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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

#431

Post by Eyes »

gowld wrote: post #326
Dig1t wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 complicated taxes are a Republican anti-tax strategy, why did Reagan and the 1980s republicans pursue a strategy of vastly simplifying the tax code? Doing taxes is a tax -- in hours and fees. Only the wealthiest people who can spend $10K on tax prep to save $100K via loophole deductions, oh.

Forget Reagan, they claimed they were trying to do it last year. Remember the post card?

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

#432

Post by astura »

jonathankoren wrote: post #264
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thinking about self-filing this year. Although, I'm really running down to the wire. It's basically as easy as filing out a W2 if you're a full-time salaried employee with no deductions, right?

It is literally 1040-EZ.

1040-EZ went away in 2018, 1040 is now the only form. :(

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

#433

Post by astura »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #177
jonathankoren wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm thinking about self-filing this year. Although, I'm really running down to the wire. It's basically as easy as filing out a W2 if you're a full-time salaried employee with no deductions, right?

It's very easy in that situation.

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

#434

Post by pishpash »

mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #321
indemnity wrote: post #227

Meanwhile, in my little country (NZ), as a regular salaried worker, I only had to interact with the IRD in the years that I had a few side gigs in addition to my regular employment. Most years I don't interact with them at all. Don't even have to file. I guess in the USA they are worried the IRS will get it wrong, so on the chance they will, everyone has to follow really complicated processes, even if their tax affai…

You see, the tax code is incredibly complicated but for the vast majority it’s rather straight forward. Predatory services like tax preparation feed on the fear and insecurities of average Americans by pitching taxes as some difficult task. In reality, one only needs a handful of pages to get their taxes completed and sent in. This process would be even easier if the IRS did it for you, but politics is not a career o…

It's not the form that's complicated. It's knowing that there is some form that exists that will get you money back. Plus knowing what to do next year.

The software is actually bad for you because you forget that reading every IRS booklet and form is about the only way to learn the logic of the tax system if you wish to exploit it correctly.

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

#435

Post by kam »

astura wrote: post #428
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 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.

They're the same company; no idea why they have two brands.

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

#436

Post by snowwrestler »

gowld wrote: post #332
DubiousPusher wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The perrenial misunderstanding about lobbying in the US is that it's about money. It's not. It's about access. The money spent by lobbying firms is almost always in pursuit of that access. AKA buying a $10,000 plate at this donor dinner gets you a sit down with the Senator. Not only do lobbyists get more accessible they get more credibility. The lobbyists are high paid lawyers at respected firms. They have degrees fr…

Paying for access is a bribe. What confuses people is that yes it really is incredibly cheap to bribe Congress and get crazy high ROI, because Intuit can get organized (it's already a corporation with management) afford $6Million in bribes but Americans for sane tax policy can't. This is what "moneyed special interests" refers to.

Just to clarify something: if you pay $10,000 for a plate at a campaign fundraiser, that is not reported as lobbying expenditure. It would not be included in that $6 million number.

Only direct spending on lobbying gets reported as lobbying expenditure--not campaign donations. Direct spending on lobbying includes the salaries of registered lobbyists and their support staff, contractors and vendors to create reports and ads and websites, law firms to give advice, etc.

When you see "X company spend $6 million on lobbying," not one cent of that money went to the politician being lobbied, either directly or indirectly. At the federal level, a lobbyist cannot even buy a Subway sandwich for a member of Congress. It's a felony.

Campaign donations are reported separately. Those donations are sometimes done to enable lobbying, as the post higher in this thread correctly states. My point is just to clarify how the numbers get reported.

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

#437

Post by PhantomGremlin »

mykowebhn wrote: post #376
PhantomGremlin wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that might depend on simplifying the tax code, which might be orders of magnitude more difficult Actually, it would be trivial to simplify the tax code. It couldn't be done overnight, it might take a long weekend. All you have to do is come up with a very simple tax scheme with no complexities and no loopholes. Why couldn't a simple tax system be contained in a 10 page law? At first make it optional for anyone to swi…

Good point. But I think lobbyists and special interests would throw a wrench into all of that. If we simplify the tax code, some group somewhere will no longer benefit. I'm sure they and their lobbyists will fight extremely hard to make sure this part of the tax code remains. Multiply this by all the different groups that would be in a similar position and now you might see why I think simplifying the tax code would…

now you might see why I think simplifying the tax code would be extremely difficult.

Of course. You are 100% right. I was describing a fantasy world, you are describing practical reality.

Edit: just to be clear, I'm not trying to be sarcastic in this post, even though it contradicts what I said earlier about how "trivial" it would be to simplify.

The reality is as you describe. Any serious simplification would be extremely difficult to achieve.

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

#438

Post by astura »

kam wrote: post #435
astura wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They're the same company; no idea why they have two brands.

So they are!

From their About Us page:

>FreeTaxUSA is an online tax preparation website owned by TaxHawk, Inc.

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

#439

Post by xanth »

mh_yam wrote: post #371

How about simplifying the tax code so we don't need computer programs at all?

Why? The more equitable the tax code the more complex it becomes. And assuming you're aiming for the most fair system I don't understand only applying our computational resources to rendering superheroes and recommendation engines, when we could scale the tax code complexity (and fairness) relative to our compute resources.
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