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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

#461

Post by ssttoo »

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.

Thank you, you just saved me $164.98 (turbotax self-employed) - $14.99 (taxhawk)! A lot of money given that it's for my kid's $620 income :) And honestly, the taxhawk experience was better, with less cutesy messages and fewer screens. Not to mention the annoying turbotax upsells.

Just one thing to complain - it didn't discover that I over-contributed to Roth and need to return a bit to prevent a penalty.

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

#462

Post by bsimpson »

sircastor wrote: post #415
ensignavenger wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have not done taxes on both for the same year and compared the two. I have used TurboTax, as well as a variety of other online tax filing solutions, in the past. TurboTax might be better polished and provides better explanations, Credit Karma tax gets better every year, and I find the downsides to be a good trade off for not supporting Intuit.

I did my taxes in both last year (started in TurboTax and learned about their abuses - a coworker suggested Credit karma) and found the numbers to be identical. My taxes are relatively complex, more than most people. I'm very happy with the service for the second year in a row. I admit that they don't have quite the community links that TurboTax does, and there are some situations they won't handle (for instance, inc…

I have a friend who works there, and still didn't know they did tax stuff. I'll have to give it a try this weekend!

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

#463

Post by germanier »

atoav wrote: post #77
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?

I live in Germany, which is said to have one of the most complicated tax systems known to man. If I had one (realistic) wish for a German government, it would be to do it like Finland. Sadly there is a whole branch of people working on this, without any interest to make it easier..

Just a few weeks ago, I logged into Elster, opened the pre-filled tax return (Belegabruf) and sent it. Instead, I could have filled the short and simple Vereinfachte Steuererklärung by hand which covers all common cases.

Most workers don't need to do anything to get their overpaid tax back thanks to the Lohnsteuerjahresausgleich.

They need to work on their marketing though.

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

#464

Post by robmaister »

mjevans wrote: post #410
adjkant wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting in theory but in practice most Americans do not have the financial literacy to budget properly to meet taxes. What happens when you don't have the cash to pay? Do we then see a whole new sector of predatory loans? Imprisonment? Increasing unpayable fines? None of those are good ideas, yet when things like this happen, our system has already fallen into these pitfalls. Witholding is an essential idea. What…

At least if you're using the tax prep software I did it offers a 'payment plan', which seems like an upfront way of asking to have wages garnished post-taxes due, instead of before (like W4?s do)

This is something the IRS does directly to encourage people to file even if they can't afford to pay right then. This helps with cases like self-employment income or capital gains where you can end up owing at the end of the year even with W4 withholding for your primary income stream.

The penalty for not paying is much lower than the penalty for not filling, if you owe.

It's possible your tax prep software does their own version as a middleman, but the IRS offers it directly through the same system that quarterly estimates are paid.

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

#466

Post by robmaister »

tathougies wrote: post #403
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…

> The second argument blows my mind because I can't imagine that the set of people who would just pay the IRS without double checking their math are reviewing the tax filings from the third party they use right now. In other words, I would really like to see a survey of how people currently file their taxes in comparison to how they think they would if there was an IRS free filing for everyone or something like the R…

There's a few companies that are allowed to efile that do very little besides convert the IRS paper forms to web forms and do the arithmetic for you. They tend to be a lot cheaper than TurboTax/H&R Block. I've been using one of them (OLT) the last two years has worked well enough for me and efile processes a lot faster than paper.

I also believe people should be filing their own taxes and understanding how the system works. I've owed money the last two years by underestimating self-employment taxes, so this year I've set up a spreadsheet that tells me how much I'll owe each quarter with all deductions built in and a tiny bit of overestimation.

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

#467

Post by llukas »

hnmullany wrote: post #372
jacobolus wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simplifying the tax code in the 80s was the public sales pitch. The real strategy was to dramatically cut taxes on the wealthy (e.g. by eliminating the top several marginal tax brackets). But keep in mind, the Democrats controlled congress, so reform had to gain bipartisan support.

No-one paid the top brackets because the tax code at that point was riddled with ways to generate tax losses that reduced liability. The tax reform really was a good thing (unlike 90% of what happened under the Reagan administration) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Reform_Act_of_1986#Passive...

There is openly available IRS data on how many households actually paid highest bracket.

You are wrong that nobody paid it.

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

#468

Post by ljf »

brandonmenc wrote: post #447
tdeck wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Income taxes in the US applied to a much smaller segment of the population before WW II than they do today.

A situation worth getting back to, imo.

Which taxes (if any) would you prefer?

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

#469

Post by hrktb »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #106
ddlatham wrote: post #56

NPR's Planet Money just re-ran an episode[1] related to this. In 2005, California ran a pilot program where they sent simple, pre-filled tax forms[2] to a sample of the population. 98% of people liked them and would use them again. In 2006 it would have become standard for California, but failed in the legislature by a single vote. Opposition was from two factions: lobbying by Intuit, and Grover Norquist claiming tha…

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.

I might be getting old, but more and more I see “vote with your XXXXX” to be the litmus test for situations there is no decent solution left anymore.

It’s not even an advice in the end, just a reminder the customer lost the battle, and the only alternative is to leave the field with what’s left on their posession to go roam the desert.

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

#470

Post by Zeebrommer »

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?

Same in the Netherlands. These types of backwards laws make America look bad.
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