This is a good step. Now they need to trash that idea of having electronic payment companies send out a 1099K for anyone with $600/yr of online payments (PayPal, Venmo, etc.). I know they put the idea on hold because of backlash, but they need to dump it entirely. It will only generate $8B in tax revenue over the next 10 years ($800M/yr) but will cause a huge number of people to pay taxes they don't owe when they sell used crap on eBay, CraigsList, etc. The electronic payment companies don't know whether these payments are business-related or personal.
IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
181–190 of 256 posts
Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
The number of people that it would work for would easily justify the cost of the IRS sending out prepared taxes. That some small sliver of people have complicated taxes or want to itemize their expenses is not a good reason to complicate the activity for the majority that have straightforward taxes. And then if you want to simplify, just eliminate deductions altogether (and shift brackets to compensate). Eliminating…
That’s my point: Americans spend a ton of time doing their taxes because taxes are complicated, not because the IRS doesn’t pre-transcribe their W-2. If all you need is the 1040-EZ, you can do that in 20 minutes.
Right, the point is that we can and should get that down to 5 minutes. It's just stupid lobbying and weird ideology to insist that the IRS stay out of the preparation business.
And then once they start doing it, they can probably figure out how to do it for a larger and larger percentage of people over time (and the tax code can be adjusted to make it work better in cases where it makes sense).
Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
At what point is it recommended to not use a software like freetaxusa? I've been using it for years.
Being a US citizen abroad. I’m in this situation and have had to pay huge sums to accountants If anyone has any recommendations I’m all ears
BrightTax worked well for me for several years where i was abroad
Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s my point: Americans spend a ton of time doing their taxes because taxes are complicated, not because the IRS doesn’t pre-transcribe their W-2. If all you need is the 1040-EZ, you can do that in 20 minutes.
Right, the point is that we can and should get that down to 5 minutes. It's just stupid lobbying and weird ideology to insist that the IRS stay out of the preparation business. And then once they start doing it, they can probably figure out how to do it for a larger and larger percentage of people over time (and the tax code can be adjusted to make it work better in cases where it makes sense).
I think you’re unintentionally making the weird ideologues’ point for them: The burden of taxes isn’t the 5, 10, 20, 200 minutes you spend preparing them, the burden is the taxes.
Getting excited about saving taxpayers 15 minutes, and trading off $thousands of deductions for a few more minutes, suggests that you’re optimizing for obscuring the primary burden (the cost of government) rather than reducing it.
It’s the weird ideologues who typically want an extremely simple system. But it’s very hard to make such a system as progressive as what we have today without reintroducing complexity.
Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#185What's the reasoning for setting the AGI at $73,000 or less? Does it go up as inflation goes up? Why not set it at $100,000 or $500,000?
I assume Intuit and their ilk lobbied for the limit. I recall reading that the IRS was developing a way to automatically do most people’s taxes, but the tax preparation companies lobbied Congress to stop that, and instead offered their services for free…with the caveat that higher income filers are excluded.
Making it automatic is a step in the wrong direction. They need it heavily simplified or even entirely removed. Then they should worry about automation.
Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
The number of people that it would work for would easily justify the cost of the IRS sending out prepared taxes. That some small sliver of people have complicated taxes or want to itemize their expenses is not a good reason to complicate the activity for the majority that have straightforward taxes. And then if you want to simplify, just eliminate deductions altogether (and shift brackets to compensate). Eliminating…
That’s my point: Americans spend a ton of time doing their taxes because taxes are complicated, not because the IRS doesn’t pre-transcribe their W-2. If all you need is the 1040-EZ, you can do that in 20 minutes.
1040EZ was discontinued in 2018.
Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
TurboTax's "competitors" are part of the same protection racket. Taking away business from any/all of them is a win. I do wish my approach were more scalable so that lots of people would do it. But for now I'll have to be content with personally not supporting the racket. Also, piracy is not stealing.
> Also, piracy is not stealing. How is piracy different from shoplifting shrink wrap software from a store?
Because that's a physical item, and it can't be duplicated. It's not yours, and taking it deprives the owner of it, and gives it to you. Stealing can be applied to non-physical goods.
The argument that a digital copy doesn't remove it from the original owner. It's straight duplication.
I believe piracy can be stealing, but I've heard all thr arguments ad nasuem.
Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#188Aaannnd its all wasted on arms deals.
Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#189Every year filling my taxes reminds me how lobbyists representing firms like Intuit (TurboTax) have gone out of their way to make tax filing a free service of the IRS. I don’t know why we allow this to continue in the US.
Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free
#190Every year filling my taxes reminds me how lobbyists representing firms like Intuit (TurboTax) have gone out of their way to make tax filing a free service of the IRS. I don’t know why we allow this to continue in the US.
>I don’t know why we allow this to continue in the US.
It makes me wonder who "we" are in terms of controlling policy and direction in the country. It also makes me wonder what the motives are of the "we" if it's really inclusive of your typical voter and not a small subset of self-interested parties, many of which may not even be people.