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Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

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Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#91

Post by yeahitslikethat »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #65

One rather insidious thing about H&R Block's online tax filing website is that, once the hapless user has chosen to have a real human "tax pro" review their tax return (for an additional fee), the user cannot un-choose it! The website does not offer you that choice. Even worse, when the user calls the H&R Block help number, a computerized voice does offer the user the option to downgrade, but notes that it will have…

Is not sleazy. They have two systems but no export from one to the other and why should they? It's free.

You build it for free.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#92

Post by gambler »

Retric wrote: post #79
knubie wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question I have is whether a government provided automatic filing would actually be cheaper (or more effective) than say, Turbotax. I see a couple of ways in which it might not be as favorable: 1. It costs more than $100 per tax payer per year to implement (about the cost of Turbotax). However the flat $100 or so that most people pay to Turbotax can be seen as a kind of regressive tax. 2. It is less effective at…

First, adding a host of third party’s increases the risk of data breaches for minimal benifit. Anyway, the government needs to collect and verify all information anyway. So, the sum total of TurboTaxes value is creating screens to collect information. If they can do a better job than the government then let them charge for it. But, by banning the free option they are saying they don’t actually create value.

>the government needs to collect and verify all information anyway.

That's a great point. IRS already has most of the information and infrastructure to fill out your taxes. Third-party solutions have to build large chunks of the same thing from scratch.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#93

Post by toast0 »

mikeyouse wrote: post #55
gpapilion wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are the first three. If you want to offer state income taxes, that means you’ll need to also implement those rules. There are also a ton of legal restrictions on handling data, that if done wrong send you to jail.

Even worse -- Since State and Local income taxes are (partially) deductible on your Federal taxes -- you need to implement those rules no matter if you plan on filing State and Local returns. edit Actually now that I think about it, since the standard deduction is increased, you could catch the majority of simple returns by just assuming the standard deduction and including a few disclaimers about the option to itemi…

The federal deduction for state and local taxes doesn't require knowledge of local rules, just the amounts paid. If you overpay in tax year X and get a refund in tax year Y when filing your local tax return, that's covered in federal tax year Y.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#94

Post by InvisibleUp »

everdev wrote: post #61

I'm self employed and had to explain to my kids why taxes in the US were so complicated and took hours to do over the weekend. There must be powerful forces at work because Republicans have touted a flat tax or a return the size of a postcard for decades but when they controlled all three branches of government couldn't get anywhere near enough votes to pass it. It's truly an abysmal system and I hope my kids don't h…

They did, technically. The Form 1040 this year is only half a page. However, many people need to attach at least one schedule, which is just the rest of the form broken up into multiple pages. It's less of a dramatic change and more of a weird format shuffling.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#95

Post by toast0 »

everdev wrote: post #61

I'm self employed and had to explain to my kids why taxes in the US were so complicated and took hours to do over the weekend. There must be powerful forces at work because Republicans have touted a flat tax or a return the size of a postcard for decades but when they controlled all three branches of government couldn't get anywhere near enough votes to pass it. It's truly an abysmal system and I hope my kids don't h…

The republicans haven't bragged about it, but I'm guessing limiting SALT deductions to way below the standard deduction will drastically reduce the number of filers itemizing deductions. That leaves you with form 1040 which is roughly half a page front and back, not much bigger than a postcard. Certainly, if you have capital gains or other things, you'll need extra schedules, and maybe you need to send w-2s, so it's not necessarily their ideal, but it's actually a large change.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#96

Post by unethical_ban »

The government developing software to better interact directly with its agencies should be a mission of 18F and the individual agencies. Our Congress is thinking of doing the opposite.

Companies have no natural right to continue making money without competition from the government.

EDIT: Where does this ban the IRS from creating their own portal? It requires the IRS to continue the Free File Program, but does that explicitly bar the IRS from its own system?

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#97

Post by Bartweiss »

cannonedhamster wrote: post #34
javagram wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think we exist in a world where this is possible. The majority of people are pretty ignorant. Look at all the news articles from early in 2019 talking about the size of tax refunds, and people thinking they didn’t get a tax cut because their refund this year was smaller than the one they got last year. In reality, almost everyone got a tax cut (>90% of taxpayers) but that doesn’t necessarily mean a larger r…

Not everyone got a tax cut and the cuts went primarily to businesses and the ultra wealthy. The President also tried to make the cuts look bigger by changing withholding requirements. It doesn't invalidate that most people are ignorant, most people don't even pay any taxes, but if you're moderately well off, have more than one home, and live in a state that actually has a functional state government that provides ser…

> Not everyone got a tax cut and the cuts went primarily to businesses and the ultra wealthy. The President also tried to make the cuts look bigger by changing withholding requirements.

I don't think the first claim is representative, and I don't think the second claim is true? Most people did get tax cuts; even if the bulk of the value went to businesses that's not in dispute. And despite concerns in 2017 that it could happen, there's no evidence that withholdings were artificially over-reduced. People who were already withholding the right amount were basically unaffected, while the people shifted from overpaying to underpaying constitute more symmetrical error. (Which does have some downsides for collection.) Even the Government Accountability Office views this as a purely logistical event.

More cynically, conventional wisdom says that popular perception of tax cuts is based almost entirely on the fact/size of the return received. Increased take home pay was talked up, but reducing the number of people receiving rebates is hardly a productive trick to score votes.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/6/18214039/ir...

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#98

Post by jquery »

petschge wrote: post #83
justtopost wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't feel sorry, we are fine. Still the most free people on earth.

You are not, you just have constant propaganda to that effect and you believe it because most of you never leave your country. And that is not just me personal opinion. Going over a (incomplete) sample of freedom indices listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices we have: Rank 6 on the Economic Freedom index https://www.fraserinstitute.org/economic-freedom/map?geozone... Rank 17 on the Human Free…

Not saying “US NUMBAH ONE” but those indexes are just biased to whatever the index creators prefer. I could make one that heavily indexes gun rights, lack of hate speech laws, gross income per capita, or even military strength and suddenly we’re number one if not close to it. It would be just as valid a ranking. In other words those lists are largely rubbish. Never mind they rarely break things down by demographics, preferring to look the other way.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#99

Post by jimbokun »

fsloth wrote: post #25

Oh man, I've had government provided automatic filings for ages now (Finland). US is really odd how it emphasizes the benefit of the middleman over the benefit of the individual citizen (it seems). Or have I completely misunderstood what's going on here?

In the US, legislation always goes to the highest bidder.

Keep that in mind when reading stories about the US government, and it all makes a lot more sense.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#100

Post by petschge »

jquery wrote: post #98
petschge wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not, you just have constant propaganda to that effect and you believe it because most of you never leave your country. And that is not just me personal opinion. Going over a (incomplete) sample of freedom indices listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices we have: Rank 6 on the Economic Freedom index https://www.fraserinstitute.org/economic-freedom/map?geozone... Rank 17 on the Human Free…

Not saying “US NUMBAH ONE” but those indexes are just biased to whatever the index creators prefer. I could make one that heavily indexes gun rights, lack of hate speech laws, gross income per capita, or even military strength and suddenly we’re number one if not close to it. It would be just as valid a ranking. In other words those lists are largely rubbish. Never mind they rarely break things down by demographics,…

The problem with what you choose and how you weigh it is exactly why I listed more than one index. And btw: I did not skip over any index because it lists the US as number one, I only skipped indices that require registration to get the PDF and such. Literally NONE of the indices I found has the US as number one.
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