251–260 of 466 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what? Fuck TurboTax trying to rent seek mine and anyone's ability to pay taxes. What's next? Feudalism?
You know, there’s a paper form you can fill out and send in for free if you’re that angry about it.
Maybe I'm totally wrong here, but I don't see much of a difference between extorsionist tax filing software and scam callers warning me about the IRS suing me. Can the government please make something that's easy to use? Filing taxes isn't something that requires a separate company to help with, and I see no reason why these products have a right to exist (and especially not be canonized), especially with how exploit…
Just for comparison: in Brazil the _Receita Federal_ (IRS equivalent) provides a free multi-platform* Java desktop app for filing your taxes. The UI isn't great* and if you do complex stock trading it can be a pain to add the necessary information, but for the vast majority of people it works just fine. It also shows if it is better to use the standard deduction or the itemized deductions for your particular case and…
Adding a data point with Mexico: All invoices are digital. Every person who gets a TaxId also gets a Private/Public keypair and generating invoices means signing the document with that key. The amazing thing is that now accountants talk about the XML, which is the legal representation of the invoice. As a result, every year if you file your taxes, you go I to the government freely provided website , get into your acc…
A few weeks ago I started an LLC in New York. I followed all the simple instructions online and the process was actually very straightforward and easy. I had an official digital copy of proof my LLC existed within an hour. I went to sleep with and thought that there is hope for our government. Within a few days I received a letter from a private company informing me that unless I pay them $1000 to publish the name of…
I really don't understand why I have to file my taxes to begin with. I have a W2 job, and my employer presumably has sent my paystubs and tax information to the government already. I then have to copy down the information from my W2 into some kind of tax filing software, and then they have to check to make sure that what I typed matches what they have, presumably paying someone to do that if I make any kind of seriou…
Nope. In New Zealand you log into a website and it shows all your employers filings. You can send in requests for corrections if things are wrong, but it shows you taxes paid and anything you owe the IRD. It has an interface for transferring money to/from your bank account for payments/returns. It's a little more complex if you own a business, but I think you can file and maintain all your business taxes throughout t…
I am the developer in charge of CalFile, the free filing software that everyone asks for here for state of California. https://www.ftb.ca.gov/file/ways-to-file/online/calfile/inde... I am pushing so hard to make it better and more useful to more people, like being able to add capital gain that is not currently supported. these are the push backs that I am getting: 1. Last time they tried to do what all of you ask, a…
0: https://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/computing/it/irs-predic...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I sort of agree with the pain guys. I'm currently self employed (US) and have to separately pay estimated taxes quarterly. Since I've been doing this, I'm a lot more sensitive to politicians who want to raise my taxes. Similarly, there is a group in the US whose main goal is to change the law so that employers can't pay your taxes on your behalf. Instead, you would get your full salary, and then have to write a check…
I don't understand why the pain of filing is connected to the pain of spending money. If a politician raises taxes, and all it does is change the value of a annual withdrawal on your account, I think that pain would be the same, regardless of difficulty of filing. The pain is estimating and filing 4 times a year.
They simply do not understand the fact that, no, that check is not "free government money" but is instead money that the government took, held onto for free all year, interest free, and then let you have back after you filed the proper forms.
So the suggestions to have people cut checks to the government (quarterly, monthly, annually) is generally made from trying to overcome that viewpoint that too many folks view their tax return as some form of "gift" from the government, and instead get them to recognize just how much tax money is being consumed.
I am the developer in charge of CalFile, the free filing software that everyone asks for here for state of California. https://www.ftb.ca.gov/file/ways-to-file/online/calfile/inde... I am pushing so hard to make it better and more useful to more people, like being able to add capital gain that is not currently supported. these are the push backs that I am getting: 1. Last time they tried to do what all of you ask, a…
After college I quickly weaned myself off TurboTax in favor of filing taxes for free with CalFile & Free Fillable Forms with an occasional paper mailing of PDFs that I download and fill out. Much like my opposition to using proprietary word processors, my disdain of paid tax return services that own your data is deep and profound.
While a bit painful and limited in feature set, the mere existence of a free filing option is crucial to keeping Intuit from forcing me to pay to file my returns. I find Intuit to be a rather evil company. Filing a return is mandated by law with steep penalties. They intentionally keep the process complicated and convoluted. It's a plundering of everyone's time for unproductive work and overspending on something that should be quick and easy.