's part of some sort of global health
| conspiracy along with Soros.
|
| It's easy to see why they're successful. Their 'opposition'
| does nothing but roll over.
| colechristensen wrote:
| There are things that I at least understand, but who is
| opposed to direct tax filing and ... why?
| slater wrote:
| Intuit and their lobbyists, because.. you guessed it!
| Money.
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| Rich people, because... you guessed it! Money.
|
| (Direct File doesn't directly affect them, but the push
| towards automated tax collection strikes at the heart of
| their games.)
| duskwuff wrote:
| > the push towards automated tax collection strikes at
| the heart of their games
|
| I don't think that's even it. The goal is to make taxes
| seem _scary and complicated_ to the public, to build a
| consensus that taxes should be eliminated or simplified -
| which inevitably plays out in ways which will largely, if
| not entirely, benefit the wealthy. And in this light, the
| reason the wealthy are opposed to Direct File is obvious:
| having it available reduces the pain that people (and
| particularly the working class) will feel from having to
| file taxes, making it harder to drum up popular support
| for "reform".
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| Good point, that's definitely part of it.
|
| Tax fraud is just top of mind because the other day I had
| to endure a smug rich asshole brag about it over dinner
| and I wasn't in a position to push back, so I'm venting a
| bit.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| So not right wingers? I don't know many right wingers
| that enjoy filing tax returns.
| acdha wrote:
| These are related: the rich backers of right-wing media
| have for decades pushed the idea that taxes are this
| scary, hard process where one mistake can ruin your life.
| That is not, and has never been, true (the average person
| audited by the IRS roughly breaks even because they
| usually weren't claiming every possible deduction) but
| it's in their interest to promote that belief because it
| supports lowering the rates they pay and the consequences
| people suffer for cheating (rich people do this in much
| larger amounts because most of us don't have the
| flexibility to engage in creative accounting or enough
| inventive to do so).
|
| Intuit wants everyone to think it's so scary that you
| need to pay them, and the company is run by rich people
| who would want to pay less in taxes no matter what
| industry they're in.
|
| The combination is how you get people arguing for their
| boss to get a tax cut even if they personally will pay
| more, because as long as the IRS is a fabled bogeyman
| they have been told that's the price of freedom. It took
| the better part of the 20th century and billions of
| dollars in funding to teach the point where enough people
| believed it, but they were patient.
| preisschild wrote:
| So people hate the IRS and politicians can defund the IRS
| for tech bros and their companies.
| pbronez wrote:
| Same reason there is opposition to municipal ISPs. The
| theory is the public sector should stay away from anything
| the private sector could theoretically provide. It assumes
| the private sector will deliver better goods at lower
| prices due to market pressures.
| namuol wrote:
| Intuit
| outside2344 wrote:
| He is not interested in efficient. He is interested in
| destroying anything that regulates or taxes him.
| tootie wrote:
| Also they worked as a shared service taking fees from agencies
| that required their services and did not have any specific
| appropriation in the federal budget. This was pure spite and
| not cost saving at all.
| xyst wrote:
| Got to make room for the trillion dollar tax cuts. Trickle down
| economics, right?
|
| Can't wait for the pitchforks to rise up against the
| billionaires that created this mess.
| yongjik wrote:
| This isn't caused by some nebulous alliance of
| "billionaires," this is caused by one particular billionaire,
| Elon Musk, and his friends.
|
| These days I'm getting skeptical of these anti-billionaire
| quips. Sounds like a great segue to "all politicians are the
| same because they're in the billionaire's pocket," and now
| look at what that led us into.
| hackyhacky wrote:
| > This isn't caused by some nebulous alliance of
| "billionaires," this is caused by one particular
| billionaire, Elon Musk, and his friends.
|
| I am waiting for all the "good billionaires" to step up and
| do something about it.
| retzkek wrote:
| There's at least one, although as a governor he may not
| count.
|
| > From the Department of Education, Medicaid, the CDC,
| and more - Trump and Elon Musk are gutting the agencies
| and programs that protect Americans every single day.
|
| https://bsky.app/profile/jbpritzker.bsky.social/post/3lis
| gh4...
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| what function do billionaires fulfill that 1000
| millionaires couldn't do better?
| yongjik wrote:
| That's neither here nor there. Trump and Musk are
| dismantling the American government piece by piece, and
| I'm not terribly interested in discussing whether
| billionaires were the problem all along. That feels like
| a totally unnecessary diversion.
|
| By all means, after America kicks out Trump, feel free to
| discuss billionaires and the tyranny of capitalism and
| everything. Just not now.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| USDS has been co-opted and they don't want competition. I would
| expect nothing less. 18F and USDS used to have some very smart,
| dedicated people, and it's sad to see these agencies go this way.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Isn't this the agency that gradually allowed Americans to file
| their taxes without paying some commercial third party for the
| privilege? Like the rest of the world?
|
| We Europeans used to be able to gleefully report that we could
| file our taxes in minutes (which, in fact, it being 1 March, I
| did today), but you almost had it fixed.
|
| Look, I know we Dutch aren't perfect. After all, that twat Rutte
| (our teflon coated former prime minister, currently secretary
| general of NATO) just told Zelenskyy, essentially, to apologize
| to the big kid bullying him, so there's that. Sorry about that
| (didn't vote for him though). But still, could you guys, like,
| stop your government from being run by ironically fascist
| muppets?
| wruza wrote:
| But what can they do? It's easy in a bloody dictatorship to
| just raise and take it in your hands, simply unionizing against
| oppression forces and ignoring personal grave danger. But they
| are in the US, it's completely safe there, so it doesn't work
| like that. You speak, get angry and wait for some big
| corporation or bureaucracy to sort it out for you.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43148889
|
| It's funny to watch (probably) the same people in a tutorial-
| level situation who thought that if I'm a man/human/etc I
| should stand by their principles and just go and overthrow the
| dictator of the place I happen to live in.
