4 ms·

You have to pay... to file your taxes? Just American things, I suppose...

jmugan 3y ago
Not only do you pay, you pay taxes on paying (sales tax).
sli 3y ago
No, they paid a service to do some of the more fiddly work for them. I use the same service, but for just federal, and they are upfront about state filings costing $15 rather than surprising you at the end like Intuit/TurboTax.
wil421 3y ago
No you pay to prepare your taxes. Inuit and a CPA have more thorough questions for more complicated tax situations. Nothing stops you from using the paper form and sending it through the mail.
- Lionga 3y ago
  You guys can not just fill out online forms from the gov. to submit taxes? And I thought Germany was bad because it was online but about 5 to 10 pages and then wait 2 months for the agency to check. Happy I live in Romania now where it is basically 1 form with between 1 (company/cap gains) and 5 (lots of extra income) lines to fill out (and 80% of people don't need to fill anything), submit and get your owed taxes in about 5 minutes.
  - ndriscoll 3y ago
    We can fill out online forms for free. I do it every year. The service is on the sketchy looking freefilefillableforms.com For most people just getting paid by an employer, they'd just need to fill out one short form. For more complicated situations, that site has the other forms you need, and some of them are set up to auto-calculate values across forms.
5555624 3y ago
No, you don't have to pay to file your taxes. You can pay to hv someone else do your taxes for you. The tax code is so screwed up, that it can be difficult to figure everything out yourself; but, you can. I've always done my own taxes. The only "automation" I now use is an Excel spreadsheet, put out each year, for free, by Glen Reeves, (https://sites.google.com/view/incometaxspreadsheet/home/changes https://sites.google.com/view/incometaxspreadsheet/home/chan...)
Beached 3y ago
you do not have to pay. you can do it for free by yourself. there is just a lot of papers, and the language used is confusing to people and they choose to get assistance.
- kccqzy 3y ago
  Any person smart enough to work in tech (like the majority of HN community) can teach themselves how to understand that supposedly confusing language and file taxes themselves. Any person who do not is just valuing their time more than the cost of tax preparation services. FWIW, I only spend about four hours every year doing my taxes myself. Which is less than the time needed to research a tax preparation service, communicate with them, and then check the results.
  - Nimitz14 3y ago
    Do you have investments in stocks and index funds?
    - kccqzy 3y ago
      I trade stocks, ETFs, options (mostly section 1256 contracts which are easy to report), and I have rental property.
  - sershe 3y ago
    +1 on that... I had a complicated ISO options situation once, and that was the only time I used a tax advisor to help me take the return over the finish line. The only mistake in my taxes was in what tax advisor did; I was able to figure it out by reading the official IRS doc a week after filing. Luckily it didn't change the amount owed, the income was just in a completely wrong field according to the doc. The docs are pretty well written...
yodsanklai 3y ago
I have limited experience with US tax, I lived there only one year. Everybody strongly recommended to have someone do it for me because it's complicated. Turned out it wasn't that complicated. Slightly more so than in my country where everything is pre-filled and you just sign. I'm probably stereotyping here, but I noticed Americans are more willing to pay for a service, where Europeans are more penny-pinching and don't see why they should pay for something they can do themselves. I guess American love their businesses, where we see them sometimes suspiciously.
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  Americans have stories of the consequences, which are very inconvenient Your one year of living there exempted you from that
  - kccqzy 3y ago
    What consequences? The IRS sends you a nice letter saying you underpaid. You agree with them and pay them. End of story. It's not like you are using questionable deductions and barely legal maneuvers. Be honest in the first place. Tell them you had a good-faith effort to do your taxes and made a mistake.
  - tekla 3y ago
    Ive been audited twice for unrelated reasons. The IRS sends you a letter asking you for additional information and how to submit it. Its not even strongly worded Very inconvenient, I know.
    - yieldcrv 3y ago
      the stories are inconvenient not necessarily the reality that and most Americans dont have the budget to pay or hire someone to challenge if theyre worried about how to do additional filings
jabroni_salad 3y ago
anything and everything that can have a bloodsucking rentier in front of it, does. And they have way more lobbying dollars than us rubes.
- SergeAx 3y ago
  But it doesn't make any sense. I understand renters banking on realty, 'cause there are just so many land and buildings and making more buildings is expensive and complicated. But tax filing is just a software. Nowadays we teach kids in schools to write software.
  - jabroni_salad 3y ago
    They aren't being taught the tax code, though, and guess who lobbies against simplifying the tax code?
  - yencabulator 3y ago
    If you set up to create a tax filing online service for regular consumers, you'll likely get your company bought out by Intuit before you can make significant market impact... Fine outcome for the founders personally, but Intuit really doesn't want the status quo to change.

