17 ms·

Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

239 points by wslack 2y ago

nneonneo 2y ago
I did my Canadian taxes for me and my spouse on a free filing site last night, in less than two hours, for $0. Everything was prefilled; practically the only thing I had to fix was to convert an imported investment statement from USD to CAD, and double check that everything was accurate. I welcome the Americans to the delightful convenience of hassle-free taxes!
- balls187 2y ago
  It is bonkers that the IRS cannot prefill information for the majority of Taxpayers.
  - idle_zealot 2y ago
    This last year when filing my taxes with a paid turbotax product some value was auto-filled and looked about right. After submission I was notified that the IRS rejected my form because the field was wrong. They did not correct the field or otherwise communicate what they believed the value should have been. Tracking down what number they actually wanted there was a hassle. So... they have on file what they expect your taxes to be, will reject your filing if you get it wrong... but won't just use their gathered values to do your taxes. Very frustrating.
    - majormajor 2y ago
      Huh, I've never had my filing rejected but I've had the IRS send me letters a couple times. Once a year or two later, the other time (last year) a few weeks later or so before I got the refund: each time they told me exactly what they thought I'd missed. Which still highlights the absurdity of making me re-enter the stuff they already know.
      - sokoloff 2y ago
        In most cases, you know the information (and may have to file) before they’ve processed it. Request your tax account transcript (what they know about your account) on April 15 and again on August 15. I can pretty well guarantee they’ll be different for the prior calendar year. It might be stuff they’ll eventually know, but it’s not necessarily stuff they already know at the relevant time.
        ghaff 2y ago
        I don’t typically get 1099s until in February. I suspect wouldn’t get you pre-filled tax forms until late March.
      - balls187 2y ago
        Rejection is usually something the IRS can suss out immediately when you e-filing such as incorrect SSN for dependents. Correction letters are just form letters from automated audits, usually forgetting to input a 1099 misc from some bank account.
    - loeg 2y ago
      They'll send you a letter with the wrong value and the value they think is correct. And if you agree, you usually don't have to take any action (beyond maybe paying more).
  - ITB 2y ago
    They could. They just want you to confess the things that are harder for them to track. So they pretend they know more than they do.
    - EduardoBautista 2y ago
      Most people get money back from the IRS. If anything, making tax returns optional for people with just employment income would mean the IRS would keep more money.
  - loeg 2y ago
    Well, they can; that's the service the article is discussing?
- kernal 2y ago
  So this free site was not run by the government of Canada. Are you concerned that you just gave all of your personal and financial data to a third party site? If you’re not paying anything they’re likely data mining your data and selling it. And we haven’t even talked about the security implications of trusting your data to these companies.
  - kanbara 2y ago
    that’s how free file works in the us….
  - smnrchrds 2y ago
    Due to a similar approach to privacy, I use GenuTax, which is a Windows program not a website, and does not send anything anywhere except to the tax authority. Not everyone cares about this aspect of privacy and security, but for those who do, there are options, both free (GenuTax) and paid (StudioTax, etc.).
- web3-is-a-scam 2y ago
  My employer submitted all my T4 information to the CRA. My investment services submitted all my tax forms to the CRA. UFile downloaded everything for me, autofilled my return, submitted it online back to the CRA and charged me $30 for the privilege. LMAO
  - smnrchrds 2y ago
    That's why I use one of the free options. Both GenuTax and WealthsimpleTax are free to use and user-friendly, albeit in different ways. What extra thing does UFile do to justify its price?
    - web3-is-a-scam 2y ago
      At the time it was just the convenience of getting it done and moving on since I’ve been using it for over a decade. Next year I will probably just use WealthSimple, since I have fair amount of investments with WS anyway.
- willcipriano 2y ago
  > less than two hours > hassle-free taxes That's still a crazy demand on the time of someone paying for everything. My bank, my employer and my brokerage all report on me, the IRS should be able to just mail a check or a bill most of the time.
  - klyrs 2y ago
    "Less than two hours" does sound like a lot. I'm also in Canada and spend about 10 minutes per year on my Canadian taxes. Settling with the US government as an expat, on the other hand... I pay handomely for somebody to handle that.
    - dh2022 2y ago
