4 ms·

Hey, just an FYI. You never have to pay to file taxes. Like the forms are free on IRS.gov. You can fill in the information and mail it in with any money you ow

by iamwpj 7y ago

Hey, just an FYI. You never have to pay to file taxes. Like the forms are free on IRS.gov. You can fill in the information and mail it in with any money you owe too. There are help guides that step your through the process of filling out the forms as well, like worksheets to calculate deductibles if you need it. It's very important that you go to IRS.gov and look at your options before you ever pay someone to do your taxes. https://www.irs.gov/forms-instructions https://www.irs.gov/forms-instructions It's good to have free software and keep forms fillable, but we as a society NEED to know how to perform taxes and that the process DOES NOT COST MONEY. You most likely can do it yourself. The reason we're in the mess now is because people have been so willing to believe that taxes are too hard and impossible for the individual. Who's telling you that you shouldn't do taxes on your own? Look at their motivations.

JTbane 7y ago
It's a tradeoff between money/convenience, or money/time. Of course no one NEEDS to pay the $49 for TurboTax. They do it because it is easy. The reason Intuit has been able to make so much money is that no one wants to waste hours poring over verbose IRS instruction publications, which are not trivial for a layperson to fill out correctly.
- bluGill 7y ago
  I quit doing my own by hand because one year I forgot to copy line 13b of form 123a: to line 26d of form 987d... The software does this automatically for me. I generally think software is slower than doing everything by hand ( I use TaxAct, I don't know how turbotax is different) because of all the stupid waits while it asks questions that don't apply (retirement income...).
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    New Jersey used to have a PDF form with JavaScript that would copy around all the duplicate values automatically. The only annoying thing about it was that it only worked in Adobe Reader. This year they went to a poorly designed plain PDF form that only let you fill in individual digits for each line item, with tabs needed to shift each place value.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > The reason Intuit has been able to make so much money is that no one wants to waste hours poring over verbose IRS instruction publications And because Intuit spends a lot of money lobbying to ensure that the IRS won't make things any easier.
pishpash 7y ago
Have you looked at the OMB filing time estimates on each form? That's a significant investment of time. I've done it many times and I think everyone should do it at least once so they can verify the software's work in the future, because despite what you think software does make egregious mistakes (data flow related, not math) and miss opportunities due to opaque questioning. But, doing it that way every year is not a practical option for anyone who doesn't already qualify for the free filing options anyway.
penagwin 7y ago
Filing taxes is crazy complicated though. When I got my first job in high school, it was still confusing, even with turbotax (which is free under a certain income). There's so many bits and peices even for individuals with "simple income structure". The vocabulary is unfamiliar, how do I report my savings account earnings? Do I need to if they were only 50c? My buddy has to report expenses of a certain kind, and it's complicated to do that even with turbo tax too. Haven't even gotten started on people with crypto-investments, freelancing, multiple jobs, dependants, etc. Yes you can totally learn that stuff on your own, but there's 0 chance you can expect the general population to be capable of doing their own taxes without messing stuff up.
ip26 7y ago
Nobody has to pay money to file their taxes. Anybody could figure it all out on their own. But I have a new & deep appreciation for how complicated taxes can get. If you have W-2's and 1099's, it's pretty easy. But holy cow, I ran a rental property and there is a huge step function in complexity when you venture beyond the W-2 & 1099. And that was only just dipping my toes in the pool of business taxes. So a hired accountant, or a software-accountant (turbotax, h&r block), really can help you out where you might otherwise have to pour over IRS documents every weeknight for months.
- Bartweiss 7y ago
  Even for people operating exclusively on wages/salary, it's amazing how fast things can snowball. Did you work remotely for an out-of-state employer? Now you get to worry about the interplay of taxes in multiple states. Did you change health insurers mid-year? Now you're working out how to prove you were ACA-compliant at all times. Did you have some obscure deduction like rent payment deductions from state taxes? Several people I know lost hundreds of dollars this year by simply not knowing that deduction existed. Obviously, filing with a paid service instead of simply getting a bill in the mail has a cost. But working out what one owes under the current system also has a pretty significant cost, both in hours spent and potentially in dollars.
cortesoft 7y ago
It takes hours more to do it by hand, which is way more valuable than $60 for turbo tax.
lordlimecat 7y ago
FreeTaxUSA offers a service for $15 that saves me 2+ hours of time, and optionally offers to give me a professionally bound return for $10. Recently I paid a small business $20 to wash my car. It probably saved me an hour out of my day. Why is the second business's services more valid than the first? I know how to wash my car, i know how to do my taxes, but I also value my time.
- cheriot 7y ago
  Because the IRS is forbidden from making take less time because of tax prep company lobbying. How much of those two hours are spent giving the IRS the same numbers they already have?
recursive 7y ago
Several years ago I tried following this advice, and inadvertantly double-reported some income. This was after attempting to read all the relevant instructions and forms. I then spent dozens (multiple) of hours trying to clean up the mess. There probably would have been a more efficient way of doing it, but that's kind of the point. Professionals know their way around the system and understand the vocabulary. I have no doubt that it's technically possible for anyone to do their own taxes. But if you're inexperienced, it's fraught with peril. And my situation was one that most people would call pretty simple.
- Bartweiss 7y ago
  Similarly, it's often easy to miss some deductions altogether. Not only is the paperwork often confusing, but deductions are an unknown-unknowns situation where you might never even see the relevant form. Several people I know ran into that this year and overpayed by enough to wipe out 5-10 years of TurboTax fees, which really calls into doubt the cost-benefit of doing them by hand. And as you said - those people were formula-happy programmers with simple W-2 income from one job. It's the absolute lowest level of complexity available, and it's still easy to get wrong.

