Why do I even have to do anything? Just take it from my paycheck directly
They do, but then this is an annual reconciliation in case you had other income, or things changed, etc.
IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
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Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#12I tried the fillable forms in previous years. They certainly aren’t easy and don’t make you confident you are filing an accurate form. Paying $50-100 to save a few hours and a lot of worrying is well worth it to me, even if along the way I bemoan the complexity and inaccessibility of the current tax system.
No offense intended, but my taxes must be a lot simpler than yours because I do the Free File forms in about 30 minutes every year.
Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#13This reminds me it's time to start looking for the TurboTax torrent. The activation scheme is remarkably straightforward to crack yourself.
Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#14Why do I even have to do anything? Just take it from my paycheck directly
Jobs. With all the extra paperwork, we can create "jobs" and pay ourselves on the back. I agree, i've already paid my taxes why am I spending time/money to get my own money back?
Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#15I tried the fillable forms in previous years. They certainly aren’t easy and don’t make you confident you are filing an accurate form. Paying $50-100 to save a few hours and a lot of worrying is well worth it to me, even if along the way I bemoan the complexity and inaccessibility of the current tax system.
I'm not going to claim they are easy, but they are accurate (they have a Do The Math calculation button). Even if you mess up, the IRS will typically send you a response noting where their calculations diverged from yours and offer to automatically adjust. (Which denotes the absurdity of this exercise for most taxpayers because the IRS already has all the information it needs to complete your taxes).
Yah you have to be confident of the values you’re plugging in. Do the math is for the simple in-form formulae. Some of the raw data you put in comes from worksheets etc you fill out on your own. You may benefit from a gist I’ve kept around with some tax urls for free tools out there https://gist.github.com/jxramos/08ea6af443dae5a251f0a5b21ee5...
Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#16I tried the fillable forms in previous years. They certainly aren’t easy and don’t make you confident you are filing an accurate form. Paying $50-100 to save a few hours and a lot of worrying is well worth it to me, even if along the way I bemoan the complexity and inaccessibility of the current tax system.
I'm not going to claim they are easy, but they are accurate (they have a Do The Math calculation button). Even if you mess up, the IRS will typically send you a response noting where their calculations diverged from yours and offer to automatically adjust. (Which denotes the absurdity of this exercise for most taxpayers because the IRS already has all the information it needs to complete your taxes).
Accuracy here is probably about classification? Like “am I really putting this in the right box?”
Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#17Why do I even have to do anything? Just take it from my paycheck directly
The IRS is not actually a godly being that has omniscient knowledge of every transaction that ever goes on and in the future.
How is the IRS supposed to figure out how much money to take away from your W2 when you could get a billion dollar windfall at the end of the year and massively change tax bracket?
Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#18Why do I even have to do anything? Just take it from my paycheck directly
Not every source of income for folks is from a W2 payroll. Lots of 1099 stuff out there and other complexities people can get involved in. It’s interesting the complexity of the tax law imposes that complexity on everyone just about.
Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#19https://www.freetaxusa.com/ and their parent company https://www.taxhawk.com/
They charge $14.99 for the state filing. Usually a coupon code available. Or go to the state's website (CA at least), and file that for free, too. But for the convenience of not having to input my info again, I'll pay their fee.
Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#20Why do I even have to do anything? Just take it from my paycheck directly
The IRS is not actually a godly being that has omniscient knowledge of every transaction that ever goes on and in the future. How is the IRS supposed to figure out how much money to take away from your W2 when you could get a billion dollar windfall at the end of the year and massively change tax bracket?
By following the model that Spain and other countries follow: take the information they know (which is basically everything since anything meaningful is reported), calculate it, send you what they think you owe, and you either pay it as is or you file taxes manually.