| preisschild wrote:
| > We Europeans used to be able to gleefully report that we
| could file our taxes in minutes (which, in fact, it being 1
| March, I did today), but you almost had it fixed.
|
| Its even done automatically here in Austria for you. You just
| have to use a simple to use webapp if you want a tax refund for
| stuff like donations or tax-writoffable expanses.
| janeerie wrote:
| They were part of the effort, but not the main component.
| Direct File is still alive and functioning, for this tax season
| at least.
| ein0p wrote:
| Seems like it was mostly already dead. Cursory search shows its
| headcount went down from 250 in 2018 to 91 in 2024 (before Trump;
| all remote).
| miltonlost wrote:
| Remote work doesn't mean it's dead. 91 employees also doesn't
| mean it's dead. 18F still was a large active team. You are
| redefining dead to excuse the inexcusable.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| Pro tip to 18F workers: get rehired as consultants for 2x the
| wages.
| jordanb wrote:
| Unfortunately for 18F's workers, the projects they were working
| on improved the lives of ordinary Americans (like direct-file).
| There is no appetite in the current administration for such
| projects.
| rgovostes wrote:
| The original formula for 18F was to hire elite tech workers
| coming from highly paid corporate jobs to do term-limited
| stints in public service at lower wages.
| fancyfredbot wrote:
| TIL that in America, if you work on a free tax filing system you
| are considered by some to be part of the "far left".
| moomin wrote:
| Heaven forbid if the US catches up with the U.K. in the 1990s.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| Hell any country except the USA. I've lived in both the USA
| and Australia. In Australia it's been digital for a long
| time. As in you go to file and the equivalent of all your W2
| information is pre-filed by the employer, retirement and
| investment systems. You're just running through a government
| provided site to check off any special exemptions and you're
| done. It's a huge efficiency win. Think of the hours you
| spent dealing with Turbotax and the like, re-importing
| information from other systems manually when your employer
| and bank already added filed that information under your name
| into the tax system on their side.
|
| I hear outright wrong arguments for why the USA has not moved
| to a modern filing system. The US tax system is NOT more
| complex than other countries. It's pretty middle of the road
| in complexity. Yes other countries are made up of states too.
| Yes there's a ton of exemptions in other countries.
|
| It's yet another example of people taking an absurd
| "government is always less efficient than private" viewpoint
| that isn't even founded in any academic sense. It's a line
| broadcast by very rich people that want to siphon off profit
| and it's hard to do that when it's tax payer funded.
| zzgo wrote:
| > very rich people that want to siphon off profit
|
| Tax preparation is a huge industry in the US, they're going
| to fight tooth and nail to make sure the government doesn't
| cut into their business.
| Kamq wrote:
| > I hear outright wrong arguments for why the USA has not
| moved to a modern filing system.
|
| The argument I always hear from the right about this is
| that they worry that making taxes more efficient will allow
| them (and government action in general) to increase. The
| right is explicitly committed to reducing that, so it's not
| in their interest.
|
| Same reason I've heard from people on the right about
| ending withholding. They think that if people had to cut an
| actual check to the government every year (or quarter) that
| people would realize how much it's costing them and be more
| amenable to reducing it.
| ahmedfromtunis wrote:
| I read somewhere that the convolution of tax returns system
| is intentional as the right thinks that the federal
| government should collect as little tax as possible. Making
| people suffer to file their taxes aims to reduce the federals
| from levying more taxes without popular opposition.
|
| Providing a free, digital service to collect taxes would then
| be considered a real threat.
| purple_ferret wrote:
| But you don't understand. If the government helps you file your
| taxes, they'll use the service to collect your personal data,
| so the communists could use it against you at some point in the
| future.
|
| (this is the right wing argument, so to speak)
| chabes wrote:
| The IRS already files its own version of your taxes. They use
| their version to check against what you the individual files.
| timewizard wrote:
| The IRS has some pretty strict rules about who can access
| those files and how they can be shared with other agencies.
| In many ways these rules are unique to the IRS. Precisely
| because of the issues noted here.
| hypothesis wrote:
| IRS _had_ some pretty strict rules. But apparently you
| just need to replace leadership with an acting toady to
| override the rules.
|
| E.g: https://bsky.app/profile/jacobbogage.bsky.social/pos
| t/3ljc2o...
| phillipcarter wrote:
| Is it? I think the more common right-wing argument is that
| you shouldn't have taxes / the IRS is just evil / the whole
| government apparatus needs to be burned to the ground.
|
| (I do not agree with it, it's just what I interpret the
| arguments to be)
| purple_ferret wrote:
| Here's the tweet that prompted Elon's 'deleted' tweet:
|
| >18F, the far left government wide computer office that was
| recently taken over by allies of @elonmusk, is also the
| same agency that built Elizabeth Warren's "Direct File" tax
| program.
|
| >Direct File puts the government in charge of preparing
| peoples tax returns for them.
|
| https://nitter.poast.org/alx/status/1886415751528972515?
|
| Clearly, they think there is something malicious in having
| the federal government manage this service despite the fact
| that the result gets submitted....to the federal government
| anyway
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| They are terrified of asset taxes and want to keep them
| as bureaucratically inhibited as possible.
| timewizard wrote:
| First of all, it's the US Governments, and thus the
| citizens, Direct File tax program. Unless Elizabeth
| Warren personally wrote the code I don't think her brand
| deserves to be on it.
|
| Second, are we pretending it was a good system?
|
| "Direct File is now open and available in 25
| participating states." Wow. Half the country! That's
| _almost_ useful.
|
| "You can't use Direct File if you had other types of
| income, such as gig economy, rental or business income."