Not only do you pay, you pay taxes on paying (sales tax).

sli 3y ago

No, they paid a service to do some of the more fiddly work for them. I use the same service, but for just federal, and they are upfront about state filings costing $15 rather than surprising you at the end like Intuit/TurboTax.

wil421 3y ago

No you pay to prepare your taxes. Inuit and a CPA have more thorough questions for more complicated tax situations. Nothing stops you from using the paper form and sending it through the mail.

Lionga 3y ago
You guys can not just fill out online forms from the gov. to submit taxes? And I thought Germany was bad because it was online but about 5 to 10 pages and then wait 2 months for the agency to check. Happy I live in Romania now where it is basically 1 form with between 1 (company/cap gains) and 5 (lots of extra income) lines to fill out (and 80% of people don't need to fill anything), submit and get your owed taxes in about 5 minutes.
- ndriscoll 3y ago
  We can fill out online forms for free. I do it every year. The service is on the sketchy looking freefilefillableforms.com For most people just getting paid by an employer, they'd just need to fill out one short form. For more complicated situations, that site has the other forms you need, and some of them are set up to auto-calculate values across forms.

5555624 3y ago

No, you don't have to pay to file your taxes. You can pay to hv someone else do your taxes for you. The tax code is so screwed up, that it can be difficult to figure everything out yourself; but, you can. I've always done my own taxes. The only "automation" I now use is an Excel spreadsheet, put out each year, for free, by Glen Reeves, (https://sites.google.com/view/incometaxspreadsheet/home/changes https://sites.google.com/view/incometaxspreadsheet/home/chan...)

Beached 3y ago

you do not have to pay. you can do it for free by yourself. there is just a lot of papers, and the language used is confusing to people and they choose to get assistance.

kccqzy 3y ago
Any person smart enough to work in tech (like the majority of HN community) can teach themselves how to understand that supposedly confusing language and file taxes themselves. Any person who do not is just valuing their time more than the cost of tax preparation services. FWIW, I only spend about four hours every year doing my taxes myself. Which is less than the time needed to research a tax preparation service, communicate with them, and then check the results.
- Nimitz14 3y ago
  Do you have investments in stocks and index funds?
  - kccqzy 3y ago
    I trade stocks, ETFs, options (mostly section 1256 contracts which are easy to report), and I have rental property.
- sershe 3y ago
  +1 on that... I had a complicated ISO options situation once, and that was the only time I used a tax advisor to help me take the return over the finish line. The only mistake in my taxes was in what tax advisor did; I was able to figure it out by reading the official IRS doc a week after filing. Luckily it didn't change the amount owed, the income was just in a completely wrong field according to the doc. The docs are pretty well written...

yodsanklai 3y ago

I have limited experience with US tax, I lived there only one year. Everybody strongly recommended to have someone do it for me because it's complicated. Turned out it wasn't that complicated. Slightly more so than in my country where everything is pre-filled and you just sign. I'm probably stereotyping here, but I noticed Americans are more willing to pay for a service, where Europeans are more penny-pinching and don't see why they should pay for something they can do themselves. I guess American love their businesses, where we see them sometimes suspiciously.

yieldcrv 3y ago
Americans have stories of the consequences, which are very inconvenient Your one year of living there exempted you from that
- kccqzy 3y ago
  What consequences? The IRS sends you a nice letter saying you underpaid. You agree with them and pay them. End of story. It's not like you are using questionable deductions and barely legal maneuvers. Be honest in the first place. Tell them you had a good-faith effort to do your taxes and made a mistake.
- tekla 3y ago
  Ive been audited twice for unrelated reasons. The IRS sends you a letter asking you for additional information and how to submit it. Its not even strongly worded Very inconvenient, I know.
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    the stories are inconvenient not necessarily the reality that and most Americans dont have the budget to pay or hire someone to challenge if theyre worried about how to do additional filings

jabroni_salad 3y ago

anything and everything that can have a bloodsucking rentier in front of it, does. And they have way more lobbying dollars than us rubes.

SergeAx 3y ago
But it doesn't make any sense. I understand renters banking on realty, 'cause there are just so many land and buildings and making more buildings is expensive and complicated. But tax filing is just a software. Nowadays we teach kids in schools to write software.
- jabroni_salad 3y ago
  They aren't being taught the tax code, though, and guess who lobbies against simplifying the tax code?
- yencabulator 3y ago
  If you set up to create a tax filing online service for regular consumers, you'll likely get your company bought out by Intuit before you can make significant market impact... Fine outcome for the founders personally, but Intuit really doesn't want the status quo to change.