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Not just that it is blank, it is expected that certain things that you fill match what they already know. It is more like a test, where you get nothing if you
by harikb 6y ago
Not just that it is blank, it is expected that certain things that you fill match what they already know.
It is more like a test, where you get nothing if you answer correctly and penalty if you make a mistake.
Note: IRS does provide a way to download what they know as a pdf (what banks reported, for example), so one can get some help with the "test"
- sargun 6y agoWhere can you download that?
- vector_spaces 6y agoLog into irs.gov and download your transcripts. You can also call them and request they be faxed or mailed to you. But they are only usually available by about July of the tax year, so only useful if you're filing late
- owenmarshall 6y agoMake a good-faith error when you file your taxes. The IRS will send you a letter detailing what you did wrong per their records, your corrected taxes, and how to correct their records if you disagree. That’s what happened to me when TurboTax applied too many credits. That’s when I learned that the IRS had everything they needed to just send me a bill.
- dawnerd 6y agoThey don’t know about any deductions you might have though. If you’re not itemizing I guess that’s fine but for us that have a lot more stuff being written off it’s impossible for it to just be a bill. That said there are ways they could build around it but it’s the IRS so that’ll never happen.
- GoOnThenDoTell 6y agoI had a similar experience, except that the IRS was missing cost basis info entirely and so they thought I should pay a huge amout, and so I had to send them the info. They were very nice about it though.
- anonAndOn 6y agoSeconded. This must be a known issue for them? It would have been nice to acquire the securities for $0 but I was not so lucky as their tax bill indicated.
- warent 6y agoI don't think this is exactly right is it? My understanding is it's not about testing you, it's just a matter of resource allocation in a severely inefficient system. The IRS does not have the resources to manually verify all of everyone's income, so instead they use a process of flags which trigger audits of varying depth. Flags include things such as certain reported amounts/types of values. Shallow audits review some submitted records, and the deepest ones are detailed, extensively scrutinizing all aspects of all records by a forensic accountant in an attempt to identify some criminal behavior. But I have no idea how much of this is true as I think about it. It's just some things I've intuited/reasoned out over time.
- TheCraiggers 6y agoCompanies like Intuit have successfully lobbied our government to halt any sort of bill that would make it better. The entire thing could be easily automated; other countries have proved that. But then Turbo tax wouldn't get to rake in all that $$$. Seriously though, I would love (hate) to read what sort of ethical backflips they had to do to make IRS reform a bad thing. I'm presuming they tried to make logical arguments.
- tssva 6y agoMy state had an online tax system in test for a few years. Over the course of 3 - 4 years it was opened up to a larger group of tax payers with potentialy more complex tax returns. The final year of testing I was one of those selected to use it. The following year it was going to be rolled out to everyone. The state had invested millions in it. The legislative session before it was to go live Intuit successfully lobbied both the governor and legislature to kill it.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoIn which state did this happen?
- rodonn 6y ago