| Again another baffling miss. Perhaps Senator Warren is
| willing to explain this personally?
|
| "You can't use Direct File if you itemize deductions."
| What is even the point? Who would have wasted their time
| creating this boondoggle?
|
| This is all lipservice. People who want to claim credit
| for a half working implementation. It's 2025. This is
| utterly embarrassing to the nation and I can't rightly
| determine what goes through the minds of Senators. They
| are so detached from the common American experience.
| phillipcarter wrote:
| It's available in only 25 states because the other half
| decided not to participate. Just another maddening
| example in the long story of how the American system
| makes it very hard to Do Good Things for the average
| citizen.
| janeerie wrote:
| Direct File is following a phased roll-out approach to
| avoid the "big launch" problem that tends to plague
| government tech projects. The goal is to serve all
| citizens, but taxes are very complex, and it will take
| time to address all scenarios.
|
| Also, as the below commenter mentioned, states need to
| agree to be part of Direct File.
| timdev2 wrote:
| I don't get your strong objection. A 1.0 release that is
| fit for use by >80% of the addressable market, and gets
| high marks from those users is a "boondoggle"?
|
| Perhaps you overestimate the fraction of taxpayers that
| itemize deductions, have gig/rental/business income?
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| The Norquist argument I have heard is that taxes should be
| painful. Anything that makes it too easy for the government
| to get money should be avoided.
|
| So, you know, a policy of making life better for average
| people.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Hijacking this somewhat, but shouldn't the engine be open-
| source so both Sean Hannity and Richard Stallman can see the
| code and protect their data from prying government eyes? Or
| maybe it's already open-source? There should be something
| like opentaxsolver that has a government stamp of approval.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| Open source? Giving stuff away? Sounds socialist mate.
| brookst wrote:
| In the US privatization is conservative, so anything that
| reduces private profiteering on mandatory activities is by
| definition "far left".
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| That, but also the current system allows rich peoples'
| accountants to exercise an enormous amount of creativity when
| determining what their taxes should be, their imagination
| constrained only by the vague threat of possible audit from a
| gutted agency limited to limp-wristed punishments. Automation
| threatens this kleptocratic "freedom."
|
| (The creativity has to do with asset games of fixed overhead
| that only amortizes on sizable fortunes. Poor people had
| better file their taxes correctly. If you work for a wage,
| you are poor for the purposes of this discussion.)
| maelito wrote:
| Meanwhile, the French DINUM (direction of digital inside the
| French government) and BetaGouv (kind of our 18F) organize
| their "Rules as code" event in 3 weeks.
|
| Our tax filling is free for decades, but lots of things can be
| made better.
|
| https://www.numerique.gouv.fr/agenda/rules-as-code-rencontre...
| ixtli wrote:
| The dismantling of the American government is going as planned I
| see?
| trts wrote:
| a couple pages that describe the agency and their projects, for
| those who were not familiar. the agency was created in 2014.
|
| https://18f.gsa.gov/our-work/
|
| https://www.govtech.com/civic/what-is-18f.html
|
| _Key Projects_ :
|
| Beta.FEC.gov: Revamped the Federal Election Commission's website
| for easier record access.
|
| MyUSCIS: Simplified the immigration process for U.S. Citizenship
| and Immigration Services (USCIS).
|
| USCIS ICAM Development: Developed a login and identity
| verification system for USCIS users.
|
| eRegulations Platform: Made regulations more accessible and
| understandable.
|
| College Scorecard: Provided clear data on college costs,
| graduation rates, debt, and post-college earnings.
|
| Cloud.gov: Offers a platform for government teams to develop and
| manage web applications efficiently.
|
| U.S. Web Design Standards: Created open-source UI components for
| consistent federal website experiences16.
| adamisom wrote:
| yeah this agency is kinda what I imagined DOGE was created to
| be. alas now I am just confused
| jasonpbecker wrote:
| The people in charge are intentionally ignorant of things
| that _already exist in government_, like the OIG, 18F/USDS,
| etc. And since their actual goal is to slash and burn the
| government so that it's literally unable to function, thus
| justifying its total collapse since it no longer has
| capacity, they have to take out the people who actually look
| for corruption, look into social security fraud, improve
| government technology systems, etc who would see through and
| call this shit out.
|
| It's never been about making government more effect or
| efficient-- it's the managerial equivalent of the "starve the
| beast" mentality.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| it's because DOGE is full of sycophants and 18F wasn't,
| that's the whole thing
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| You have to get rid of the technically literate internal
| competition if you want an oversight free monopoly.
| labster wrote:
| Extinguish, extend, embrace
| viccis wrote:
| The purpose of a system is what it does. DOGE was created to
| facilitate kleptocracy.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Just another obvious sign of the drive to privatizing everything.
|
| I find it pretty amazing that conservatives would be against
| Direct File since the government is forcing people to pay taxes
| shouldn't the way to pay those taxes not be another tax?
| acdha wrote:
| The current Republican budget proposal incurs roughly five
| trillion dollars in additional debt and service cuts, all to
| allow tax cuts which mostly go to the top 10%:
|
| https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2025/2/27/fy202...
|
| If you went to the average person and asked whether they'd like
| to have services like Medicaid and SNAP cut so their senior
| management can pay less in taxes, they'd say no. If you
| demonize the concept of tax collection, however, then they
| might go for it because they're reacting out of fear rather
| than thinking analytically.
| gs17 wrote:
| They're okay with it when it's a "tax" paid to corporations.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Amazing how the idea of being able to file tax returns online,
| without paying for a commercial service to do it, is considered
| far-left extremism in the US.
|
| You'd think that simplifying tax returns and reducing costs in
| the taxation system would be something the right could get
| behind?
