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IRS head says free Direct File tax service is 'gone'
- Kapura 1y agoThis is the republican endgame: destroy anything of public value, privately capture all organs of a functioning state and divide them up for profit.
- actionfromafar 1y agoAnd stamp some newspeak hypocritical label on it. That last part is important for the Fox ticker.
- AndyMcConachie 1y agoYou could elect Democrats and it would be just as crappy. They'd just talk nicer to you.
- phkahler 1y ago>> You could elect Democrats and it would be just as crappy. Crappy for different reasons though. This tax filing thing was implemented on their watch, so they would not be the ones to dismantle it. Somehow we seem to get the worst ideas from both parties rather than the best.
- beej71 1y agoNo one wanted to dismantle it; it was a very positive change in terms of government and citizen efficiency.
- Freedom2 1y agoIf no one wanted to dismantle it, why is it being dismantled?
- CamperBob2 1y agoBecause Intuit wants to dismantle it.
- beej71 1y agoWell, clearly someone did, but not anyone who used it.
- staplers 1y ago.. so still better
- radiofreeeuropa 1y agoThey're usually better for the deficit (yes, really, if you just looked at the data and not rhetoric Republicans are who you'd vote for if you wanted to make the deficit worse) and sometimes do stuff like effective consumer protection enforcement, do a lot less of things like trying to sell off public land to extractive industries, haven't tried to use the civil service as a captured partisan tool & loyalist-reward program since like the 19th century, and occasionally get us at least baby-steps in the right direction like this now-removed direct filing program and the ACA (god knows what they might accomplish if those baby steps didn't keep getting completely wiped out every few years, perhaps they'd move beyond that! But I guess we'll never know because we keep electing Republicans)
- valbaca 1y agoExcept when we DID elect Democrats we got the free Direct File tax service. so no, it's not "just as crappy"
- schnable 1y agoMeanwhile, Dems pissed away billions trying and failing to build things like high speed rail, rural broadband, and EV charging network. Somebody needs to figure out a way to make this stuff work.
- sagarm 1y agoHSR is getting built; the USD successfully connected rural areas, though I agree that was pointless; EV charger build out is accelerating despite funds being illegally yanked back.
- Tadpole9181 1y agoEvery example you have was blocked or disrupted by Republicans. And yet you're blaming Democrats for failing? What, exactly, are they supposed to do?
- beej71 1y agoThey did. It was called DirectFile, and it was working great with overwhelmingly positive reviews.
- qingcharles 1y agoThese are all good aims, though. Everything in your list is a net positive for the country. Some problems are hard, though.
- const_cast 1y agoThe thing is at least this are all good things that I want, and other people want. Meanwhile, the Republicans are actively making things worse, on purpose, and we're saving... let me just check here... oh, -2 Trillion dollars. Wow, what a steal! You're telling me I get less AND I pay more? Great!
- mulletbum 1y agoHow does something like this happening not make people immediately realize that the Republican party is not working for the people anymore? I don't think Dems are doing a bang up job, but this is something developed and deployed, 100% working, that only helps the American people navigate a complicated tax system. The only reason to get rid of it is to hurt the American people.
- Kapura 1y agoPeople can only get mad at the things they know about. My guess is the Murdoch Network of news organizations will not cover this heavily, if at all.
- miltonlost 1y agoOr they'll cover it and say how this is a win for the American public because they no longer need to use a socialist government website to file their taxes.
- Moto7451 1y agoWhich is also why they took down all the payment and audit/penalty management webpages too! Right? Right!? … Oh wait. They didn’t? Huh, I wonder where the disconnect is. I guess no lobbyist wrote a check to remove that from the Government.
- iamtheworstdev 1y agoand if they do cover it, they will blame the other party for mismanaging it.
- edoceo 1y agoSinclair too. US needs more independent media. Or the current media should get good.
- runjake 1y ago1. People have demonstrated they aren't really willing to pay enough for independent media, aside from one or two person shops. 2. The current media is incentivized to collect ad revenue. Currently, the best known scheme is to outrage or scare readers so they keep refreshing the page. So, in that respect, the current media is doing great business.
- bix6 1y agoIs it not in the governments interest to implement the cheapest, best system to enable all citizens to easily pay taxes? The IRS knows basic taxes better than anyone so certainly they are the most equipped to handle this program instead of the private sector?
- actionfromafar 1y agoGOP congresspeople have argued it's good to make it harder to pay taxes, that will make people pay less taxes, which is "starving the beast", which is good.
- bananapub 1y agowell, also it means that you can arbitrarily prosecute people, and it means Intuit etc will just give you, as a congressperson, bribes.
- blactuary 1y agoIt is, but it is in individual politician's interest to take lobbying dollars from Intuit, who wants to keep gouging us
- baq 1y agoIt is in the interest of turbotax et al. shareholders and politicians who receive funding from their lobbyists.
- the_hoser 1y agoYou presume that the people in charge have the best interests of the government in mind when they make their decisions.
- datadrivenangel 1y agoMany private interests want taxes to be inefficient and painful so they can lobby for lower taxes
- xp84 1y ago
- Hilift 1y agoFYI, there are/were two systems. "Direct File" is probably the more complex and integrates directly with 25 participating states. The other is "Free File" and only covers some payers. https://www.irs.gov/filing/irs-direct-file-for-free https://www.irs.gov/filing/irs-direct-file-for-free https://www.irs.gov/filing/irs-free-file-do-your-taxes-for-free https://www.irs.gov/filing/irs-free-file-do-your-taxes-for-f...