      Let's all absorb the HN moment when Canadian taxes are preferred to American taxes.
  - nneonneo 2y ago
    I have a bunch of USD-denominated stuff for which my brokerage doesn’t always issue complete tax slips for, so it required going over my statements to double check that everything was being accounted correctly. My wife’s (uncomplicated) taxes basically took 15 minutes. You do always want to check to make sure that you’ve hit every tax deduction you can - for example, work-from-home deductions, donation deductions, even things like paying for news subscriptions gets a tax credit. That’s the sort of thing that doesn’t get reported to the CRA, but which you can claim tax deductions on.
  - EduardoBautista 2y ago
    My C-corp taxes took about half an hour with turbo tax (just software development contracting). It really puzzles me what is so complicated about filing taxes as someone who only has employment income.
- magicalhippo 2y ago
  Here in Norway I just have to look it over on our IRS' own site (so no selling of private data to god knows how many unknown third parties), add a couple of items they don't get automatically, like a private loan, and click save. Less than 10 minutes. For years the big hassle was that housing loans only got put on one of us, but since we're both paying on the loan, the loan and deductions should be split as well. So that had to be manually calculated and corrected on each of our declarations. However last year they fixed that. Now they get the split from the property ownership registry and distribute the loan and deductions according to that. For most people they pay similar to their ownership, typically 50/50, so no need to change that anymore. Our IRS' has a quite good internal development team[1], rather than relying on contractors for everything. Their digital solutions has been several steps ahead most other agencies. [1]: https://www.skatteetaten.no/nn/itjobb/ledige-stillinger/ https://www.skatteetaten.no/nn/itjobb/ledige-stillinger/
- 946789987649 2y ago
  It can be even better - in the UK unless you earn over a large amount, or know for a fact you have some special circumstances, you never have to do a thing.
kelthuzad 2y ago
wait until turbo tax comes in hot with their lobbying efforts - didn't they manage to prevent or diminish a free tax filing service already a few years ago?
- lolinder 2y ago
  As I understand it, this system exists largely because ProPublica shined a light on how corrupt the TurboTax deals were and the IRS couldn't pretend they thought everything was okay anymore. I'm hopeful that the IRS knows that we're on to it and doesn't get cozy with them again.
  - dsr_ 2y ago
    The IRS is not 'cozy' with Intuit, HRB, etc. The IRS is underfunded by political design. All of this crap is the fault of corporate lobbyists and the politicians who take their money.
    - saulrh 2y ago
      For people who aren't aware of this, the IRS is so underfunded right now that funding IRS enforcement has an ROI of between five and nine, that is, for every dollar we put into funding the IRS it would be able to claw back up to ten dollars in unpaid taxes. That's the kind of number that you usually only see on "the next Google" type unicorn startups. It would take eighty billion dollars, invested over ten years, to fund the IRS to the point where diminishing returns bring the ROI back down to reasonable levels; those eighty billion dollars would return almost 200 billion dollars in newly collected taxes. Almost all of that would come from high-wealth taxpayers, large corporations, and partnerships, which are currently very under-audited due to lack of resources - the audit rate is currently lower for high-wealth entities than it is for random poor people simply because auditing people with a lot of money is complicated. The current audit rate is currently dramatically below where it was twenty years ago. Source: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57444 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57444
  - tootie 2y ago
    I think that was a bit oversimplified, the Free File program was problematic in a lot of ways, but it's not like the US government was just sitting on their own free file system that was locked behind a vault. They had to actually make the thing and it was never a given that they'd be able to do it. When the private companies said they'd offer their services for free to prevent the government from taking on the expense and hassle, it was sensible trade off. When the tax prep industry got greedy and overplayed their hand, they got bitten and are now in deep trouble.
2four2 2y ago
I didn't qualify to use the site, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. Everyone agrees that doing taxes should be free and easy, like nearly every other country...
tmountain 2y ago
It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately. Going further, the IRS already knows the details of most people’s taxes before they file, yet everyone is expected to complete what amounts to a complex task for many people. I cannot fathom why it is still done this way.