| kadoban wrote:
| The right in America does not believe in a federal government.
| Anything that helps a federal government exist is to be
| destroyed.
| vkou wrote:
| It absolutely believes in a federal government.
|
| It just does not believe in a federal government that it is
| not in control of.
| dingnuts wrote:
| who, exactly, is in control of independent agencies if
| Congress never corrects their power and the Executive isn't
| in charge?
|
| For example: the perennial fight over "net neutrality" was
| because Congress absconded their duty to write regulation
| and handed it off to the Executive to figure out in a vague
| way that allowed for flip flopping policies with the force
| of law every time the administration changed.
|
| You know what would stop the Executive power grab currently
| happening? If Congress would do their damn jobs. The
| Republicans in Congress are more to blame for this mess
| than the White House. This is supposed to be their power
| that they are just sitting and watching get taken away.
|
| But the Democrats aren't guiltless either. People who care
| about this sort of thing have been complaining for decades,
| right through Democrat majorities and administrations. They
| had plenty of chances. The whole beltway fucking sucks and
| we are so cooked.
| hackyhacky wrote:
| > The Republicans in Congress are more to blame for this
| mess than the White House.
|
| The fact that Congress is ineffective in no way absolves
| the executive branch of irresponsible or illegal
| behavior. The president took an oath.
| Sabinus wrote:
| Everyone is responsible for their own behaviour but if
| the legislature doesn't function nothing else will
| either. And we know the legislature has progressively
| become less functional, less bipartisan, less legislation
| passed every decade.
| vkou wrote:
| The purple fringes of the congressional GOP would be
| crucified by their constituents if they were doing this
| shit, which is why it is sitting back and letting the
| executive do everything that the party always wanted, but
| couldn't, while they keep their hands free.
|
| The legislature could stop this, yes. But it won't,
| because he is carrying out the program the GOP always
| _wished_ it could have done, but couldn 't. Once this all
| goes to shit, they will of course, blame him, while
| keeping their own hands clean.
|
| And given just how fucking fast a dedicated executive can
| destroy anything it doesn't like, there's literally
| nothing the Dems could have done to prevent this. It
| doesn't matter what laws they passed when they had
| control of government, when the current executive simply
| doesn't _follow_ the law.
|
| And the only people who could compel it to follow the law
| don't want it to.
|
| The _only_ cure to this is never voting red, under any
| circumstances, for any position, in any race. It 's been
| fully compromised, and is unsalvageable.
| BrenBarn wrote:
| > And given just how fucking fast a dedicated executive
| can destroy anything it doesn't like, there's literally
| nothing the Dems could have done to prevent this. It
| doesn't matter what laws they passed when they had
| control of government, when the current executive simply
| doesn't follow the law.
|
| Oh yes there is. It's just more radical than they were
| prepared to admit was necessary. It's things like ramming
| through thousands of new federal judgeships, packing the
| Supreme Court, passing anti-gerrymandering laws with
| jail-time penalities for state officials that violate
| them, and ultimately packing the union
| (https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-133/pack-the-
| union-a-...). The things that needed to be done were not
| "make things so no president can do this when he gets
| elected", it's "fix the system so these kinds of people
| cannot ever be elected".
| vkou wrote:
| Yes, I suppose they can be blamed for not doing something
| like that when they get a 49.8% mandate. It would also
| alienate half their voter base, because it actually
| believes in the systems and due process.
|
| (We can also blame them for not imprisoning, quicky and
| fairly trying, and executing Trump for sedition and
| treason when they could.)
| Arainach wrote:
| With the exception of a few days (which don't really
| count because of a sick Senator Kennedy and spineless
| moderate conservativeJoe Lieberman), the Democrats
| haven't had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate in
| many, many decades.
| stouset wrote:
| The right wants everything related to taxes to be as difficult
| and painful as possible, in the hopes it will encourage the
| government to lower them.
| kccqzy wrote:
| I have heard of this argument many times but it doesn't make
| sense to me. Most often, the ways to lower taxes come from
| things like finding new deductions and credits that you
| didn't know apply to you. This is what the difficult part is.
| Otherwise, taxes are simple if you just have some W-2 and
| 1099-INT or 1099-DIV, and claim the standard deduction.
|
| Indeed if taxes are too difficult or painful, a reasonable
| person would demand that the government simplify taxes, and
| that's not the same as reducing taxes. But then again maybe
| they are banking on the masses conflating simplifying taxes
| and reducing taxes.
| jedberg wrote:
| You know how everyone complains "oh I can't do anything
| this weekend I have to do my taxes"? They want that pain,
| so that you bitch and moan about the heavy burden of
| taxation, and then support the party that claims they want
| to reduce the heavy burden of taxation.
|
| But also, Intuit spends a lot money lobbying.
| acdha wrote:
| Taxes aren't hard but people have been encouraged to talk
| about it like it's a colonoscopy by Roto-rooter. Someone
| can have all W-2 income and only take the standard
| deduction, but thanks to that messaging they'll act like
| filing your own taxes is incredibly dangerous with a high
| chance of ruining you for life (I know someone whose parent
| worked for the IRS as an auditor and they noted that many
| people ended up neutral or even getting a refund because an
| audit for someone who wasn't trying to cheat would usually
| find deductions that they hadn't claimed).
|
| That's not accidental: the rich have been funding anti-tax
| messaging since the introduction of the income tax, and
| it's heavily promoted by the media voices they fund. The
| tax preparation industry is similarly biased since it's
| with so profitable for the median voter to think that they
| need to pay hundreds of dollars every year to fill out a
| couple of forms.
