Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> I've also been rewarded with unexpected large dollar figure checks in the mail. 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.
IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax
181–190 of 489 posts
Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax
#182In 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…
I think are more steelman'ed version of the GOP argument is: when government does things badly, they can go VERY VERY badly. It's a risk viewpoint. Whereas the progressive viewpoint letting government do more and more things. The other risk is bloat. Once a government program exists, it is very very hard to stop it and get the funds back ( from a political perspective ). It's unpopular to fire people. When government…
Sounds conveniently like Regulatory capture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture.
Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suppose the lobbying could be unbalanced, but that wouldn't be consistent with the numbers when you look at campaign contributions (even if you ignore individual contributions). https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=D000026667...
$68k in contributions vs several million in lobbying. That's not apples and oranges, that's apples and coconuts.
Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax
#184The both parties argument is so stale at this point. While the Dems might not be perfect, they aren't actively sabotaging our democracy. The Republicans just passed a huge tax bill and what did it do? Oh, huge handouts to the wealthy. Nice!
Sabotaging democracy? You mean like attempting to overturn a presidential election?
The U.S. constitution very clearly gives the legislative branch the power to impeach and remove any sitting president. Period.
If you don't like it then call for an amendment or a new constitutional convention.
Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Voting matters Gerrymandering and voter purging matters
FWIW, The GOP control of the senate is clearly not due to gerrymandering, or at least not any gerrymandering that happened in the past 100 years. I think gerrymandering is an issue, but it's only a fraction of the reason why representation is not particularly proportional.
Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax
#186This USA tax thing has always baffled me... it is the exact definition of why we pay taxes: for the government to provide services that are common to the country´s citizens. There´s nothing more common than tax collection: rich, middle class or poor. Why wouldn't citizens demand a public tax filing process? Even in Mexico we have an automagical tax filing process that makes: a) The great majority of the population wh…
Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
> messaging that the government can't do anything properly I would love to hear about things the government has done exceptionally better than private companies. Please go on.
Healthcare comes to mind since we're discussing US politics. Roads might be the canonical example but I'm not familiar with any examples of privatized roads.
Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty disgusting. Summed up in one of my favorite tweets, which went something like > Gov: you owe us money. It's called taxes > Ctzn: oh ok, how much do I owe you? > Gov: you have to figure it out > Ctzn: oh well, then I owe you 0 > Gov: no, no, we know how much you owe, you have to figure it out, and by the way if you get it wrong you go to jail
The thing people misunderstand with the government not being able to figure it out is because there's a huge variety of complexity that is truly individual based. Did you make a contribution to a tax deductible IRA? Did you make a retroactive payment to that account in the following tax calendar year? There's a ton of variables going on here, where the government doesn't have this all-seeing system where everything g…
Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax
#189In 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…
It's also anti-tax activist like Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform who hate automatic filing and prefilled forms too. Their reasoning is if taxes are "too easy" then somehow Americans will blindly accept tax increases so they actually want to keep tax filing as difficult as possible.
A couple illustrations:
It's very common for people to owe tax at a lower rate than they did the year before, but be upset because they have to write a check (and this is when the amount is trivial relative to wealth, so it's not because of financial inconvenience). They don't think in terms of tax rates, just in terms of do they owe or not. Owing is worse than not owing, regardless of total tax paid. And these are successful, otherwise financially savvy people.
There are also people who try things they think are "tricks" to maximize their refund that are literally just paying more in. They think a giant refund is great, not realizing that it's just money that they could have not sent to the IRS in the first place. Once again, owing bad, refunds good.
This is all to say that I believe people are indeed, to some extent, blindly paying more taxes than they would agree to if they had to write a check every month for the amount due. For a lot of people, even people who don't make very much, if they paid their half of their payroll taxes with a check every month, it would be pretty close to the biggest bill they have each month, and it goes basically unnoticed by most people.
For the record, I don't have any problem at all with current tax rates, but I know very well what they are, and I think if there was more transparency and education, I don't believe it would lead to people wanting to raise tax rates, but that's just my opinion.
Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax
#190This USA tax thing has always baffled me... it is the exact definition of why we pay taxes: for the government to provide services that are common to the country´s citizens. There´s nothing more common than tax collection: rich, middle class or poor. Why wouldn't citizens demand a public tax filing process? Even in Mexico we have an automagical tax filing process that makes: a) The great majority of the population wh…
Don't believe me? Simply don't file your taxes next year. You will get a letter from the IRS sent to you that literally tells you what you owe. They know all of your income down to the cent, they know what you owe. This automagical system exists. Yet the only way to "use" it is to either not pay your taxes, or to pay them wrong.
Yet every year, the IRS makes us go through the charade of putting our taxes together and all the work (and money) that it entails, when the whole time they know what we owe already and expects us to pay that unless we can prove them otherwise.