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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

#111

Post by r_klancer »

javagram wrote: post #16

> The Free File Alliance, a private industry group, says 70% of American taxpayers are eligible to file for free. Those taxpayers, who must make less than $66,000, have access to free tax software provided by the companies. But just 3% of eligible U.S. taxpayers actually use the free program each year. Critics of the program say that companies use it as a cross-marketing tool to upsell paid products, that they have d…

Not quite true! I was planning to complain that Free File Fillable Forms, the only way to e-file for free regardless of income, had been taken away a couple years ago.

However, I noticed that it's back for the 2018 tax year. https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-f...

It's very basic -- it's literally just a way to fill out and submit the paper forms electronically (though it does the "add lines 35 and 36"-type arithmetic for you.) But it's an option for you procrastinators who earned more than $66K last year.

Relatedly, Massachusetts used to run a free online "TurboTax" program for all. To file your taxes you went to a government website and answered the questions. Unfortunately, that program was canceled a year ago when they upgraded systems, and now the only way to e-file is via a paid preparer.

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

#112

Post by jsloss »

TheHypnotist wrote: post #108
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will say, vote with your dollars. If you don't like Intuit's lobbying, please don't feed the beast and use their services.

What are suitable alternatives? Aren't they the best in class, regardless of how shitty that class is?

If you’re in Canada simpletax dot ca is great.

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

#113

Post by floren »

TheHypnotist wrote: post #108
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will say, vote with your dollars. If you don't like Intuit's lobbying, please don't feed the beast and use their services.

What are suitable alternatives? Aren't they the best in class, regardless of how shitty that class is?

I have worked with an independent tax preparer for the last few years. In January, I walk over to a nearby restaurant where we meet, I hand over tax documents, she makes sure it's all there and asks some brief questions. A week or two later, she sends the completed state & federal forms along with the appropriate authorizations which will allow her to file on my behalf. I pay $200 for this service and consider it far more pleasant than dealing with TurboTax's incessant questioning.

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

#114

Post by nybble41 »

anilakar wrote: post #36
purple-again wrote: post #9

This is deeply frustrating. I can not tell you how many people I see paying $200-300 for some random "tax preparer" set up in a corner mall or the front of a WalMart simply because they do not understand there are a number of free resources that would prepare their 1040EZ for them at their income/complexity level. These same people get back a $1500 "return" so they think they are getting a good deal. Its pure greed a…

In a libertarian society, a government using tax money to provide services counts as nation state sanctioned violence, but a private company doing the same for profit is called entrepreneurship. EDIT: Keep it coming! Every downvote proves I'm right.

What exactly were you trying to say? I mean, you're not wrong. Taxes are nation-state sanctioned violence, and private companies providing services in exchange for voluntary payments is correctly referred to as entrepreneurship. These are qualitatively different situations; one involves force and the other does not.

The debate is not about the services. They may not be needed by everyone, or in the exact form the government provides, but there would still be at least some demand for them in the market if they weren't provided by the government. The question is whether these services are funded voluntarily or by force, by those who want them or by others who just happen to have the necessary resources.

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

#115

Post by yardie »

moftz wrote: post #60
nemo44x wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Michael Lewis wrote about the NOAA and this exact type of thing in his last book. In essence the NOAA spends lots of tax payer money to collect weather data but can’t do much with it other than give it away exclusively to a handful of entities that can repackage and sell it. The eventual dystopian end state could be where the NOAA can’t alert people to tornados and only those subscribing to a weather service would be…

You can get an emergency radio capable of receiving VHF NOAA weather alerts. There is typically at least one of the frequencies within range where ever you are. You can subscribe to weather alerts through RSS on their site as well. https://alerts.weather.gov/ You can even pass lat/long points to the forecast page and it will pull up the closest weather station, even points in the ocean work. https://forecast.weather.…

> You can get an emergency radio capable of receiving VHF NOAA weather alerts.

Apparently this was grandfathered in a long time ago. NOAA is only allowed to send weather reports by radio and on specific frequencies. Doing the same with the internet, why that would be communism!

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

#116

Post by fragsworth »

tvanantwerp wrote: post #21
komali2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>sneak in stealth tax changes I don't think we exist in a world where this is possible.

I can imagine it happening. The US tax code is so complicated that most tax payers don't really understand it. Heck, most tax payers don't understand how marginal tax rates work or why having a large refund isn't actually a good thing. I can absolutely believe that a majority of people would accept a negative change to the tax code due to an inability to understand it, choosing to just accept whatever they're being t…

This is exacerbated by the number of workers who don't actually pay any taxes (~44%): https://www.marketwatch.com/story/81-million-americans-wont-...

The number is even higher if you count those who are unemployed or not working.

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

#117

Post by jonathankoren »

TheHypnotist wrote: post #108
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will say, vote with your dollars. If you don't like Intuit's lobbying, please don't feed the beast and use their services.

What are suitable alternatives? Aren't they the best in class, regardless of how shitty that class is?

The pen. Seriously.

I used TurboTax this year, and honestly I was underwhelmed, especially when it came to the state forms. It didn’t really seem like it did much, and the California form experience were full of obvious bugs. Questions with no context. (“Enter city 2”) Questions being given out of order. PDFs being viewed through a mail slot. PDF forms where the entry blanks and the entries would scroll at different t rates, so you couldn’t read the form. It was super frustrating. The whole thing felt like a cheap unskilled body shop of a program, and made me want to just use a pen.

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

#118

Post by andrewla »

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?

Out of curiosity, do you have insight on how this evolved? Did the government go from requiring paper to offering an electronic equivalent?

In the US, the IRS supported an e-file system that basically allowed electronic versions of forms to be submitted, but it was arcane enough that a cottage industry developed to assist users in prepping documents for e-file.

How does Finland support tax preparation services; what sort of facilities do they offer for people filing on behalf of others?

Even if the US went to an IRS-pre-filled return, there would still be room for third-party tax software that improved on the user experience, so I think if the IRS supported direct filing of taxes it would also be good to preserve the ability for software or designated parties to submit information on the taxpayer's behalf.

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

#119

Post by ensignavenger »

TheHypnotist wrote: post #108
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will say, vote with your dollars. If you don't like Intuit's lobbying, please don't feed the beast and use their services.

What are suitable alternatives? Aren't they the best in class, regardless of how shitty that class is?

I have used Credit Karma Tax since it came out (I think this year was 3 years) and it has been a great product and is free for both federal and state filings. Doesn't support some more complex scenarios, notably partial year and multi-state returns (you can still file your Federal return with it, though).

Edited to add additional details as to what isn't supported.

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

#120

Post by whoopdedo »

hundt wrote: post #104

As the article makes clear, this is not a unilateral ban on competing with tax prep software companies, but rather a deal (pre-existing but now codified into law) in which the companies agree to provide free tax prep software to low-income taxpayers and in exchange the federal government agrees not to create a competing product. To me this sounds like a great deal for taxpayers. In exchange for not spending tons of t…

But is it really free? Or are you just paying in a different way?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/03/07/when-ta...

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