| recursive wrote:
| The reason I think taxes are hard isn't because of
| messaging. I might be an idiot, but it's because of an
| experience I had years ago where I was trying to follow
| the rules and pay taxes on some contracting income. I
| screwed something up. I ended up corresponding with the
| IRS dozens of times. Somehow I had recorded some income
| that never happened. I think I spent more time writing
| letters than I spent on the contract project. To this day
| I'm scared of contacting.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| > ...where I was trying to follow the rules and pay taxes
| on some contracting income...
|
| You're an exception and, yeah, it sucks. For somebody who
| has W-2 income, maybe a 1099-INT, and takes the standard
| deduction filing taxes is painless and simple.
|
| I've just accepted the $800 - $1,000 cost per year for
| preparation of my LLC K-1 and personal taxes as part of
| the cost of being an exception. It sucks, but I just roll
| it into my rates.
| acdha wrote:
| Yeah, I'm not saying that every situation is trivial but
| the figures I've seen have something like 80% of filers
| using W-2 income so it's weird when people who don't have
| complex property ownership or business arrangements talk
| like it's incredibly complicated. Most of us could use
| Direct File to be just like most other countries in the
| world, but there's a now-dominant lobby which tried to
| block that.
| araes wrote:
| Generally agree for most people. Only caveat is for those
| with mild amounts of savings (not enough to qualify as
| wealthy).
|
| Enough 401k, mild investments over time with disposable
| income, or transfers from friends / family / inheritance,
| that the process becomes quite challenging. You make a
| couple thousand on a decent year in capital gains or
| dividend distributions, yet end up with rather confusing
| paperwork piles to deal with at tax time. Finding out it
| was necessary to note each buy / sell and the holding
| time individually for the entire year just seemed crazy
| in the detail necessary.
|
| Mild awareness of why the actual wealthy hire accountants
| and firms with specialized teams and software to deal
| with those issues.
|
| The part that's also not dealt with, at least in terms of
| those deductions, is that usually they're related to
| businesses and expenses. The deductions are available,
| yet often you have to be treating almost your entire life
| like a business expense every moment. Business cell
| phone. Business internet. Business supplies. Business
| ads, website, and marketing. Business travel. Business
| property depreciation / amortization. Business legal and
| accounting. Business mileage. Business loan interest.
| Business meals.
|
| A (personal opinion) funny one is "Hire your own children
| as workers." You can write-off the payment you make to
| them which reduces your taxes and the income they earn
| can be tax-free if you pay them less than the standard
| deduction.
| doawoo wrote:
| They want everything to be privatized so they can rake in
| that sweet, sweet lobbyist money.
|
| There's zero reason why taxes, for the majority of citizens,
| isn't just a postcard you get in the mail and confirm against
| your own earnings records. It should not cost me hours of my
| own life and/or dollars of my own money to file my taxes. I
| don't mind paying them (if they're used for something
| actually constructive like public infrastructure) but gosh
| they sure make it hard.
| pstuart wrote:
| Both parts are true. The goal as a whole: *
| Eliminate all taxes * Eliminate all regulations
| * Use the government for financial gain (by the "right
| people") * Use the government to oppress all "others"
| (those who are not white christian men) * Crown a
| king and ensure that crown stays within their select group
| QIYGT wrote:
| The complexity is also what allows loopholes to exist for
| rich people.
| Finnucane wrote:
| no, the right wants you to keep paying Turbotax.
| collinmcnulty wrote:
| This is commonly repeated but incorrect. The Nyquist pledge
| is a far more powerful force keeping tax filing complex than
| Intuit lobbying. This is not a conspiracy theory, this is a
| stated practice of Americans for Tax Reform, the anti-tax
| conservative group.
| Finnucane wrote:
| they both have the same goals. that doesn't make it not
| true.
| 1986 wrote:
| *Norquist
| westurner wrote:
| "Musk ally is moving to close office behind free tax filing
| program at IRS" (2025)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43222216
| janeerie wrote:
| 18F is not the group behind Direct File, and it's very
| annoying that this narrative keeps getting spread. DF was
| created by a team of people from USDS, 18F and the IRS.
| It's housed within the IRS.
| jedberg wrote:
| They claim that if the government could calculate taxes for
| you, then it would be too easy for the left to add new taxes
| that you wouldn't notice.
|
| The real kicker of course is that if you don't file your taxes,
| they actually _do_ calculate your taxes for you, and send you a
| bill. It just includes the non-payment penalty and doesn 't
| include donations.
| superb_dev wrote:
| Is non-payment cheaper than donations?
| lesuorac wrote:
| No.
|
| Taxes are in hindsight so you've already made whatever
| donations you did by the time you paid taxes.
|
| Donations either lower your tax bill or have no effect on
| it. So, by not filling taxes (_and getting caught_) you're
| just increasing your tax bill.
| abeyer wrote:
| Unless of course you're owed a refund, in which case
| they'll hold your money and pay you interest on it (at
| least for a few years.)
|
| ...but then tax you on the interest they paid you if you
| claim it.
| froindt wrote:
| My understanding was they don't pay interest on tax
| refunds, but you pay interest on unpaid tax liabilities.
|
| Do you have a source handy? My Google-fu is failing and
| only bringing up interest on unpaid taxes.
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| > They claim that if the government could calculate taxes for
| you, then it would be too easy... to add new taxes that you
| wouldn't notice.
|
| As a non-American whose country break out the VAT into a
| separate line item, with the explicit intent to inform
| consumers how much tax they are paying, and who has shopped
| in countries where they roll it all into one, I can say that
| this 'claim' is absolutely what happens in practice.
| jedberg wrote:
| Are you saying the only way that citizens are informed of
| the current tax rates is through price tags?