- throwaway5959 2y ago
  TurboTax. It’s really that simple. They pay a very small amount in bribes (er lobbying), and they ruin what could be a very good thing for millions of Americans.
- jrockway 2y ago
  > it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately I assume most people have too much money taken out of their paycheck for taxes, so the net result is that the government takes in extra money.
  - SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
    Agreed, this is not a problem they want to solve.
    - tomrod 2y ago
      Sure "they" do.
  - tadfisher 2y ago
    Withholding too much is literally required under the law. If you don't withhold enough, at tax time you could be liable for penalties unless you also pay quarterly to make up the difference. This counts for all of your income, not just the income from a W-2 job. Fixing the withholding system to account for the real world would go a long way toward simplifying reporting and would improve compliance.
monero-xmr 2y ago
Most Americans don’t do their own taxes. They go to H&R Block or Jackson Hewitt, and if your family makes under $60k you are almost certainly paying no income taxes and are receiving a refund via the EITC, getting a check back. So people think tax preparers are voodoo priests that do their incantations to get free money because the average person can’t understand the jargon, can’t handle forms, and the whole endeavor is purposefully opaque. I support free file for most people. I also support radically simplifying the tax code, which would make the Byzantines blush.
- bradley13 2y ago
  Just a minor comment, but: why does EITC exist? Just a hidden welfare payment? That out if the way, I agree with the earlier comment: why does the government automatically know all your financial details? Where is the privacy? Where is the requirement for a warrant, to access your private information?
  - PopAlongKid 2y ago
    >why does EITC exist? To relieve the regressive payroll tax (FICA) on low-income families.
    - loeg 2y ago
      FICA taxes aren't regressive.
      - latency-guy2 2y ago
        "Regressive" in this context really doesn't mean anything, it's a label that is reached for when politically convenient. So I agree.
        collinmcnulty 2y ago
        Regressive has a specific meaning regarding taxes. It means that the rate of the tax decreases with income. Whether a tax is regressive or not is a factual question.
ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
https://archive.ph/caerI https://archive.ph/caerI
janalsncm 2y ago
Listening to Congress “debate” this made me unreasonably upset. If you as a sitting politician have received monetary benefits from a tax filing service you should not be allowed to speak.
- pydry 2y ago
  That's standard behavior. The US is more plutocracy than democracy at this point. You can help choose the brand of oligarchy that runs the United States but you can't vote against it.
  - klyrs 2y ago
    Technically, you can vote for anybody you like, including yourself or Santa Claus. But no, LaRouche was never going to make it.
    - porphyra 2y ago
      Voting for one of two parties compresses the will of the people to a single bit.
      - ProllyInfamous 2y ago
        Even worse: individual states are on a campaign (nationally) to ban ranked-choice voting [1] among their constituencies (e.g. Tennessee recently did so, to prevent a Memphis-area jurisdiction from implementing fairer voting). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
        thfuran 2y ago
        That should be treason.
- tlb 2y ago
  And, to be fair to both sides, politicians who have received money from taxpayers should not be allowed to speak.
krashidov 2y ago
Stupid question but what is the point of taxation if we don't care about deficits anymore?
- jrajav 2y ago
  I couldn't say stupid but I could say there's a whiff of bad-faith arguments in the air... But of course the direct answer is that throwing the full faith and credit of the US (that is, in showing earnest and steady effort to pay off its debts, something that worldwide investors count on) straight out the window would immediately tank the value of the dollar, which wouldn't be good for anyone paid in dollars. If the implication is that we should not bother to run our finances honestly and responsibly because of some idea that the checks written by lawmakers aren't for things we all agree on, then it seems like a bit of a non sequitur. The time to decide on that is when we decide who writes those checks, but we have every incentive to commit and honor our debts after that.
sublinear 2y ago
I really hope this does not affect the Free File Fillable Forms. I do not want to be forced to mail in paper forms just so I can do my taxes for real.
cess11 2y ago
"Experts say a nationwide rollout could someday disrupt the multibillion-dollar tax preparation industry; Americans spend more than $200 a year, on average, to file a return using software or a tax preparer." This year it took me five minutes and cost whatever I pay for my bank account, which I used for identification. $30 maybe? I could have waited a bit for papers through the mail and approved with a SMS. Might be an OK goal for US:ian lawmakers.
