101–110 of 489 posts
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> There is no reason the IRS shouldn't have a simple, online fillable 1099EZ that makes the calculations and validations for you. It is largely due to Republicans that we don't have such a program. Voting matters. https://priceonomics.com/the-stanford-professor-who-fought-t...
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In the US, we've had decades of (largely GOP) messaging that the government can't do anything properly. A substantial portion of the population believes it. As noted in a sibling comment, the IRS could pre-fill forms that would be correct for the vast majority of tax payers (who take the standard deduction/don't itemize, have a single job, and no other edge cases). These people should not be paying TurboTax either wa…
... which requires actively sabotaging anything that is being done properly.
There is no reason the IRS shouldn't have a simple, online fillable 1099EZ that makes the calculations and validations for you. And while their at it, match the SSN to the w2 info that they have on file. This would take care of 80% of the population. Just don't outsource it. I'm sure USDS could have it ready in less than a year.
Fantastic news! Now let's have the IRS start building out their free e-file program and IDEALLY put some pressure or at least summarize what parts of the tax code are the most complex so they can be simplified. A lot of the tax code complexity comes from congress messing with the logic of taxing folks on their income. And yes, simplifying the tax code would get rid of loopholes like deduction that can exceed the cost…
Do you have a reference for the deduction greater than basis loophole? I spent a few minutes looking for it on google and couldn’t find a reference. It does seem non-sensical on the face, but I’d like to read more.
- 50ish% back after deducting the given unappreciated basis,
- Selling the short-term gains would cost you half the profit, so the charitable deduction gets you roughly 100% of the after-tax profit from the trade back in your pocket.
(Plus the upside of sending money to charity.)
The math doesn't work out for long-term gains though, and obviously works best when the asset has appreciated strongly. Not sure about the legal treatment of partially-donated options spreads or other complex hedging tricks to manufacture these gains and offset them against a loss.
Not tax advice etc, all just guesswork.
This is great news! I really hope the IRS creates it's own site, they would need to advertise it heavily though, way way too many people think eFile = TurboTax. There's already vastly better options out there but very few people use them or know about them. Edit: I think the real killer feature would be to pre-populate the "IRS e-file" with the information the IRS already knows about you. That would get people paying…
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Are we reading the same article? Don't invent partisan issues, the article makes it clear it's not a "Republican" thing, it's an Intuit thing.
FTA: >> That morning, Frommer polled his colleagues in the Assembly and found they were a vote short. No Republicans would vote for the bill, and some Democrats would vote ‘no’ too. >> Once again, Intuit had blocked ReadyReturn. It's definitely an Intuit thing, but being bought by Intuit seems to be a majority Republican thing.
That's not what the article says though. It says Intuit bought Grover Norquist, who then caused Republicans to vote against it (but not because of money they got).
And it says: "In 2007, Eric Cantor (a Republican leader) and Zoe Lofgren (a Democrat from Silicon Valley) had introduced a bill to ban return-free filing. Both received contributions from Inuit."
In the US, we've had decades of (largely GOP) messaging that the government can't do anything properly. A substantial portion of the population believes it. As noted in a sibling comment, the IRS could pre-fill forms that would be correct for the vast majority of tax payers (who take the standard deduction/don't itemize, have a single job, and no other edge cases). These people should not be paying TurboTax either wa…
Well, the GOP takes power in 2016, and declares that they will "reduce" paperwork by removing... the two simplified forms! Now everyone has to fill out the complete 1040, which is also now strangely cramped and calls out to a dozen different worksheets, since the GOP also wanted to brag about how the form "fits on a postcard", and it has to contort itself to use every square inch of paper. A miserable experience! I miss the 1040-EZ.
> a years-old prohibition on the IRS creating its own online filing system has been scrapped What kind of insanity leads to this? The government is prohibited from creating software that helps its citizens? There's a lot wrong with Brazil but here I just download the government-provided software (that runs on Windows/Linux/Mac) and fill my taxes in 10-15 minutes. Every year they release a new version that is easier t…
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100% agree. To me they seem to be playing this perverse game of knowing how much you owe based on your W-2s then not telling you, waiting for you to file and guess how much you owe just right. If you guess wrong tough luck, you get penalties years later.
When I've guessed wrong, I've also been rewarded with unexpected large dollar figure checks in the mail. I did once make an error that cost me, and someone at the IRS was excellent in working together over the phone to get things square.
But did they also send any interest? Notice if you owe them, you also owe interest, unless you negotiate. If they owe you, you don't usually get the interest sent do you.