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| Why on earth would I say that?
| jedberg wrote:
| That's what your comment implies. That taxes are being
| hidden because they aren't on the price tag.
| Aloisius wrote:
| Or not on the receipt.
| peter422 wrote:
| I don't remember the exact amount but after I filed my taxes
| last year I got a refund from the IRS for under 1 dollar
| because I had mistakenly put a small typo while entering a
| 1099 and they automatically corrected my return and sent me a
| few cents of a refund.
|
| The fact that they are capable of doing that implies how much
| time we all have to waste doing our taxes.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| Then the right thing to do would be to remove tax deduction
| at source from payroll. People will notice how much they are
| paying in taxes when they have to write a check every month
| to the government and start asking questions.
|
| For most people, taxes are more than the next 3 biggest
| expenses.
| nxobject wrote:
| Are you sure the question wouldn't be "why don't they just
| take it out at payroll like they did before $RIGHT_WINGER
| did this, that would be more efficient and save everyone
| time like every other country in the world?"
| Animats wrote:
| Heavy lobbying by Intuit/TurboTax for years.[1]
|
| [1]
| https://www.opensecrets.org/search?q=TurboTax&type=site#gsc....
| astrange wrote:
| It's not TurboTax, it's Grover Norquist. Republicans are
| already ideologically against easy tax filing because they're
| against taxes, they don't need corporate backing for that.
|
| Using OpenSecrets in particular is misleading because it
| shows you donations fron "employees of corporations" to
| political campaigns and then people pretend it's donations
| from "corporations", which is obviously not the same thing.
| (and not allowed either)
| adastra22 wrote:
| I mean, it's both. Intuit gives money to representatives
| that ideologically dislike taxes, and therefore WANT it to
| be a horrible experience so that you'll go along with
| getting rid of it (which Intuit knows will never actually
| happen).
| fitsumbelay wrote:
| https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...
| the business of America is business, you see ...
| j_san wrote:
| I don't think that far-left was primarily only written because
| of the tax returns. I followed some links in the article and
| came to this twitter thread which might explain where that
| notion comes from:
| https://x.com/lukerosiak/status/1885523747425399247
|
| (Disclaimer: I don't live in the US and don't want to take any
| political stance with this)
| janeerie wrote:
| This is exactly right. Direct File got thrown into the
| discussion, but it was not the reason that 18F was getting
| labelled as far-left.
| dashundchen wrote:
| Far-left is having some affinity groups at work, hiring
| people who happen to be queer, and being inclusive to people
| with disabilities?
|
| The right is deranged with intolerance. All the talk about
| "free speech" and they can't stand that someone might not
| think or act like them.
|
| The "anti-woke" crusaders are honestly more unbearable than
| any social justice warrior type I've met because they will
| not shut up about it and it colors their whole life.
|
| It's just another flavor of identity politics with in and out
| groups.
| khazhoux wrote:
| Every time I drive by the huge shiny new Intuit building on 101
| near Google, I throw up a little. Regulatory capture in action.
| aeternum wrote:
| Simplify the tax code, don't add even more complex bureaucracy
| in a misguided attempt to make the awful tax code
| understandable.
|
| Citizens need to understand the tax code themselves, they
| shouldn't need an entire government division to write software
| that is the only way to understand it.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| What on earth is the GSA
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| If OPM is the HR department, GSA is the office manager.
| breadwinner wrote:
| Here's the big picture: Only around 3% of total spending is
| federal payroll. Dismantling of essential services like free tax
| filing saves very little money.
|
| Total annual spending is around $6.75 trillion, of which only
| around $210 Billion is spent on federal payroll (not including
| military and postal workers).
|
| All these cuts are intended to pay for tax cuts for Elon Musk and
| his fellow billionaires.
| zerocrates wrote:
| 18F went around improving tech for other agencies and the
| government as a whole; shutting them down almost certainly
| _costs_ money. Just as cutting from the IRS tends to cost
| money.
| araes wrote:
| Bad result for America, as at least the two that I've been
| familiar with have both been dramatically better website
| implementations than much of the federal government.
|
| GSA, Digital Analytics Program: https://analytics.usa.gov/
|
| Huge amounts of data about how government websites are used
| including: locations (cities, countries), languages, referral
| sources, media sources, devices, browsers, OS, website
| destination, and top file accesses.
|
| Treasury, Government Spending Explorer:
| https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function
|
| Really thorough breakdown of government spending from 2017
| onward, with per month, per quarter, and year spending totals by
| budget function and agency. Divable categories so you can look at
| the $1,400,000,000,000 in National Defense spending, and actually
| find out a little about where it all goes to each year.
|
| Edit: Here's their Github and 1200 repositories:
| https://github.com/orgs/18F/repositories
|
| If I had enough money to hire them, I'd snap their employees up
| quickly.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| The goal is to make government as dysfunctional as possible
| (beside the part that enforces corruption [for your side]), so
| people want it to get smaller and smaller (except for the
| corrupt parts that benefit exclusively them), so that it costs
| less, so that they pay less taxes, so that they have even more
| money (that they don't need).
|
| They definitely do not care if this "makes things worse".
| Often, it's intended.
| buran77 wrote:
| > The goal is to make government as dysfunctional as possible
|
| ...So it's easier to justify to the people when they tear it
| down completely and then "rescue" the country by replacing it
| with a true corpocracy.
| pstuart wrote:
| This needs to be repeated to anybody who'll listen to it.
| asmor wrote:
| Given Musk has inserted industry CEOs into agencies where
| they definitely have conflicts of interests, the other goal
| is to privatize the scraps.
| ein0p wrote:
| All that wonderful transparency and analytics, yet failed to
| uncover this here multimillion dollar Uniparty/DeepState money
| laundering scheme (one of many!):
| https://x.com/DataRepublican/status/1889172190282821690.
| Uncovered by just one deaf, nonverbal, female hacker working
| part time (until she was doxxed, she's full time now).
| hypothesis wrote:
| Ah yes, our favorite partisan actors, who can't be bothered
| to mention how much her benefactor spent just this year doing
| same thing.
|
| Also, that chart is just magical, did she inflate the numbers
| by repeatedly adding same money being shuffled around
| (represented by those arrows between entities)?