colonwqbang 2y ago
> The Biden administration announced Friday that its first-of-its-kind free tax filing website... In the rest of the world in many places we have been filling taxes directly online for many years. Sorry Americans, you did not invent free electronic tax filing. You are at least twenty years late to the party.
- asadotzler 2y ago
  We've had electronic filing for probably as long as any country, but in the US, no corporation gets left behind so financial services companies get to rip us off when we electronically file.
  - ndriscoll 2y ago
    There's been a free e-file since 2009 according to archive.org. Looks like this was the selection of forms at the time: https://web.archive.org/web/20090418011703/http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=202713,00.html https://web.archive.org/web/20090418011703/http://www.irs.go... I've used it for years. It's just the paper forms with some auto-calculation built in. I've never had a company do my taxes for me so it's a little hard for me to even imagine the value-add for simple taxes. Presumably they ask for the same information that's on the form. I imagine Intuit is still ripping us off behind the scenes even if it's free at point of use, but maybe they don't get a good deal and are happy to do it free/cheap as long as they can make it have a scary enough UX to get you to pay them instead.
- deadlydose 2y ago
  You understand context, right?
- refurb 2y ago
  First of its kind in America. Biden isn’t addressing the whole world when he speaks. He the President of America you know?
bigstrat2003 2y ago
One thing that the article didn't mention, which I think needs to be considered, is the savings if we can get rid of paper tax forms. Right now, the IRS has to have the staff to be able to process those. How much will they save there, and does it offset the ongoing costs of running the website?
exegete 2y ago
Not available in my state but am looking forward to if/when it becomes available. I do my own taxes with the free fillable forms site. I would rather use this direct file service if possible. State of NJ has a free online site but NY does not for non-residents so I end up mailing in a return for them. It’s silly really.
MaintenanceMode 2y ago
I used this for taxes this year. It spotted three errors, fairly complex errors actually, and spit it back for me to fix. After the third submission, it was error free and my return was accepted. I found it pretty amazing that it caught all of that and so, so, so, happy I gave no money to the tax industrial complex for a change. The IRS should definitely continue this as a thing.
egberts1 2y ago
Really? A website under Montengro country domain? id.me
1oooqooq 2y ago
let me copy a comment i had in another article: did you ever try to use any USA federal service? (veteran benefits, free tax filing, ssn, etc). you're required an id.me account. what's that? well some anonymous group saw login.gov, realized the value of the data, and lobbied that it should be open to free capital markets to explore, not the government! so now if you want to even talk to the irs or veteran service, you need to go to that privately owned id.me site, do a video call, scan all the documents they ask for (even ones without visible anti counterfeit mechanics like your typewritter filled ssn card). and the best part? right after you create your account, you land on a coupon clipping page that is a facsimile of the garbage pamphlet the usps is forced to shove daily in yout physical mailbox! and among the links on that page are links to Whitepapers about how advertisers can benefit from buying user data from them because it includes gov affiliation like vetetan, taxpayer, etc and bank information!
- 1oooqooq 2y ago
  my point being, after you've already filtered anyone with a brain and means to avoid that (i paid intuit even qualifying for free filling, and a lawyer to deal with veteran stuff in person), of course you will get high marks on a survey. i bet Stalin also had good approval after the purge
tacocataco 2y ago
There are a lot of things that remind me that the government doesn't work for the people, and tax time is just another one of those times. Getting taxes automated is a solved problem. There is only one reason this status quo persisted for so many years. it's just to bad that we must bend the knee before the real americans, Intuit's lobbyists. I'm glad the IRS is showing signs of wriggling free of such influence, but it is unfortunately to late a fix for yet another unforgiveable position for me. The US government has shown me its priorities again and again throughout my life, and it's not the people. There is no rehabilitating this image in my eyes. Hopefully I can be proven wrong, and the next generation can grow up far less cynical of our elected representatives.

