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I started building my own open source US tax engine, but then found https://github.com/ustaxes/UsTaxes here on HN ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26138446 ) and decided to throw my efforts with them instead. Check it out!
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> please don't use this software to file your taxes for the 2020 / 2021 tax season. I wonder if there is a PR that Intuit filed to add this to the readme. Seriously, I wonder how much money Intuit has spent to terrify people into using their software. Each year, I look around for alternatives so I can avoid giving them money, and each year I find some reason to grow fearful of an IRS audit and go with the company tha…
Unless you really screw up[1], or are intentionally trying to screw the IRS[2], you don't have to worry about an audit. The IRS's goal isn't to bring down their wrath upon you, their goal is to accurately collect the taxes they are due. If you pay too little, they'll ask you to pay the difference. If you pay too much, they'll refund it. Really: I once used the single-payer tax table instead of the filing-jointly tax…
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This is the solution. We can already do this. A pilot program was run. The problem is that the anti tax wing of the Republican party and Turbotax are actively opposed. Instead of developing software, we should be writing our representatives.
Democrats have the entire government now, President, senate and the house. Democrats had filibuster proof majority when Obama was president. Why are you just blaming Republicans?
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I don't know where this idea came from (I've seen it on reddit a LOT), but it's the same here in Switzerland: you do it yourself because the tax department has no idea how much you made precisely, what you can deduce from it (expenses you had to do in order to acquire your income), etc. It just makes more sense to have everyone manage their own taxes.
The government automatically doing it doesn't preclude from letting taxpayers be able to amend it. The vast majority of people have simple tax returns, and all that information is already electronically flying around with unique identifiers (social security number). It's trivial for government to be able to automatically produce a tax return that's basically almost all done for everyone.
Try freetaxusa.com if you're looking for a free alternative that has an equally friendly user interface!
Been using them for years now after getting tired of TurboTax’s $60-100 fear racket.
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Turbotax et al. lobby heavily to prevent this. Given that much of the relevant information--W2s, 1099s, etc., are already reported, you'd think that this would be easier for a very large percentage of taxpayers. But it would effectively kill TurboTax's business.
Couldn't the legislators just... not do what the lobbyists want? Are they really all that corrupt?
All they're doing is lining their own pockets with millions from TurboTax et. al to make sure laws are favourable for those big companies. But because it's perfectly legal, and there are no thugs with guns or drugs or "bad members of society", it's absolutely not corruption.
/s
Or the IRS could file our taxes for us for free.
The IRS can simplify the process, sure. And if you are living alone, have no children, and don't care about taking advantage of any special credits or deductions, then a "file for me" button would be fine. (Though the process for those taxpayers is already in a good place--I filed my taxes for free in about 30 minutes this year.) But if you, say, have children, the IRS will not be able to "file for you" in any meanin…
Not compared to other countries it isn't. Not by a long shot.
Video with transcript below:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/dreading-taxes-countries-s...
Get the heck out of here with your bull pucky
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Turbotax et al. lobby heavily to prevent this. Given that much of the relevant information--W2s, 1099s, etc., are already reported, you'd think that this would be easier for a very large percentage of taxpayers. But it would effectively kill TurboTax's business.
Couldn't the legislators just... not do what the lobbyists want? Are they really all that corrupt?
Try freetaxusa.com if you're looking for a free alternative that has an equally friendly user interface!
They're not entirely free, but they're still very cheap and transparent about their pricing. They don't do the login thing where you hook into your banks and pull in documents automatically, but... honestly those aren't that useful and I'm not sure I trust those on turbotax.