181–190 of 265 posts
This work excites me a lot, but I can’t help but wonder if this should be a government-funded rather than volunteer-driven effort.
The IRS has to program all the rules into their system anyway. If they could simply standardize those rules into a git controlled Yaml file or something better suited, keeping software updated could be made rather easy for open source projects.
I worked on tax software and have seen these kind of efforts. Noble, yes. Short lived, yes. It’s relatively easy to make a free 1040 file. The real problem comes from all. The. Edge. Cases. 1) do you support xyz state? 2) what if I lived in multiple states? 3) what if i… And on and on. And it’s not just one and done. Every year IRS and states are changing their shit so you have to go thru and make all kind of updates…
> what if I lived in multiple states? You just pick the state that gives you the smallest tax.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The french initiative started in 2013 is still alive (last commit a few days ago), and passes the gov test suite (they keep in touch with our version of the IRS): https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-france The way we got this is interestingly twisted. French citizens requested the software used by the administration, and they managed to get it! But, it was written in Mlang, a proprietary language created by the fr…
This is great. Do most French people need to file tax returns? When I lived in Britain I only needed to file when I was self-employed and when I worked in Norway I got sent a pre-filled tax return. Now living in the US I need to file every year (both state and federally) even as a regular employee with all my income reported already reported to the government. It all seems to be an absurd charade. Attempts to reduce…
Even as a freelancer, it usually takes me 10 minutes on the web to fill my yearly taxes nowaday. It used to be way longer, with queue at the tax offices, real papers to fill, etc.
But I do have a very convenient status, administrative wise.
I worked on tax software and have seen these kind of efforts. Noble, yes. Short lived, yes. It’s relatively easy to make a free 1040 file. The real problem comes from all. The. Edge. Cases. 1) do you support xyz state? 2) what if I lived in multiple states? 3) what if i… And on and on. And it’s not just one and done. Every year IRS and states are changing their shit so you have to go thru and make all kind of updates…
So what is actually needed, is to transfer law into a computer parse-able syntax, so that software can automatically update itself?
Some of the tax rules come down to "humans argued in court, and another human decided between their two arguments, because the law on paper was vague or poorly constructed".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Some countries don't make you figure out things on your own: That's a bit like making a shopper put in the correct prices on each item they're buying and penalizing then for mistakes. A "Price is Right" game-show version of a tax filing system. The U.S. doesn't make you do this, either. Most people don't itemize deductions. You just plug in the data from your W-2. The percentage of people itemizing was 30%, but wit…
> You just plug in the data from your W-2. This is still a lot more work than in many countries, and you still need to either fill in a paper 1040 (plus state taxes where appropriate, and some of those (cough CA) are far from simple), use tax prep software, or someone like H&R Block. In the UK, if you're in the majority of people who have one job and straightforward finances (e.g. not renting property, no CGT, etc) y…
Not in my experience. The online options the IRS provides free of charge is pretty easy, and many states have similarly simple online forms for free.
https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...
Although I do not dispute other countries do have it easier, and do it better than the US.
I worked on tax software and have seen these kind of efforts. Noble, yes. Short lived, yes. It’s relatively easy to make a free 1040 file. The real problem comes from all. The. Edge. Cases. 1) do you support xyz state? 2) what if I lived in multiple states? 3) what if i… And on and on. And it’s not just one and done. Every year IRS and states are changing their shit so you have to go thru and make all kind of updates…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If those represent major complexities maybe there can be open source tax software that serves 80% of people, I.e. people in coastal cities that have one job, and then the remaining 20% have to pay for their software?
So sure. You can write software that can handle a simple Federal-only case. (Basically what used to be a 1040-EZ: W-2(s), a couple 1099s with all the cost basis info existing, standard deductions, etc.) But, at that point, your taxes are pretty simple to fill out anyway and I'm guessing there are even spreadsheet templates out there that let you type in some numbers and everything is calculated.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disruption could also come from tax reform. Some countries don't make you figure out things on your own: That's a bit like making a shopper put in the correct prices on each item they're buying and penalizing then for mistakes. A "Price is Right" game-show version of a tax filing system. Some other countries just tell you where you stand because for the vast majority of people a standard filing is all that's required…
> Some countries don't make you figure out things on your own: That's a bit like making a shopper put in the correct prices on each item they're buying and penalizing then for mistakes. A "Price is Right" game-show version of a tax filing system. The U.S. doesn't make you do this, either. Most people don't itemize deductions. You just plug in the data from your W-2. The percentage of people itemizing was 30%, but wit…
11.4% of tax filers itemized in 2018:
https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-tax-stats-at-a-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If those represent major complexities maybe there can be open source tax software that serves 80% of people, I.e. people in coastal cities that have one job, and then the remaining 20% have to pay for their software?
So sure. You can write software that can handle a simple Federal-only case. (Basically what used to be a 1040-EZ: W-2(s), a couple 1099s with all the cost basis info existing, standard deductions, etc.) But, at that point, your taxes are pretty simple to fill out anyway and I'm guessing there are even spreadsheet templates out there that let you type in some numbers and everything is calculated.
I'd be happy to have a full federal filing system even if it left me to do my state taxes "by hand".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Some countries don't make you figure out things on your own: That's a bit like making a shopper put in the correct prices on each item they're buying and penalizing then for mistakes. A "Price is Right" game-show version of a tax filing system. The U.S. doesn't make you do this, either. Most people don't itemize deductions. You just plug in the data from your W-2. The percentage of people itemizing was 30%, but wit…
> You just plug in the data from your W-2. This is still a lot more work than in many countries, and you still need to either fill in a paper 1040 (plus state taxes where appropriate, and some of those (cough CA) are far from simple), use tax prep software, or someone like H&R Block. In the UK, if you're in the majority of people who have one job and straightforward finances (e.g. not renting property, no CGT, etc) y…
The IRS does a terrible job with the information it does have. One year, I had a typo in my daughter’s social security number. The IRS sent me a note that her number didn’t match the previous year’s return. I assume that they believed the previous year’s number was right, but instead of saying “we’ve amended the return by using the social security number that appeared on last year’s return,” they said “we’ve amended the return by removing that dependent and recalculating taxes; if you disagree with your higher bill, you’ll need to send us the following paperwork with the correct social security number” (of course, “correct” meant “the number we already have on file” more or less, but I had to figure out what that number was by looking at my own copy of the previous year’s return). Luckily, the previous year’s number was correct; otherwise I would have had to amend the previous return and then refile the current year’s.