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> Keep in mind that this would generally only apply to people who are taking the standard deductions. The IRS may be able to pre-fill your returns with W-2 or i

by p49k 8y ago

> Keep in mind that this would generally only apply to people who are taking the standard deductions. The IRS may be able to pre-fill your returns with W-2 or investment related 1099 information. That’s all anyone is asking for. This is exactly how taxes work in most of the modern world: you’re sent a prefilled form which is already completely filled for the majority of people, and you only need to confirm if it’s correct or edit if not. > If you actually have a simple tax situation, there are plenty of free filing options: https://freefilealliance.org https://freefilealliance.org Which is headed by Intuit and designed in a way to purposely make the options as difficult to understand and use as possible so that people buy Intuit products. Google to read any number of articles which go into this in detail.

cepth 8y ago
Back when my tax situation was a bit simpler, I used one of these providers (I forget which) to file a 1040EZ: https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-everyone-can-file-an-extension-for-free https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-everyone-can-file-an-ex.... If you are above the income threshold, you can mail in a paper return. I don’t remember the process taking very long? Maybe there’s disinformation out there, but it was my experience that once you’ve actually found a free filing option, the process involves entering maybe a dozen numbers.
- Nullabillity 8y ago
  From the front page about a week ago: https://uxdesign.cc/turbotax-design-1a37356adc61 https://uxdesign.cc/turbotax-design-1a37356adc61 And "a dozen" fields for the common case is still absolutely ridiculous. Here the "common case" e-filing requires exactly three fields: your personal number, your password, and your password again after you've confirmed everything. Even the time they got it wrong (an employer was missing) it took.. two extra numbers: their org no. and the total pay.
  - cepth 8y ago
    I probably should’ve made clear that I support the idea of pre-filled taxes for most people. At the same time, I think there’s some tendency towards exaggeration on how hard someone who derived all their income from a single W-2 has to work to file taxes. Your W-2 alone has 20 boxes, albeit usually a dozen are actually used. When you file using a free online service, they have to ask you if you’re filing jointly, if you have dependents etc. A dozen fields is not a lot of work when you’re literally retyping information from a paper form. It’s tedious, but not particularly time consuming. It took me maybe an hour, part of which was just getting my pay stubs and W-2 out.
    - p49k 8y ago
      Not everyone is a well-educated HN reader like yourself. I know tons of people (genuinely good people who work hard and contribute significantly to our society) who get anxiety around tax time and end up paying for services they don't need because they buy into the dark patterns and scare tactics pushed by Intuit and H&R Block. They wouldn't have this problem if they received a pre-filled form in which they knew there would be basically zero chance of error if they were a regular W2 employee.
darepublic 8y ago
Seems like one political solution is to simplify the tax code
- travmatt 8y ago
  There’s probably too much room for political gamesmanship in a complex tax base for that to get traction, sadly.

by p49k 8y ago

cepth 8y ago

Back when my tax situation was a bit simpler, I used one of these providers (I forget which) to file a 1040EZ: https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-everyone-can-file-an-extension-for-free https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-everyone-can-file-an-ex.... If you are above the income threshold, you can mail in a paper return. I don’t remember the process taking very long? Maybe there’s disinformation out there, but it was my experience that once you’ve actually found a free filing option, the process involves entering maybe a dozen numbers.

Nullabillity 8y ago
From the front page about a week ago: https://uxdesign.cc/turbotax-design-1a37356adc61 https://uxdesign.cc/turbotax-design-1a37356adc61 And "a dozen" fields for the common case is still absolutely ridiculous. Here the "common case" e-filing requires exactly three fields: your personal number, your password, and your password again after you've confirmed everything. Even the time they got it wrong (an employer was missing) it took.. two extra numbers: their org no. and the total pay.
- cepth 8y ago
  I probably should’ve made clear that I support the idea of pre-filled taxes for most people. At the same time, I think there’s some tendency towards exaggeration on how hard someone who derived all their income from a single W-2 has to work to file taxes. Your W-2 alone has 20 boxes, albeit usually a dozen are actually used. When you file using a free online service, they have to ask you if you’re filing jointly, if you have dependents etc. A dozen fields is not a lot of work when you’re literally retyping information from a paper form. It’s tedious, but not particularly time consuming. It took me maybe an hour, part of which was just getting my pay stubs and W-2 out.
  - p49k 8y ago
    Not everyone is a well-educated HN reader like yourself. I know tons of people (genuinely good people who work hard and contribute significantly to our society) who get anxiety around tax time and end up paying for services they don't need because they buy into the dark patterns and scare tactics pushed by Intuit and H&R Block. They wouldn't have this problem if they received a pre-filled form in which they knew there would be basically zero chance of error if they were a regular W2 employee.

darepublic 8y ago

Seems like one political solution is to simplify the tax code

travmatt 8y ago
There’s probably too much room for political gamesmanship in a complex tax base for that to get traction, sadly.