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94% of Americans make less than $200k a year. Not everything is meant for "software engineers in California".
by dmd 2y ago
94% of Americans make less than $200k a year. Not everything is meant for "software engineers in California".
- 8note 2y agoI don't get why there's an income cap though. There's nothing that gets more complicated on income alone, only if you add extra stuff to track
- CamperBob2 2y agoAnybody who makes more than about $200K-$300K/year is likely making a mistake if they don't have a CPA.
- Sohcahtoa82 2y agoWhat makes you say that? I'm assuming you're adding other assumptions. My wife and I combined make about $300K/year. We don't run a business, don't make charity contributions, only pay ~$5K in mortgage interest, and don't have kids. We don't even do retail stock investing (EDIT: And I haven't exercised any employer stock options), just a 401k, an IRA, and a 5.25% savings account. We take the standard deduction. I can't imagine a CPA would be able to find so many possible deductions that it would be worth itemizing.
- brianwawok 2y agoYup totally silly. My CPA wouldn’t even take you on as a client, he would say go to HR block if you don’t want to do it,
- FireBeyond 2y agoWhich is also silly. My experiences with HR Block was that they basically had their own version of a TurboTax-like thing, and all they were doing was literally asking you for the numbers for each question. There was zero critical thinking applied. I had just bought a house, just bought a hybrid, started working from home, and was new to the US. "What are you claiming?" "What can I claim from this?" "I'm not sure. But I can put these numbers in here and see what it says." You're literally paying for someone to type in the same numbers you would, with as much (or at times less) knowledge than you (who is also less invested than you in getting it right, but much more invested in selling their 'audit protection' stuff).
- fooker 2y agoThe IRS prays for citizens like you!
- dheera 2y agoI disagree. If there's a CPA who wants to give me money-back guarantee, be my guest. I do my taxes first. You (CPA) look over it, if can save me any additional money, I'll give you 1/2 of the additional money saved as your compensation. Deal?
- cqqxo4zV46cp 2y agoPart of their fee is for you to not go through doing it yourself, so, no.
- m463 2y agoI kind of wonder if software engineers making this kind of money but no tax problems should be getting advice from folks who can look back and see what they should have done. (tax problems sometimes come from outlier behaviors that might be good)
- silisili 2y agoYeah no. I thought I'd hire a CPA one year to see what 'breaks' they might offer. All they did was fill out Turbotax for me, and charge me an extra 150 for that.
- PopAlongKid 2y ago> if they don't have a CPA. There are alternatives to CPAs, who are licensed by individual states and don't necessarily specialize in taxes. Several states, including California, require testing and registration for paid tax preparers who aren't CPAs or Enrolled Agents. EAs are the only federally-licensed tax professionals with unlimited practice rights before the IRS. It's reasonable to assume that CPAs pass along the costs of their marketing and lobbying efforts to their clients, without any guarantee of higher quality compared to the other professionals available.
- Sivart13 2y agoIn an effort to keep the scope manageable for the pilot year, the Direct File team chose to have an upper income limit so they would not have to support Form 8959: Additional Medicare Tax (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8959.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8959.pdf) which only kicks in at that threshold. Though it's also very likely at these high incomes that you would be disqualified for other reasons (investment income etc)
- MarkSweep 2y ago8960 (net investment tax) is another form that only applies at 200k or more income.
- dheera 2y agoI meat this is Y Combinator Hacker News, so I would expect "software engineers in California" to be a significant fraction of the user base here.
- ohashi 2y agoSome people have a broader view of the world and care about things which might not directly impact them
- nickpinkston 2y agoThis 100% - thank you
- schmidtleonard 2y agoYour suggestion that we don't / shouldn't care about anything other than ourselves is more than a little insulting, whether you intended that or not. In any case, like the root of this comment tree says, the best way to make sure this program lives to reach us is to make sure it paces itself. If that means another year or two of TurboTax, that's A-OK!
- cududa 2y agoThe problem is you're exposing yourself as someone extremely self-centered, and someone that assumes their lived experience is equivalent of everyone else's, and adjudicating the utility of this particular thing as if you are reflective of the larger population. Saying the majority of engineers in California make at least $200k makes you even more out of touch. According to Glassdoor, over $200k for a SE in CA is 90th percentile. The average SE in CA makes $132,000 https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Software-Engineer-Salary--in-California https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Software-Engineer-Sala...
- dheera 2y agoGlassDoor and Ziprecruiter are grossly out of date. https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/san-francisco-bay-area https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/san-fra...