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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

#421

Post by u801e »

rattlesnakedave wrote: post #349
Calloggs wrote: post #298

Planet Money covered tax filing a few years ago and visited it again recently: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor... My understanding is that the main opposition appears to be (1) the tax preparation lobby to protect their business interests and (2) anti-tax activists that believe that making people calculate their own taxes will make them more aware of how much they are paying in taxes. The…

A better way to do 2 would be to do away with withholding. After a year of that we’d see a radically different tax system.

I've always thought it would be better to replace the income tax with a national sales tax. Then, for those who earn less and have to spend a greater proportion of their income on essential expenses, the government would credit them through their employer's paycheck (essentially the opposite of what federal withholding is now). For those who earn more, they would receive less credit or won't receive any credit.

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

#422

Post by u801e »

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've used free fillable forms for a number of years without any issues.

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

#423

Post by jlturner »

u801e wrote: post #422
TheHypnotist wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I've used free fillable forms for a number of years without any issues.

This. I use this every year and it simply is an online interface of fillable forms provided by the IRS with a “Do the Math” button (actual button text). It works as intended, files for you, and is free.

Do your taxes by hand/with free fillable forms (name of the online service), you’ll learn a lot. Just follow the 1040 instructions (it goes line by line through the form) and any related forms it tells you to do.

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

#424

Post by jlturner »

catbird wrote: post #199
TheHypnotist wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If your taxes aren't complicated (i.e. you use the standard deduction), there's a service called "Free Fillable Forms" through the IRS that allows you to fill out your tax forms online and e-file them for free. Many states have an equivalent system as well. Last year I went to an independent preparer, which cost me around $160 and took an hour. This year I wanted to save some money so I decided to try filing myself a…

Free fillable forms allows more than just simple cases — it will handle all paperwork regarding your personal income tax. Highly, highly recommend using. It’s more manual (follow the 1040i instructions document), but you’ll learn a lot about how deductions work, what you can claim, and what is best for you in following years.

The only case it doesn’t handle for me is Partnership taxes — just the stuff due April 15.

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

#425

Post by rebuilder »

Dig1t wrote: post #317
Calloggs wrote: post #298

Planet Money covered tax filing a few years ago and visited it again recently: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor... My understanding is that the main opposition appears to be (1) the tax preparation lobby to protect their business interests and (2) anti-tax activists that believe that making people calculate their own taxes will make them more aware of how much they are paying in taxes. The…

Yes, you're right that people in that camp are unlikely to review their tax filings from their 3rd party. However there is an incentive for that 3rd part tax company to save their customer as much as they possibly can. The bigger the refund, the happier the customer and the more likely they are to come back next year and give you more money. In the Planet Money episode they spoke with the Republican dude and his bigg…

If private tax filing products saved money for their users, as compared to a hypothetical, IRS-produced product, what are these companies worried about? They'd have a clear competitive advantage over the IRS product.

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

#426

Post by [deleted] »

pdonis wrote: post #296
lacey wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of argument comes up all the time, claiming governments somehow screw everything up but private industry has some sort of amazing track record at producing value. There’s a continuous stream of evidence to the contrary, particularly if you’ve ever worked for large companies and seen the kind of wasted resources that go toward pet projects and other high value items that fail miserably. The difference of cou…

> There’s a continuous stream of evidence to the contrary, particularly if you’ve ever worked for large companies and seen the kind of wasted resources that go toward pet projects and other high value items that fail miserably. There's also a continuous stream of evidence not to the contrary, particularly if you've ever worked for the government and seen the kind of wasted resources that go toward pet projects and ot…

[deleted]

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

#427

Post by rebuilder »

rayiner wrote: post #387
hobs wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If republicans wanted to make a system where people would save the most money we'd just reduce the tax loopholes and simplify the system - the system we have now actually only has the wealthy pay the least money. Some would say the republicans think this is a feature.

This is not true. There are tons of bread-and-butter deductions for the middle class. If you do a cross country comparison of taxes, the biggest difference between the US and Europe is not the rich. It’s the folks making $40-100k, where our low brackets plus tons of deductions (mortgage interest, child care, child credits, etc.) drive the effective tax rate way down

You can't really compare tax rates without considering other mandatory costs like health care. Include health insurance and the numbers don't look so good for the USA.

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

#428

Post by astura »

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 use taxhawk.com and would absolutely recommend it, I think the UI is fantastic (and without a fantastic UI, I'd just continue to do taxes with paper and pen). I've been using it since 2011.

I have heard good things about freetaxusa.com as well.

Both are very reasonably priced, only $15 for state - federal is free. Since I have business income TurboTax wants over $100 to do my taxes.

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

#429

Post by 77pt77 »

mattferderer wrote: post #265

If I read this right, you can still use the free service the IRS provides if you make less than $66,000. Has anyone used Turbo Tax or H&R "free" versions to file? I can't use them & last time I tried they charged you to submit your taxes electronically but otherwise it was simple & easy. I also know many cities offer services to help people file simple taxes for free. I believe this bill also states the IRS cannot se…

> If I read this right, you can still use the free service the IRS provides

The IRS doesn't provide any electronic filling services.

Those "free" services are provided by a consortium of private institutions.

There is no way to efile without giving all your data to private companies.

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

#430

Post by pishpash »

SilasX wrote: post #189
SilasX wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems more like an argument for a different interface than against the service entirely -- that would justify making it so that you still have to see and sign a form that shows how much you're paying against what earnings. I think you're falsely equating (as do the Norquist types) a) "the financial burden of the tax should be explicit" (which is fair) and b) "the paperwork should be unnecessarily burdensome" (wh…

Can someone explain how rayiner's argument goes against the idea of IRS-prepared taxes itself rather than the UX of the implementation? It sounds like he’s just trying to be devil’s advocate (to put it nicely).

Why are Norquist types inclined to impose even more burden on what the tax burden actually is? Even if the IRS calculated your taxes, you'd still get the bill to pay it. That's already more than could be said for payroll withholding, which is the primary "unseen" tax.
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