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Anyone interested in helping organize a boycott of filing federal
| taxes until a direct-file system, that serves everyone, is
| instituted? I'd like to join, but don't have the influence to
| start one on my own.
| efnx wrote:
| I think a tax strike could be incredibly effective, but also
| have really bad failure scenarios.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Yes and no. Needs to be big to be effective, I agree.
|
| But, I saw on a documentary of FIFA corruption that one guy
| making millions in (I think NY) didn't file taxes for over
| ten years, maybe twenty. I didn't know it was possible until
| then.
|
| Someone actually downvoted my comment above, can you believe?
| :-D
| euroderf wrote:
| You probably just broke a RICO statute or something...
| vvpan wrote:
| I think it is actually a good idea, in theory, but the
| penalties for failure to file are hefty.
| nashashmi wrote:
| I always thought that 18F would be the inspiration behind DOGE.
| Instead it seems to have become the opposite
| acdha wrote:
| DOGE excuses the laws they're breaking and the cost increases
| they're incurring by claiming that there's a crisis they have
| to respond to and that they're so smart nobody else can do it.
|
| The last thing they need are smarter, more experienced people
| around who can show that none of those assertions are true and
| all of the costs being racked up are pure waste.
| ronbenton wrote:
| The problem here is assuming DOGE's stated goal is their real
| goal.
| throwawaygovie wrote:
| 18F, when it started, was viewed with suspicion by other
| federal agencies--here were these Silicon Valley know-it-alls,
| coming in to tell us how to do our jobs. So, basically DOGE.
|
| Except: 18F spent 10 years building trust in the government. As
| consultants, they met their clients where they were, and acted
| with empathy and understanding. This is pretty much the
| opposite of DOGE coming into an agency and seizing control.
|
| 18F's model was geared toward continual improvement over time
| ("Move slowly and fix things"). It was, I think, a model with a
| more long term mindset than what is going on with DOGE.
| roughly wrote:
| May I offer a proposal here?
|
| A great many people would've told you beforehand what DOGE was
| going to be and do (although I think most of us are a bit
| shocked about the speed and violence of the thing). I expect
| you heard some of it ahead of time, too. It may be worth
| updating your priors on the intents, beliefs, and capabilities
| of the people involved in this to match this new experience,
| and to apply those new priors as you hear new proposals and
| ideas from those same groups in the future.
| xyst wrote:
| The result of trickle down economics and neoliberalism to its
| core.
|
| Elimination of these "non-critical" agencies are nothing but a
| drop in the bucket compared to military spending and amounts tax
| cuts for billionaire parasites.
| heisenbit wrote:
| Having conflict free in-house counsel is critical for major buy
| decisions. The last thing the buyer wants is the seller to
| write the spec and contract unsupervised. Eliminating technical
| and legal counsel is an enabling move for corruption.
| rgovostes wrote:
| A good article from (2015) about the formation of 18F is "Inside
| Obama's Stealth Startup",
| https://www.fastcompany.com/3046756/obama-and-his-geeks.
|
| I can't access an archived version at the moment but if someone
| finds a link, it is an insightful read.
| vetrom wrote:
| (edit: first archive link was not complete)
| https://archive.is/vEExp
| heisenbit wrote:
| It is even nicer to get paid for consulting work (or does anyone
| believe Musk's drones are doing it for free) when it allows you
| to eliminate competition from lower paid staff. Tax dollars
| working on establishing new high watermarks for conflicts of
| interest.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| There was a guy who posted here in HN about to go work for Doge
| but he decided to learn physics in Hawaii instead. He sold a
| company and didn't need to work anymore.
|
| I imagine those are the types attracted to this work to
| potentially do it for free or cheap
| skepticATX wrote:
| Sad that 18F is gone and that USDS is effectively gone. I'd long
| had in the back of my mind that I'd take take a short sabbatical
| at some point and work for one of these organizations - looks
| like that's not happening.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Worry not, if we get to vote again, I expect a hard swing back
| to the other side after these events. Lots of rebuilding to do
| from the ashes. Steady as she goes as we sail through the
| storm.
| labster wrote:
| We're not going to get to vote again. There is no future,
| America's dreaming.
| omnivore wrote:
| This thing was always underutilized even by the last 2
| administrations. For all of the purported DOGE savings, these
| folks actually legitimately saved money from agencies, which is
| why big contractor shops were so opposed. They didn't take
| Congressional appropriations and charged agencies for work, but
| couldn't just go to agencies and pitch business, they had to be
| reached out to.
|
| Can't imagine how much better the thing had been if it'd been
| allowed to fully blossom, but given all the stuff they deal with
| it, it wasn't perfect but it was a really good experiment.
| gigatexal wrote:
| Elon and Trump and MAGA are a cancer. And the other branches of
| government are unable to apply any remedies because it's as if
| the body run by Trump is ingesting radioactive material on the
| daily.
|
| I wonder if Trump is a KGB asset. The way he's undoing America
| from within maybe the premise of the movie the Manchurian
| candidate was not about China running a candidate but Russia.
| jcgrillo wrote:
| > I wonder if Trump is a KGB asset.
|
| It's easy to read into his parroting of putin's talking points
| as deliberate, but I think it might just be "wannabe mobster"
| talk. If anything it's probably a little more nuanced than
| uncle vlad pulling the puppet strings, but they sure do seem
| awful friendly..
|
| I think it's risky to ascribe any real agency or planning to
| trump. He's a very simple creature, and he wears his cravings
| and impulses on his sleeve. I'm much more worried about the
| thinking people operating in his chaotic wake.
