7 ms·

Because you could have gotten married, been blinded, and started a business grossing $900k but only netting $100k a year and they would know none of that outsid

Because you could have gotten married, been blinded, and started a business grossing $900k but only netting $100k a year and they would know none of that outside of a couple of 1099s. What they did for you though is look at your return, and saw you didn't declare investment income that they knew about from a 1099.

tombert 3y ago
Sure, but couldn't that be done on a case-by-case basis, and the fed just sends you a refund/bill at the end of the year that you're responsible for amending? I'm not saying a company like Intuit adds zero utility, I'm just saying that I think a lot of taxes are simple enough to where it would be relatively easy to just give people a default thing. If the IRS gets something wrong, or is missing some info, then I think a software like TurboTax makes a lot of sense, but isn't that much more of an edge case? Fundamentally, the complexity of my taxes didn't really change in the last five years.
- cragfar 3y ago
  When the 1040EZ was a thing, only 16% of filers used it. Those would be the candidates who could safely have the IRS do their return. With anyone else, there's all kinds of information the IRS has no clue about.
  - jedberg 3y ago
    Most people don't use the EZ because even the most common deductions (that the IRS knows about, like your mortgage and state taxes and your stock investments through a firm, etc.) couldn't be put on there. But the IRS still knows about them. Also they could put a website where you could spend five minutes entering the most common information they don't already know, and then spit out your bill. It's not that hard. Most filers situations aren't that complicated.
    - cragfar 3y ago
      >Also they could put a website where you could spend five minutes entering the most common information they don't already know, and then spit out your bill. That's basically what they're doing.
      - jedberg 3y ago
        No it's not. They are setting up a free filing that will still ask you to input forms they already know about just like turbotax does.
  - squeaky-clean 3y ago
    1040EZ did not allow claiming dependents, and had an income limit of 100k. So many people were ineligible to use it.
jedberg 3y ago
So they send you a bill and you send back a form that says "here is a thing you didn't know about that changes the math". 87% of tax filers could have their taxes filled out by the IRS because they IRS already has all the information.
- cragfar 3y ago
  They definitely don't have all that information. That was my point.
  - jedberg 3y ago
    But your point is wrong. In 87% of the cases, the IRS does have all the information. Even if you have donations or other deductions it doesn't matter, because 87% of people take the standard deduction since it's more than their itemized deductions. And marriage and death records are public, as are probate. So they would have all of that too.
    - cragfar 3y ago
      There's really no point in continuing this discussion if you think the IRS is scraping data of every county in the US for marital status changes.
      - jedberg 3y ago
        Of course they aren't. But they could if there was automatic billing. Or simply ask you if the most common situations apply to you, just like turbotax does.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - theoldlove 3y ago
        I think it’s likely the IRS uses some kind of database of US vital statistics (including marriages) as part of efforts to detect tax fraud. Other federal agencies do, eg the State Department’s passport office uses a proprietary database called EVVE of birth and death data. [0] [0]. https://www.naphsis.org/evve https://www.naphsis.org/evve

tombert 3y ago

Sure, but couldn't that be done on a case-by-case basis, and the fed just sends you a refund/bill at the end of the year that you're responsible for amending? I'm not saying a company like Intuit adds zero utility, I'm just saying that I think a lot of taxes are simple enough to where it would be relatively easy to just give people a default thing. If the IRS gets something wrong, or is missing some info, then I think a software like TurboTax makes a lot of sense, but isn't that much more of an edge case? Fundamentally, the complexity of my taxes didn't really change in the last five years.

cragfar 3y ago
When the 1040EZ was a thing, only 16% of filers used it. Those would be the candidates who could safely have the IRS do their return. With anyone else, there's all kinds of information the IRS has no clue about.
- jedberg 3y ago
  Most people don't use the EZ because even the most common deductions (that the IRS knows about, like your mortgage and state taxes and your stock investments through a firm, etc.) couldn't be put on there. But the IRS still knows about them. Also they could put a website where you could spend five minutes entering the most common information they don't already know, and then spit out your bill. It's not that hard. Most filers situations aren't that complicated.
  - cragfar 3y ago
    >Also they could put a website where you could spend five minutes entering the most common information they don't already know, and then spit out your bill. That's basically what they're doing.
    - jedberg 3y ago
      No it's not. They are setting up a free filing that will still ask you to input forms they already know about just like turbotax does.
- squeaky-clean 3y ago
  1040EZ did not allow claiming dependents, and had an income limit of 100k. So many people were ineligible to use it.

jedberg 3y ago

So they send you a bill and you send back a form that says "here is a thing you didn't know about that changes the math". 87% of tax filers could have their taxes filled out by the IRS because they IRS already has all the information.

cragfar 3y ago
They definitely don't have all that information. That was my point.
- jedberg 3y ago
  But your point is wrong. In 87% of the cases, the IRS does have all the information. Even if you have donations or other deductions it doesn't matter, because 87% of people take the standard deduction since it's more than their itemized deductions. And marriage and death records are public, as are probate. So they would have all of that too.
  - cragfar 3y ago
    There's really no point in continuing this discussion if you think the IRS is scraping data of every county in the US for marital status changes.
    - jedberg 3y ago
      Of course they aren't. But they could if there was automatic billing. Or simply ask you if the most common situations apply to you, just like turbotax does.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - theoldlove 3y ago
      I think it’s likely the IRS uses some kind of database of US vital statistics (including marriages) as part of efforts to detect tax fraud. Other federal agencies do, eg the State Department’s passport office uses a proprietary database called EVVE of birth and death data. [0] [0]. https://www.naphsis.org/evve https://www.naphsis.org/evve