239 points by wslack 2y ago

I did my Canadian taxes for me and my spouse on a free filing site last night, in less than two hours, for $0. Everything was prefilled; practically the only thing I had to fix was to convert an imported investment statement from USD to CAD, and double check that everything was accurate. I welcome the Americans to the delightful convenience of hassle-free taxes!

balls187 2y ago
It is bonkers that the IRS cannot prefill information for the majority of Taxpayers.
- idle_zealot 2y ago
  This last year when filing my taxes with a paid turbotax product some value was auto-filled and looked about right. After submission I was notified that the IRS rejected my form because the field was wrong. They did not correct the field or otherwise communicate what they believed the value should have been. Tracking down what number they actually wanted there was a hassle. So... they have on file what they expect your taxes to be, will reject your filing if you get it wrong... but won't just use their gathered values to do your taxes. Very frustrating.
  - majormajor 2y ago
    Huh, I've never had my filing rejected but I've had the IRS send me letters a couple times. Once a year or two later, the other time (last year) a few weeks later or so before I got the refund: each time they told me exactly what they thought I'd missed. Which still highlights the absurdity of making me re-enter the stuff they already know.
    - sokoloff 2y ago
      In most cases, you know the information (and may have to file) before they’ve processed it. Request your tax account transcript (what they know about your account) on April 15 and again on August 15. I can pretty well guarantee they’ll be different for the prior calendar year. It might be stuff they’ll eventually know, but it’s not necessarily stuff they already know at the relevant time.
      - ghaff 2y ago
        I don’t typically get 1099s until in February. I suspect wouldn’t get you pre-filled tax forms until late March.
    - balls187 2y ago
      Rejection is usually something the IRS can suss out immediately when you e-filing such as incorrect SSN for dependents. Correction letters are just form letters from automated audits, usually forgetting to input a 1099 misc from some bank account.
  - loeg 2y ago
    They'll send you a letter with the wrong value and the value they think is correct. And if you agree, you usually don't have to take any action (beyond maybe paying more).
- ITB 2y ago
  They could. They just want you to confess the things that are harder for them to track. So they pretend they know more than they do.
  - EduardoBautista 2y ago
    Most people get money back from the IRS. If anything, making tax returns optional for people with just employment income would mean the IRS would keep more money.
- loeg 2y ago
  Well, they can; that's the service the article is discussing?
kernal 2y ago
So this free site was not run by the government of Canada. Are you concerned that you just gave all of your personal and financial data to a third party site? If you’re not paying anything they’re likely data mining your data and selling it. And we haven’t even talked about the security implications of trusting your data to these companies.
- kanbara 2y ago
  that’s how free file works in the us….
- smnrchrds 2y ago
  Due to a similar approach to privacy, I use GenuTax, which is a Windows program not a website, and does not send anything anywhere except to the tax authority. Not everyone cares about this aspect of privacy and security, but for those who do, there are options, both free (GenuTax) and paid (StudioTax, etc.).
web3-is-a-scam 2y ago
My employer submitted all my T4 information to the CRA. My investment services submitted all my tax forms to the CRA. UFile downloaded everything for me, autofilled my return, submitted it online back to the CRA and charged me $30 for the privilege. LMAO
- smnrchrds 2y ago
  That's why I use one of the free options. Both GenuTax and WealthsimpleTax are free to use and user-friendly, albeit in different ways. What extra thing does UFile do to justify its price?
  - web3-is-a-scam 2y ago
    At the time it was just the convenience of getting it done and moving on since I’ve been using it for over a decade. Next year I will probably just use WealthSimple, since I have fair amount of investments with WS anyway.
willcipriano 2y ago
> less than two hours > hassle-free taxes That's still a crazy demand on the time of someone paying for everything. My bank, my employer and my brokerage all report on me, the IRS should be able to just mail a check or a bill most of the time.
- klyrs 2y ago
  "Less than two hours" does sound like a lot. I'm also in Canada and spend about 10 minutes per year on my Canadian taxes. Settling with the US government as an expat, on the other hand... I pay handomely for somebody to handle that.
  - dh2022 2y ago
    Let's all absorb the HN moment when Canadian taxes are preferred to American taxes.
- nneonneo 2y ago
  I have a bunch of USD-denominated stuff for which my brokerage doesn’t always issue complete tax slips for, so it required going over my statements to double check that everything was being accounted correctly. My wife’s (uncomplicated) taxes basically took 15 minutes. You do always want to check to make sure that you’ve hit every tax deduction you can - for example, work-from-home deductions, donation deductions, even things like paying for news subscriptions gets a tax credit. That’s the sort of thing that doesn’t get reported to the CRA, but which you can claim tax deductions on.
- EduardoBautista 2y ago
  My C-corp taxes took about half an hour with turbo tax (just software development contracting). It really puzzles me what is so complicated about filing taxes as someone who only has employment income.
magicalhippo 2y ago
Here in Norway I just have to look it over on our IRS' own site (so no selling of private data to god knows how many unknown third parties), add a couple of items they don't get automatically, like a private loan, and click save. Less than 10 minutes. For years the big hassle was that housing loans only got put on one of us, but since we're both paying on the loan, the loan and deductions should be split as well. So that had to be manually calculated and corrected on each of our declarations. However last year they fixed that. Now they get the split from the property ownership registry and distribute the loan and deductions according to that. For most people they pay similar to their ownership, typically 50/50, so no need to change that anymore. Our IRS' has a quite good internal development team[1], rather than relying on contractors for everything. Their digital solutions has been several steps ahead most other agencies. [1]: https://www.skatteetaten.no/nn/itjobb/ledige-stillinger/ https://www.skatteetaten.no/nn/itjobb/ledige-stillinger/
946789987649 2y ago
It can be even better - in the UK unless you earn over a large amount, or know for a fact you have some special circumstances, you never have to do a thing.

