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IRS to ditch biometric requirement for online access

krebsonsecurity.com

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Re: IRS to ditch biometric requirement for online access

#121

Post by aww_dang »

guerrilla wrote: post #114
niij wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. But do note that H&R Block (along with Intuit and others) pay lobbyists to make filing your taxes a difficult costly process. I'd recommend using https://freetaxusa.com (legit, great site for only $15) or paying a local, independent CPA, to file your taxes instead. https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre...

I'm aware of the cartel and their lobbying. Unfortunately I doubt FreeTaxUSA will work for me as ex-patriot in a slightly complicated situation and there are no CPAs here. I'll check it out though, thanks.

Expatriates still have a few cheapish options.

Taxes for Expats or Expatfile. The first has more options for having a CPA. The second is self-serve.

Re: IRS to ditch biometric requirement for online access

#122

Post by guerrilla »

aww_dang wrote: post #121
guerrilla wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware of the cartel and their lobbying. Unfortunately I doubt FreeTaxUSA will work for me as ex-patriot in a slightly complicated situation and there are no CPAs here. I'll check it out though, thanks.

Expatriates still have a few cheapish options. Taxes for Expats or Expatfile. The first has more options for having a CPA. The second is self-serve.

The first is more expensive than what I use from H&R last time I looked; I'll check out the second, thanks.

Re: IRS to ditch biometric requirement for online access

#123

Post by vkou »

HWR_14 wrote: post #47
mLuby wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What lesson do you think organizations learned from that breach? (As it relates to this article.) The pattern I see is: 1. Company collects and stores private consumer info. 2. Company gets hacked. 3. Company share price unaffected. 4. Company sued in class-action lawsuit. 5. Company settles by offering discounted/free products to victims of the hack. ("A $50 value!") Lawyers make a few million. Result: company gets…

> Sounds like a good deal if the company is too big to fail. I don't know why Equifax is too big to fail. But then again, I don't know why Goldman Sachs was too big to fail either.

Because our society would fall apart without a social credit system. How else are we going to judge flight risk, loan risk, apartment lease risk, employment risk, etc?

Re: IRS to ditch biometric requirement for online access

#124

Post by rags2riches »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #118
wolverine876 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if the tax code were a few dozen pages for the common case instead of a few hundred Isn't this the fantasy of clean sheet software? 'We'll get rid of all this cruft and make it clean and simple.' But it turns out that the cruft is needed to deal with reality, which is messy rather than the abstract clean-room requirements of our imaginations. I can't see how the tax code can be short, having to deal with such a wid…

yes. I believe a baltic country (Slovakia) taxes flat tax rates. https://taxfoundation.org/flat-tax-lessons-slovakia https://accace.com/tax-guideline-for-slovakia/

(Slovakia is a Central European country, far from Baltic.) But all three of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania also have pretty flat tax rates I believe. Not sure about deductions and other details.

Re: IRS to ditch biometric requirement for online access

#125

Post by ArnoVW »

ThunderSizzle wrote: post #78
apex3stoker wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article[1] has more details. Sen. Wyden[2] has been pushing for more funding to IRS to develop its free file program, but Turbotax has been successful via their lobbying of Republican politicians and some Democratic politicians in preventing it from happening. 1. https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f... 2. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/19/opinion/intuit-turbotax-f...

Lol. Its always the Republicans. If it was priority for the Dems, they'd have done it. They have gotten through several other things the Republicans opposed. Anyhow, the better alternative is to return to lower the rates and remove deductions (aside from the standard deduction). Even simpler yet would be to go to a flat tax with an extremely high standard deduction (e.g. ~$50k with ~10% after that). I can't think of…

You're not wrong in saying that tax codes in general are complex. The problem is, they're complex for a reason.

Tax codes are a tool of policy makers. They allow wealth and income distribution. They allow compensation. And they allow policy makers to promote or penalize specific behaviors or activities.

Look at the legal system as a code base (in French, 'law' translates to 'code'). And imagine having 538 product owners, each asking for 'just one feature' that is both 'critical and urgent'. Is it any wonder that we are in this situation?

Perhaps we should implement more sunset provisions? I don't know. But 'we need a simpler system' is sort of like 'we have too many LoC'. It's true, but not easily actionable.

Re: IRS to ditch biometric requirement for online access

#126

Post by furyg3 »

I recently needed to access some information on the IRS website, and had to do a 3 hour, very annoying, ID.me registration. Everything failed. The OCR software thought the issue date of my passport was my birthday (so I wasn't old enough to register), fail. The 'link' they send via SMS to take photos of your ID, failed (wouldn't load). A VPN was needed to do some steps from outside the US. I was kicked out of the 'queue' twice to video call with a human where I have to hold up my 'biometric' printed-on-paper social security card.

The killer? This morning I woke up to spam emails from ID.me offering me a discount on my first blue apron meal order.

Where I am in the Netherlands there is a government-issued digital ID (DigID), that was very straightforward to sign up for and easy to use.

