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> The IRS designed the pilot to follow the best practices for launching a new technology platform by starting small, making sure it works and then building from

by RajT88 3y ago

> The IRS designed the pilot to follow the best practices for launching a new technology platform by starting small, making sure it works and then building from there. But they're including the 4 most populous states, which comprise 37% of the population by themselves. lol

nozzlegear 3y ago
Devil's advocate, but it's not like all 100% of the population in each of these states is going to start using the free file system. It does sound a bit silly though, I agree!
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  From what I can tell, people new to taxes find the cheapest way presented to them at the time, and then stick with that mainly out of fear so the old couple with papers strewn out over the table just keep doing that the turbotax e-filers keep doing that the “I know a guy” people keep doing that and people that stop being dependents last year are going to use this not much objectivity in this
  - nozzlegear 3y ago
    That sounds about right to me. I don’t have any plans to move on from FreeTaxUSA unless this IRS thing blows me away. Not that it’s available in my state yet anyway. As a counterpoint though, I did move from Turbotax to FreeTaxUSA in my 20s after I started a business, because Turbotax wanted something like $400 just to file my Schedule C; FreeTaxUSA didn't charge anything for that form.
KTibow 3y ago
IIRC these states don't have certain types of taxes which would complicate things
- dtparr 3y ago
  I believe it's more the states with no state income tax at all plus those that have a state-provided version of "direct file" already available.
callalex 3y ago
There are many different definitions of "small". In this case, number of users probably doesn't make much difference to them, it's more about the number of/complexity of tax laws.
pimlottc 3y ago
This isn't the first rollout phase, they have been earlier closed pilots [0] 0: https://apnews.com/article/irs-income-taxes-direct-file-program-free-4b0917e281b63e06527343598dde650c https://apnews.com/article/irs-income-taxes-direct-file-prog...

by RajT88 3y ago

nozzlegear 3y ago

Devil's advocate, but it's not like all 100% of the population in each of these states is going to start using the free file system. It does sound a bit silly though, I agree!

yieldcrv 3y ago
From what I can tell, people new to taxes find the cheapest way presented to them at the time, and then stick with that mainly out of fear so the old couple with papers strewn out over the table just keep doing that the turbotax e-filers keep doing that the “I know a guy” people keep doing that and people that stop being dependents last year are going to use this not much objectivity in this
- nozzlegear 3y ago
  That sounds about right to me. I don’t have any plans to move on from FreeTaxUSA unless this IRS thing blows me away. Not that it’s available in my state yet anyway. As a counterpoint though, I did move from Turbotax to FreeTaxUSA in my 20s after I started a business, because Turbotax wanted something like $400 just to file my Schedule C; FreeTaxUSA didn't charge anything for that form.

KTibow 3y ago

IIRC these states don't have certain types of taxes which would complicate things

dtparr 3y ago
I believe it's more the states with no state income tax at all plus those that have a state-provided version of "direct file" already available.

callalex 3y ago

There are many different definitions of "small". In this case, number of users probably doesn't make much difference to them, it's more about the number of/complexity of tax laws.

pimlottc 3y ago

This isn't the first rollout phase, they have been earlier closed pilots [0] 0: https://apnews.com/article/irs-income-taxes-direct-file-program-free-4b0917e281b63e06527343598dde650c https://apnews.com/article/irs-income-taxes-direct-file-prog...