kelthuzad 2y ago

wait until turbo tax comes in hot with their lobbying efforts - didn't they manage to prevent or diminish a free tax filing service already a few years ago?

lolinder 2y ago
As I understand it, this system exists largely because ProPublica shined a light on how corrupt the TurboTax deals were and the IRS couldn't pretend they thought everything was okay anymore. I'm hopeful that the IRS knows that we're on to it and doesn't get cozy with them again.
- dsr_ 2y ago
  The IRS is not 'cozy' with Intuit, HRB, etc. The IRS is underfunded by political design. All of this crap is the fault of corporate lobbyists and the politicians who take their money.
  - saulrh 2y ago
    For people who aren't aware of this, the IRS is so underfunded right now that funding IRS enforcement has an ROI of between five and nine, that is, for every dollar we put into funding the IRS it would be able to claw back up to ten dollars in unpaid taxes. That's the kind of number that you usually only see on "the next Google" type unicorn startups. It would take eighty billion dollars, invested over ten years, to fund the IRS to the point where diminishing returns bring the ROI back down to reasonable levels; those eighty billion dollars would return almost 200 billion dollars in newly collected taxes. Almost all of that would come from high-wealth taxpayers, large corporations, and partnerships, which are currently very under-audited due to lack of resources - the audit rate is currently lower for high-wealth entities than it is for random poor people simply because auditing people with a lot of money is complicated. The current audit rate is currently dramatically below where it was twenty years ago. Source: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57444 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57444
- tootie 2y ago
  I think that was a bit oversimplified, the Free File program was problematic in a lot of ways, but it's not like the US government was just sitting on their own free file system that was locked behind a vault. They had to actually make the thing and it was never a given that they'd be able to do it. When the private companies said they'd offer their services for free to prevent the government from taking on the expense and hassle, it was sensible trade off. When the tax prep industry got greedy and overplayed their hand, they got bitten and are now in deep trouble.