| gigatexal wrote:
| There's more and more speculation among the political
| punditry that Trump and company might be seeing Vlad as an
| ally to counter China at the expense of Europe.
|
| But given what little we know about Putin and his cunning as
| an ex KGB officer and likely one of the richest men on the
| planet -- I'm Willing to go into conspiracy land and
| speculate that he has the ability to puppet master folks and
| I wouldn't be surprised that he got his hooks into Trump.
| retzkek wrote:
| There are many conspiracy theories related to his trip to
| Moscow in 1987, which I don't ascribe much to, but the
| connections are there, if only for some "assistance" to be
| rendered quid pro quo.
|
| I'm a firm believer in Hanlon's Razor, and like you ascribe
| most of his and his followers' actions to stupidity, but
| there's clearly also some maliciousness.
| mindslight wrote:
| Decades of so-called conservatives' eagerness to rage against
| whatever other groups of Americans their mainstream media
| directs them at is the cancer. Krasnov and Muskow are just the
| metastasization that will finish killing our society.
|
| I don't know where their actual motives fall on the spectrum
| from being useful idiots stage-managed by social media bots and
| foreign agent handlers, to deliberately working for personal
| rewards in a new Chinese world order. But does it really
| matter?
| gigatexal wrote:
| We need to help our 18F friends find work and get back on their
| feet. Open up your teams, your HR hiring processes, and let's
| help these folks.
| gigatexal wrote:
| Who would downvote this?
| hypothesis wrote:
| Same brigade who flags all those topics above hostile
| government takeover?
| recursive wrote:
| Someone who thinks it's off topic or doesn't contribute I
| guess.
| gigatexal wrote:
| Which is odd -- all the YC startups likely have another
| talented pool of eager engineers to likely hire. Or they
| probably think they'll just be replacing engineers with
| angentic ones (sic).
| cushychicken wrote:
| Is there any meaningful reason that states couldn't start their
| own equivalent 18F at the state level?
|
| I live in Massachusetts and I know a bunch of socially conscious
| techies who'd love to help out in this manner.
|
| I have no idea if there is need for 18F at the state level, but I
| could see something like this working OK in MA, CA, and maybe NY.
| tmm wrote:
| Many states do have something like 18F. Massachusetts has Mass
| Digital[1], Washington has WaTech[2], Maryland has announced[3]
| the formation of one.
|
| [1] https://www.mass.gov/orgs/massachusetts-digital-service [2]
| https://watech.wa.gov/services [3]
| https://governor.maryland.gov/news/press/pages/governor-moor...
| janeerie wrote:
| Colorado also has one: https://oit.colorado.gov/colorado-
| digital-service
| vitorsr wrote:
| California Department of Technology: https://cdt.ca.gov/
|
| Texas Department of Information Resources:
| https://dir.texas.gov/
|
| New York State Office of Information Technology Services:
| https://its.ny.gov/
| fitsumbelay wrote:
| This feels like another designed distraction -- designed to
| impact real human lives, as humans are only cannon fodder to
| Trump and co -- that'll either be clawed back or wallow in legal
| limbo throughout Trump's presidency. I'd like to think there's an
| enormous backlash coming in the form of mid terms and maybe other
| things but it's hard to set realistic expectations these days
| when it comes to American politics
|
| The author's adoption of Elon Musks's irritating "deleted" lingo
| is quite a vibe though. Not.
| vvpan wrote:
| New York Times wrote [1] a pretty extensive expose on how the
| government takeover has happened. Basically Musk started
| infiltrating the government with his agents a couple of years ago
| so by the time inauguration happened he had access to all the
| passwords. I am not sure which laws were broken but if they were
| I hope the administration that comes in 2029 will not overlook
| these people's contribution.
|
| [1] https://archive.ph/oJRrI
| physhster wrote:
| It's somewhat interesting that the NYT acts all outraged while
| the refused to report on the orange guy's numerous conflicts of
| interest/crimes/dubious connections, and all out penchant for
| fascism before the election...
| faitswulff wrote:
| Can't shill outrage without something to be outraged about
| jcgrillo wrote:
| IIRC these organizations were originally formed in reaction to
| how badly contractors screwed up the original healthcare.gov
| rollout? So if the idea is to replace them with a private sector
| contract who gets it? Palantir?
| ronbenton wrote:
| Probably one of Elon's companies
| stefankuehnel wrote:
| Is it possible that the 18F website is no longer available? It
| doesn't seem to work anymore: https://18f.gsa.gov
| ronbenton wrote:
| Yes they tore it down.
| throwawaygovie wrote:
| It was taken down. In general, 18F's open source work was in
| the public domain, though, and I know there have been efforts
| to archive it recently.
|
| Additionally, it looks like some of 18F's public guides are
| still available (e.g. the "Derisking" guide, which is all about
| how to structure your IT projects to be less likely to fail
| spectacularly: https://guides.18f.gov/derisking/)
| dylanz wrote:
| This sucks for accessibility.
| ein0p wrote:
| Lots of people are hyperventilating about DirectFile, but:
|
| 1. IRS itself created DirectFile. 18F merely provided some
| unquantifiable "support"
|
| 2. DirectFile is not shut down.
| nxobject wrote:
| Don't worry - I'm sure that if Scott Bessent's ever worried
| about his job he won't hesitate to get rid of Direct File.
| cwdegidio wrote:
| I've worked closely with 18F staff. They are/were some of the
| most dedicated folks I've ever had the pleasure to work beside.
| Based on my interactions, they were very dedicated to web
| standards that made the web open and easy for all people to use.
| Some of the best a11y researchers & advisors who had real empathy
| and compassion. Anyone who picks these folks up for their org is
| going to be the real winner here.
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