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IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

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Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#331

Post by abduhl »

virmundi wrote: post #252
peterwwillis wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

National Parks exist because we are a nation of united states, not an independent fiefdom of states. All citizens of these united states deserve the same right to enjoy the natural beauty of this country, and no individual state should have the right to remove such privileges from the rest of the citizenry through inaction, nor through lack of management make it less than ideal to enjoy. Conservation of land is a nat…

Then there is no limit to the power of the Federal government. If they can say, “We can do a better job than you, person or State”, then can run roughshod over personal and State’s rights. I guess that’s fine as long as they are running over people and States you don’t like. What happens if Trump goes into California and takes over due to the humanitarian crisis that the State brought in itself ie the tent cities?

The states are subservient to the federal government as restrained by the constitution. If the federal government (Trump, Obama, Nixon, Clinton, it does not matter) wants to take over California and can find an emergency power to do so authorized by Congress then the federal government will take over California.

The argument isn’t “we can do a better job than you” it’s “we are allowed to do this job for you”. Whether they can do it better is irrelevant.

As an aside, if we are looking as a whole, the federal government generally can and does do everything that they do better than the states could do it.

Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#332

Post by arcticbull »

jxramos wrote: post #231
danans wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Needless to say all of this would be much more simple if we just pay a flat tax on all income for all people. Nothing simpler than that. That would be a highly regressive tax system that dramatically transfers even more wealth to the already wealthy. But sure, it's definitely simpler. That doesn't make it better.

The regression application here seems flawed, that assumes a fixed percentage is applied to a fixed amount, where that amount is invariant to income. That is not the case with a flat tax where a fixed percentage is applied to a variable amount. The flatness of the flat tax is on the percentage, the amount (income) is the variable portion that will be more or less based on the individual. The percents however will be…

You're not accounting for the marginal utility of money. The marginal utility of money decays exponentially with respect to income.

Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#333

Post by TheCoelacanth »

kmonsen wrote: post #219
nightski wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't go to jail for filing a wrong number accidentally. Only if you are intentionally lying/hiding income. I know people who didn't pay tax FOR THEIR BUSINESS for several years and they settled the debt for much less than they owed and definitely did not go to jail. This is just misinformation.

This is true, but you can be asked to pay gigantic fines. IRS wanted me to pay more than 50k in fine (luckily they were wrong and accepted that right away). So maybe jail is hyperbole, but it can get pretty serious.

50k fine or 50k back taxes plus fine?

Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#334

Post by arcticbull »

nightski wrote: post #292
mikeyouse wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the essence of the idiotic premise of the current administration that they simplified taxes enough to fit on a post card... The number of brackets isn't the source of tax complexity, it's all of the other shit. That's why that 'postcard' can be accompanied with dozens of supplemental forms. Predictably they killed the 'postcard' after one year: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-republican-tax-reform-po...

I thought that argument was because they doubled the standard deduction, making it much less attractive to itemize and hence, simpler. What is idiotic about that? For most middle to lower class families it reduced their tax burden and made things simpler. There were a few exceptions, primarily upper middle class families in high cost of living areas, but those were exceptional situations.

The net effect of the changes was absolutely tiny for low and middle income folks, and disproportionately rewarded the already well off for whom the marginal utility of money is the lowest. It was a totally regressive change.

Just doubling the standard deduction is fine. Capping SLPT was a kick in the nards to liberals on the coasts. It's not just "upper middle class" folks who got hosed, its actually people on the bubble, for whom their SF property tax (1.188%) already eats their entire deduction, and now they're double-taxed on their state taxes. 100K may be upper middle class in Iowa but it won't even get you a studio apartment in SF. That's who gets hosed.

And anyone with way too much money got more money. The net of it was dumb.

Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#336

Post by sneak »

krtong wrote: post #303
alistairSH wrote: post #67

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…

You can go further back to the founding of the nation for why this is. It didn't start with the GOP. Things that would be nationalized in other countries like the railroads have always been private in america. Even when Alexander Hamilton and George Washington had taxpayers of New Jersey pay for the country's first manufactories in Paterson, they were all private industries. Abraham Lincoln privatized all the railroa…

I don’t think it’s quite as simple as “not giving a shit about the country”, as much as it is the simple fact that different reasonable people can have different opinions about collective ownership.

Recall that both companies and countries are abstractions; they are not real. Some people (reasonably) think that it is logically impossible for a country to own something. Others (reasonably) think it is logically impossible for a corporation to own something. Reasonable people disagree on these things sometimes.

Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#337

Post by arcticbull »

reaperducer wrote: post #326
arcticbull wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It sounds like you've never needed to file a revised tax form for a previous year. I have, and millions of other people do it each year. Wouldn’t it be great if it was automatic and right the first time and you didn’t have to file amendments as a consequence because the source material made its way to the IRS AND they told you how much to pay? Or the frequency was dramatically reduced via automation? > Because the…

Wouldn’t it be great if it was automatic and right the first time Except that life doesn't work that way. Not everything in life is linear. Things have to be changed. Going back and making revisions is what humans do.

Nobody’s proposing not allowing amendments though, just that the government send you a best effort of your taxes to verify and for you to send back if correct. Amend away.

Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#338

Post by peteretep »

xtracto wrote: post #38

This 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…

[flagged]

Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#339

Post by Consultant32452 »

alistairSH wrote: post #280
wool_gather wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a political lobby (see: Grover Norquist) for the idea that filing taxes must never be made easier, because that will make them more palatable. Combined with their axiom that taxes are inherently bad, the result is an argument that tax filing should actually be as painful as possible. (The surprising strength of this lobby is one possible reason that the "file your taxes on a postcard" idea died a few yea…

Yeah, I don't buy Norquist's theory. Making taxes easier doesn't make them any more palatable. Probably the opposite because people would have a better understanding of how much they're paying. Right now, a lot of people mindlessly fill in their needlessly complex forms, and pray they get a refund or don't owe more than $20 or so (because that's all they have in their wallet).

It's not really about the yearly filing but the withholding. Imagine if employers stopped withholding, each person got their full pay in their bank, and then had to write a check to the govt each month like they pay their power bill.

Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#340

Post by hcknwscommenter »

nightski wrote: post #292
mikeyouse wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the essence of the idiotic premise of the current administration that they simplified taxes enough to fit on a post card... The number of brackets isn't the source of tax complexity, it's all of the other shit. That's why that 'postcard' can be accompanied with dozens of supplemental forms. Predictably they killed the 'postcard' after one year: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-republican-tax-reform-po...

I thought that argument was because they doubled the standard deduction, making it much less attractive to itemize and hence, simpler. What is idiotic about that? For most middle to lower class families it reduced their tax burden and made things simpler. There were a few exceptions, primarily upper middle class families in high cost of living areas, but those were exceptional situations.

And anyone with a lot of kids. No fun to lose multiple personal exemptions.
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