by iamwpj 7y ago

JTbane 7y ago

It's a tradeoff between money/convenience, or money/time. Of course no one NEEDS to pay the $49 for TurboTax. They do it because it is easy. The reason Intuit has been able to make so much money is that no one wants to waste hours poring over verbose IRS instruction publications, which are not trivial for a layperson to fill out correctly.

bluGill 7y ago
I quit doing my own by hand because one year I forgot to copy line 13b of form 123a: to line 26d of form 987d... The software does this automatically for me. I generally think software is slower than doing everything by hand ( I use TaxAct, I don't know how turbotax is different) because of all the stupid waits while it asks questions that don't apply (retirement income...).
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  New Jersey used to have a PDF form with JavaScript that would copy around all the duplicate values automatically. The only annoying thing about it was that it only worked in Adobe Reader. This year they went to a poorly designed plain PDF form that only let you fill in individual digits for each line item, with tabs needed to shift each place value.
JohnFen 7y ago
> The reason Intuit has been able to make so much money is that no one wants to waste hours poring over verbose IRS instruction publications And because Intuit spends a lot of money lobbying to ensure that the IRS won't make things any easier.

pishpash 7y ago

Have you looked at the OMB filing time estimates on each form? That's a significant investment of time. I've done it many times and I think everyone should do it at least once so they can verify the software's work in the future, because despite what you think software does make egregious mistakes (data flow related, not math) and miss opportunities due to opaque questioning. But, doing it that way every year is not a practical option for anyone who doesn't already qualify for the free filing options anyway.

penagwin 7y ago

Filing taxes is crazy complicated though. When I got my first job in high school, it was still confusing, even with turbotax (which is free under a certain income). There's so many bits and peices even for individuals with "simple income structure". The vocabulary is unfamiliar, how do I report my savings account earnings? Do I need to if they were only 50c? My buddy has to report expenses of a certain kind, and it's complicated to do that even with turbo tax too. Haven't even gotten started on people with crypto-investments, freelancing, multiple jobs, dependants, etc. Yes you can totally learn that stuff on your own, but there's 0 chance you can expect the general population to be capable of doing their own taxes without messing stuff up.

ip26 7y ago

Nobody has to pay money to file their taxes. Anybody could figure it all out on their own. But I have a new & deep appreciation for how complicated taxes can get. If you have W-2's and 1099's, it's pretty easy. But holy cow, I ran a rental property and there is a huge step function in complexity when you venture beyond the W-2 & 1099. And that was only just dipping my toes in the pool of business taxes. So a hired accountant, or a software-accountant (turbotax, h&r block), really can help you out where you might otherwise have to pour over IRS documents every weeknight for months.

Bartweiss 7y ago
Even for people operating exclusively on wages/salary, it's amazing how fast things can snowball. Did you work remotely for an out-of-state employer? Now you get to worry about the interplay of taxes in multiple states. Did you change health insurers mid-year? Now you're working out how to prove you were ACA-compliant at all times. Did you have some obscure deduction like rent payment deductions from state taxes? Several people I know lost hundreds of dollars this year by simply not knowing that deduction existed. Obviously, filing with a paid service instead of simply getting a bill in the mail has a cost. But working out what one owes under the current system also has a pretty significant cost, both in hours spent and potentially in dollars.

cortesoft 7y ago

It takes hours more to do it by hand, which is way more valuable than $60 for turbo tax.

lordlimecat 7y ago

FreeTaxUSA offers a service for $15 that saves me 2+ hours of time, and optionally offers to give me a professionally bound return for $10. Recently I paid a small business $20 to wash my car. It probably saved me an hour out of my day. Why is the second business's services more valid than the first? I know how to wash my car, i know how to do my taxes, but I also value my time.

cheriot 7y ago
Because the IRS is forbidden from making take less time because of tax prep company lobbying. How much of those two hours are spent giving the IRS the same numbers they already have?

recursive 7y ago

Several years ago I tried following this advice, and inadvertantly double-reported some income. This was after attempting to read all the relevant instructions and forms. I then spent dozens (multiple) of hours trying to clean up the mess. There probably would have been a more efficient way of doing it, but that's kind of the point. Professionals know their way around the system and understand the vocabulary. I have no doubt that it's technically possible for anyone to do their own taxes. But if you're inexperienced, it's fraught with peril. And my situation was one that most people would call pretty simple.

Bartweiss 7y ago
Similarly, it's often easy to miss some deductions altogether. Not only is the paperwork often confusing, but deductions are an unknown-unknowns situation where you might never even see the relevant form. Several people I know ran into that this year and overpayed by enough to wipe out 5-10 years of TurboTax fees, which really calls into doubt the cost-benefit of doing them by hand. And as you said - those people were formula-happy programmers with simple W-2 income from one job. It's the absolute lowest level of complexity available, and it's still easy to get wrong.