2four2 2y ago

I didn't qualify to use the site, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. Everyone agrees that doing taxes should be free and easy, like nearly every other country...

tmountain 2y ago

It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately. Going further, the IRS already knows the details of most people’s taxes before they file, yet everyone is expected to complete what amounts to a complex task for many people. I cannot fathom why it is still done this way.

throwaway5959 2y ago
TurboTax. It’s really that simple. They pay a very small amount in bribes (er lobbying), and they ruin what could be a very good thing for millions of Americans.
jrockway 2y ago
> it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately I assume most people have too much money taken out of their paycheck for taxes, so the net result is that the government takes in extra money.
- SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
  Agreed, this is not a problem they want to solve.
  - tomrod 2y ago
    Sure "they" do.
- tadfisher 2y ago
  Withholding too much is literally required under the law. If you don't withhold enough, at tax time you could be liable for penalties unless you also pay quarterly to make up the difference. This counts for all of your income, not just the income from a W-2 job. Fixing the withholding system to account for the real world would go a long way toward simplifying reporting and would improve compliance.

monero-xmr 2y ago

Most Americans don’t do their own taxes. They go to H&R Block or Jackson Hewitt, and if your family makes under $60k you are almost certainly paying no income taxes and are receiving a refund via the EITC, getting a check back. So people think tax preparers are voodoo priests that do their incantations to get free money because the average person can’t understand the jargon, can’t handle forms, and the whole endeavor is purposefully opaque. I support free file for most people. I also support radically simplifying the tax code, which would make the Byzantines blush.

bradley13 2y ago
Just a minor comment, but: why does EITC exist? Just a hidden welfare payment? That out if the way, I agree with the earlier comment: why does the government automatically know all your financial details? Where is the privacy? Where is the requirement for a warrant, to access your private information?
- PopAlongKid 2y ago
  >why does EITC exist? To relieve the regressive payroll tax (FICA) on low-income families.
  - loeg 2y ago
    FICA taxes aren't regressive.
    - latency-guy2 2y ago
      "Regressive" in this context really doesn't mean anything, it's a label that is reached for when politically convenient. So I agree.
      - collinmcnulty 2y ago
        Regressive has a specific meaning regarding taxes. It means that the rate of the tax decreases with income. Whether a tax is regressive or not is a factual question.

ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago

https://archive.ph/caerI https://archive.ph/caerI

janalsncm 2y ago

Listening to Congress “debate” this made me unreasonably upset. If you as a sitting politician have received monetary benefits from a tax filing service you should not be allowed to speak.

pydry 2y ago
That's standard behavior. The US is more plutocracy than democracy at this point. You can help choose the brand of oligarchy that runs the United States but you can't vote against it.
- klyrs 2y ago
  Technically, you can vote for anybody you like, including yourself or Santa Claus. But no, LaRouche was never going to make it.
  - porphyra 2y ago
    Voting for one of two parties compresses the will of the people to a single bit.
    - ProllyInfamous 2y ago
      Even worse: individual states are on a campaign (nationally) to ban ranked-choice voting [1] among their constituencies (e.g. Tennessee recently did so, to prevent a Memphis-area jurisdiction from implementing fairer voting). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
      - thfuran 2y ago
        That should be treason.
tlb 2y ago
And, to be fair to both sides, politicians who have received money from taxpayers should not be allowed to speak.

krashidov 2y ago

Stupid question but what is the point of taxation if we don't care about deficits anymore?

jrajav 2y ago
I couldn't say stupid but I could say there's a whiff of bad-faith arguments in the air... But of course the direct answer is that throwing the full faith and credit of the US (that is, in showing earnest and steady effort to pay off its debts, something that worldwide investors count on) straight out the window would immediately tank the value of the dollar, which wouldn't be good for anyone paid in dollars. If the implication is that we should not bother to run our finances honestly and responsibly because of some idea that the checks written by lawmakers aren't for things we all agree on, then it seems like a bit of a non sequitur. The time to decide on that is when we decide who writes those checks, but we have every incentive to commit and honor our debts after that.

sublinear 2y ago

I really hope this does not affect the Free File Fillable Forms. I do not want to be forced to mail in paper forms just so I can do my taxes for real.