- xp84 1y agoYep, and "Free File" is the one that you are required to go through TurboTax or their 1-2 'competitors' to do, who are free to do their best to essentially bury and shadowban it from search engines. They're required by law to offer it, but are allowed to try to hide it from you and to promote alternative programs that will likely result in upsells for most taxpayers.
- Izkata 1y agoUh no, "Free File" is split into two versions and the second option on there, "Free File Fillable Forms", is available to everyone for free without using a third party. I've been using it for years.
- tallowen 1y agoAlthough these systems are similar in goals, they are pretty different in terms of how they're structured: - Direct File: Was built by the US government to make tax filing easier - Free File: Is a subsidy from the US government to tax software to make it cheaper for people to file taxes Direct file had the promise of making things easier and cheaper overall while Free File is more of a cost shifting approach. Features like importing tax data from other federal government systems were included in Direct File to make it easier to file taxes. These types of features would be hard for those outside the government to do. At a values level, Free File provides funding to the tax preparation software companies. These companies benefit from difficulty in filing taxes because it creates a market for their products.
- Hilift 1y ago
- beezlebroxxxxxx 1y agoIt's incredible how little interest these ghouls have in the concept of "public good." Things like the conserving the environment or public health or even something as simple as free tax filing, are just seen as aisles for scoring ideological points or maximizing the interests of profit seeking entities.
- actionfromafar 1y agoIt's even worse. The ideology is that the government needs to be starved of income.
- davidw 1y agoThey seem pretty ok with starving actual people too.
- estearum 1y agoNo it's not. Why are they bragging about tariff income then? There is no coherent ideology guiding the American right wing except centralizing power onto the monarch.
- actionfromafar 1y agoIt contains multitudes. The "tear down government" are the Curtis Yarvin - like faction who believes "the State" (including federal government) must be destroyed and replaced by private entities. They use Trump as a tool to reach their goal. Then you have the true Trump believers. Then there are the turncoats (probably the majority). All of them seek power for the monarch.
- estearum 1y agoRight, so the only coherent ideology is their desire for dictatorship, as I said. This makes it extremely difficult if not impossible to interact with and collaborate with "the right" in a democratic system. The unifying feature is they do not care for the established mechanisms by which we decide what to do, ergo there is no way for us to decide together what to do.
- throwawaybob420 1y agoAwesome! I love having great public services be fucking gutted for no goddamn reason.
- _fat_santa 1y agoThe only silver lining to this is that since the direct file code is open source, forks have already sprung up. What I would love to see is one of these forks gain prominence and become the “Debian” of tax filing while TurboTax and HR block are the “Windows” and “MacOS” of the tax filing world Granted I’ve been in this industry long enough to know that this is a tall tall order and finding consistent maintainers will be a huge challenge. But who knows maybe this will piss off just the right billionaire to make them dump a few dollars into a dev team that can build FreeFile
- shazbotter 1y agoWhat does it mean to open source this? Genuinely. Won't the irs just say, "we only accept digital filing from known providers"?
- mrcode007 1y agoThe workaround is for everyone to coordinate , print and mail physical returns. Let IRS have fun with scanning and processing :) enough people do this, IRS would open up digital filing again
- _fat_santa 1y agoJust Print + Mail. Sure it's an extra hassle but if it means saving $80 on your tax filing then lots of people will jump through the additional hoops. And TBH having printed and mailed my tax returns before it's not that onerous.
- shazbotter 1y agoAh, that makes sense. Appreciate it.
- SoftTalker 1y agoThat's what I've always done. I used TurboTax a few times back when it first came out. At that time it was a standalone program that you bought on a CD. It ran on your computer and it generated forms that you printed and mailed in. No internet required, your data never left your computer. Once it became a "cloud" platform I didn't trust Intuit to keep my data private or not to use it for their own purposes. Ever since then I've done my taxes on paper. It's not difficult for someone with W2 and even self-employment income. For a more complicated situation it could be, but at that point you probably have an accountant anyway.
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoEarlier on source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44730256 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44730256
- EE84M3i 1y agoIs there any impact on Free Fillable Forms?
- AndyMcConachie 1y agoI can't even ping irs.gov right now. HTTPS request to www.irs.gov times out. Great government we got here :(
- steviedotboston 1y agoworks fine for me... i really doubt the irs website is down
- holysoles 1y agoDropping ICMP traffic isn't super uncommon to try to mitigate low-complexity DoS attacks, I also cannot ping irs.gov. I can get to www.irs.gov in my browser though.
- ndriscoll 1y agoIt's also a great way to introduce hard to debug network issues since PMTUD also relies on ICMP, and is basically mandatory for ipv6.
- latchkey 1y agoICMP (ping) is often blocked and is an unreliable way to tell if a website is up. HTTPS requests timing out might as easily be something on your end, or your provider. Do you have a VPN on? A lot of government services block those.
- selectodude 1y agoYou can't ping irs.gov. It blocks ICMP.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- impish9208 1y agoMost Americans don’t know of Grover Norquist, but he’s probably the most influential conservative activist on tax policy. He had a pledge that, at some point, almost all Republican congresspeople signed.
- xnx 1y agoAnd despite that Republicans are now cheering one of the largest tax increases on US consumers (tariffs)
- throw7 1y agoThe way taxes work in the U.S. is bass ackwards. They have all the info. I should be the I.R.S. where they submit a completed form to me for me to audit. I decide to sign it or not and go on with my life for another year. The state taxes are even worse (albeit, that may just be ny's problem).
- erur 1y agoThis does sound a lot like Washington Monument Syndrome but I’m happy to be corrected
- UmGuys 1y agoCPB, Direct File, BLS head all in one day. Lots to sweep under the rug this Friday afternoon. We're spending more for this service incineration. Literally. Tr*mp has increased spending despite all these cuts.