Re: IRS to ditch biometric requirement for online access

#127

Post by Dracophoenix »

ArnoVW wrote: post #125
ThunderSizzle wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. Its always the Republicans. If it was priority for the Dems, they'd have done it. They have gotten through several other things the Republicans opposed. Anyhow, the better alternative is to return to lower the rates and remove deductions (aside from the standard deduction). Even simpler yet would be to go to a flat tax with an extremely high standard deduction (e.g. ~$50k with ~10% after that). I can't think of…

You're not wrong in saying that tax codes in general are complex. The problem is, they're complex for a reason. Tax codes are a tool of policy makers. They allow wealth and income distribution. They allow compensation. And they allow policy makers to promote or penalize specific behaviors or activities. Look at the legal system as a code base (in French, 'law' translates to 'code'). And imagine having 538 product own…

>Tax codes are a tool of policy makers.

Therein the problem lies.

>They allow wealth and income distribution. They allow compensation. And they allow policy makers to promote or penalize specific behaviors or activities.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not a good reason to tax. Taxation should be decided by the whims of a crab bucket.

>Look at the legal system as a code base (in French, 'law' translates to 'code'). And imagine having 538 product owners, each asking for 'just one feature' that is both 'critical and urgent'. Is it any wonder that we are in this situation?

We're in this situation because most of congressmen believe they have the right to impose their morals on and the expense of thst individual men and women by way of legislative fiat.

>Perhaps we should implement more sunset provisions? I don't know. But 'we need a simpler system' is sort of like 'we have too many LoC'. It's true, but not easily actionable.

It is actionable. Politicians, however, are usually ignorant of tax law until there comes a point where the "wrong" people "win" too much. That is the issue in what should mostly be an administrative affair, if it should at all occur. The people who complicate the tax do not code lack the wherewithal to simplify it. Their feigned weakness and indifference is a choice.

Re: IRS to ditch biometric requirement for online access

#128

Post by furyg3 »

ArnoVW wrote: post #125
ThunderSizzle wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. Its always the Republicans. If it was priority for the Dems, they'd have done it. They have gotten through several other things the Republicans opposed. Anyhow, the better alternative is to return to lower the rates and remove deductions (aside from the standard deduction). Even simpler yet would be to go to a flat tax with an extremely high standard deduction (e.g. ~$50k with ~10% after that). I can't think of…

You're not wrong in saying that tax codes in general are complex. The problem is, they're complex for a reason. Tax codes are a tool of policy makers. They allow wealth and income distribution. They allow compensation. And they allow policy makers to promote or penalize specific behaviors or activities. Look at the legal system as a code base (in French, 'law' translates to 'code'). And imagine having 538 product own…

Yes, but we all know that business rules and logic can be very complex, but you can still simplify the interface for the vast majority of users.

The IRS collects tax information from most businesses with employees, banks and investment firms, so it's is comically easy to pre-load that information in a tax return. Ask a few simple questions (did you buy a house, did you start a business, do you have a new dependent). Pre-fill what you can. Generate a report which you can directly file or share with your tax expert. Many developed countries do this.

While this (correctly) tanks an entire industry of tax preparation software, it actually makes it easier for politicians to do their thing. Right now a tax break for X is buried under form 92921X2 which you learn about after reading the instructions for line 48 on schedule 8812 which you are filling in after being told to in the supplementary instructions for line 21 on your 1099. If you elected to use the alternative streamlined maximum option, of course, if you chose for the default minimum compensation model, well, those are different forms.

With a properly made simple official tax filing process, you just see you got an extra $400 back this year because of the tax break for X.

Re: IRS to ditch biometric requirement for online access

#129

Post by Broken_Hippo »

bmitc wrote: post #88
cproctor wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the IRS (or Sen. Wyden) is looking for a "core government service" which has been inappropriately commercialized, they might start with tax preparation.

I still don't understand why tax returns aren't primarily automatic. Every year, I have these forms that I collect that were all generated automatically, and most of them are sent to the IRS anyway (or the data they contain). So why can't I login to some IRS website, choose how I want to file, report anything extra, and then hit submit?

Moving overseas made me even more angry at the American tax filing system.

Literally, what I do for Norwegian taxes:

1. Get a letter stating that they've calculated last years' taxes. 2. Look at the tax authority's website and as long as things are correct, I don't have to do anything else, though I can click a conform button. (I usually do) 3. Wait for refund - IIRC, they pay out in summertime. Or alternatively, pay tax if you owe.

You get the choice of doing it yourself and filing differently and stuff, but I don't see the point.

Re: IRS to ditch biometric requirement for online access

#130

Post by HWR_14 »

vkou wrote: post #123
HWR_14 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sounds like a good deal if the company is too big to fail. I don't know why Equifax is too big to fail. But then again, I don't know why Goldman Sachs was too big to fail either.

Because our society would fall apart without a social credit system. How else are we going to judge flight risk, loan risk, apartment lease risk, employment risk, etc?

Flight risk is an FAA thing or a bail bondsman thing. Or are you using a version I haven't heard before? Similarly, I have no idea why Equifax would have anything to say about Employment Risk.

But, yes, they provide a service. And? There are two other major players who didn't fuck up who supply the same service.

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