cess11 2y ago

"Experts say a nationwide rollout could someday disrupt the multibillion-dollar tax preparation industry; Americans spend more than $200 a year, on average, to file a return using software or a tax preparer." This year it took me five minutes and cost whatever I pay for my bank account, which I used for identification. $30 maybe? I could have waited a bit for papers through the mail and approved with a SMS. Might be an OK goal for US:ian lawmakers.

colonwqbang 2y ago

> The Biden administration announced Friday that its first-of-its-kind free tax filing website... In the rest of the world in many places we have been filling taxes directly online for many years. Sorry Americans, you did not invent free electronic tax filing. You are at least twenty years late to the party.

asadotzler 2y ago
We've had electronic filing for probably as long as any country, but in the US, no corporation gets left behind so financial services companies get to rip us off when we electronically file.
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  There's been a free e-file since 2009 according to archive.org. Looks like this was the selection of forms at the time: https://web.archive.org/web/20090418011703/http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=202713,00.html https://web.archive.org/web/20090418011703/http://www.irs.go... I've used it for years. It's just the paper forms with some auto-calculation built in. I've never had a company do my taxes for me so it's a little hard for me to even imagine the value-add for simple taxes. Presumably they ask for the same information that's on the form. I imagine Intuit is still ripping us off behind the scenes even if it's free at point of use, but maybe they don't get a good deal and are happy to do it free/cheap as long as they can make it have a scary enough UX to get you to pay them instead.
deadlydose 2y ago
You understand context, right?
refurb 2y ago
First of its kind in America. Biden isn’t addressing the whole world when he speaks. He the President of America you know?

bigstrat2003 2y ago

One thing that the article didn't mention, which I think needs to be considered, is the savings if we can get rid of paper tax forms. Right now, the IRS has to have the staff to be able to process those. How much will they save there, and does it offset the ongoing costs of running the website?

exegete 2y ago

Not available in my state but am looking forward to if/when it becomes available. I do my own taxes with the free fillable forms site. I would rather use this direct file service if possible. State of NJ has a free online site but NY does not for non-residents so I end up mailing in a return for them. It’s silly really.

MaintenanceMode 2y ago

I used this for taxes this year. It spotted three errors, fairly complex errors actually, and spit it back for me to fix. After the third submission, it was error free and my return was accepted. I found it pretty amazing that it caught all of that and so, so, so, happy I gave no money to the tax industrial complex for a change. The IRS should definitely continue this as a thing.

egberts1 2y ago

Really? A website under Montengro country domain? id.me

1oooqooq 2y ago

let me copy a comment i had in another article: did you ever try to use any USA federal service? (veteran benefits, free tax filing, ssn, etc). you're required an id.me account. what's that? well some anonymous group saw login.gov, realized the value of the data, and lobbied that it should be open to free capital markets to explore, not the government! so now if you want to even talk to the irs or veteran service, you need to go to that privately owned id.me site, do a video call, scan all the documents they ask for (even ones without visible anti counterfeit mechanics like your typewritter filled ssn card). and the best part? right after you create your account, you land on a coupon clipping page that is a facsimile of the garbage pamphlet the usps is forced to shove daily in yout physical mailbox! and among the links on that page are links to Whitepapers about how advertisers can benefit from buying user data from them because it includes gov affiliation like vetetan, taxpayer, etc and bank information!

1oooqooq 2y ago
my point being, after you've already filtered anyone with a brain and means to avoid that (i paid intuit even qualifying for free filling, and a lawyer to deal with veteran stuff in person), of course you will get high marks on a survey. i bet Stalin also had good approval after the purge

tacocataco 2y ago

There are a lot of things that remind me that the government doesn't work for the people, and tax time is just another one of those times. Getting taxes automated is a solved problem. There is only one reason this status quo persisted for so many years. it's just to bad that we must bend the knee before the real americans, Intuit's lobbyists. I'm glad the IRS is showing signs of wriggling free of such influence, but it is unfortunately to late a fix for yet another unforgiveable position for me. The US government has shown me its priorities again and again throughout my life, and it's not the people. There is no rehabilitating this image in my eyes. Hopefully I can be proven wrong, and the next generation can grow up far less cynical of our elected representatives.