Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

propublica.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 717 posts

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

#211

Post by komali2 »

linuxftw wrote: post #46
tvanantwerp wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Most tax payers can't multiply two fractions. It could be as simple as filling in 3 fields on a form, they'll still march down to Jackson Hewitt and pay someone hundreds of dollars to do it for them.

Which, IMO, is a failure at the government level.

Either make it so stupid easy a nearly illiterate child could do it, make it unnecessary (just have the IRS file for us), or massively improve the terrible state of the education system in the USA.

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

#212

Post by techdragon »

This is one of the best examples of the perverse incentives that lobbying from some industries can turn into. Regardless of the arguments, government not competing with business, etc.. this is stupid. It requires a twisted viewpoint to think that making it hard to file taxes is a good thing.

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

#213

Post by anitil »

Something seems a bit off here - the article points to $6.6 million in lobbying and a direct contribution of $16,000.

The ROI on those costs must be stupendous! Say 100 Million people file taxes in the US, it doesn't take long to hit 10x or 100x returns.

Am I missing something? (I'm not from the US)

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

#214

Post by redwall_hp »

_bxg1 wrote: post #109
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?

It's because historically our society has treated businesses, their leaders, and the free market as churches, priests, and God, respectively. They've brought us much wealth and power, but putting restraints on them or getting in their way at all are cardinal sins in American politics. Politicians can take bribes and then package the resulting deregulation with euphemisms like "small government" and "supporting the fr…

Small indie companies, like Blizzard.

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

#215

Post by Amezarak »

anitil wrote: post #213

Something seems a bit off here - the article points to $6.6 million in lobbying and a direct contribution of $16,000. The ROI on those costs must be stupendous! Say 100 Million people file taxes in the US, it doesn't take long to hit 10x or 100x returns. Am I missing something? (I'm not from the US)

Aside from the free file program, which is a partnership with private companies, the IRS does offer a bare bones free fillable forms tax filing application.

For most filers with W2 income, there’s nothing to it and they could easily do that. It’s fairly simple and you just need to read the directions and do maybe a half dozen additions and subtractions.

Where the real return has come in is the millions, if not billions, of dollars that the industry has spent convincing consumers that taxes are super hard and complicated and open to tons of interpretation, that their tax filing experts know this ONE WEIRD TRICK to get you thousands back, and if you screw up even once the IRS is going to come after you hard and put a lien on your house and put you in jail. The reality is not like that at all - if you do screw up they are happy to help and it’s actually pretty simple for most people. But this has engendered an incredibly deep mistrust of the IRS - most people would still taking their taxes to one of these firms or their local accountant because they’d be convinced they could get more back.

I’m not saying the system couldn’t be even better for these filers, but it does require the federal government and the IRS to start collecting data they they don’t right now, and the actual gain is pretty minimal in real terms - taxes for most filers is already incredibly easy and free. And the you’ve only solved half the problem - what about state taxes?

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

#216

Post by hurryskurry »

shalmanese wrote: post #190
tzs wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 They don't actually try to pass a flat tax because it is not feasible to actually do a flat tax in a country like they US with such a wide range of incomes. Even with a low rate, th…

Every flat tax proposal comes with a Negative Income Tax portion to counter regressitivity. People misunderstand what flat tax proposals are all about. With a tiered tax system, individuals need to be the ones who pay taxes because people who combine income from multiple sources need to pay differing amounts of taxes. With a flat tax system, all income is treated exactly the same so governments can switch to collecti…

Seems like it would harm job growth, because labor costs would increase for low wage jobs.

Also what about income from investment?

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

#218

Post by airstrike »

This IMHO is the biggest issue the U.S. faces today, simply due to the fact that so many secondary issues stem from how conflicted lawmaking is in this country.

I don't know if it's the same way elsewhere. Maybe it is, and it just isn't as widely reported. But the fact remains that we know this to be an issue and we're not campaigning enough to solve it.

The only other issue that I feel is as pervasive is the end of the Fairness Doctrine and the spiral into chaos that ensued.

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

#219

Post by Nikbul »

If you follow down the original on ProPublica and find comments there, you will see that there was no such provision. And the one that actually referencing IRS is says that IRS should continue to cooperate with private sector to make free tax filing and must maintain free portal. I would like to see actual provision to which this website referencing, otherwise it is click bait.
Post reply on HN