Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

13 States join the IRS direct-file test after tax prep firms dropped the ball

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 196 posts

Re: 13 States join the IRS direct-file test after tax prep firms dropped the ball

#131

Post by comte7092 »

justinzollars wrote: post #125
comte7092 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s just the classic anti public sector service line in general. Whatever your feelings are about single payer healthcare, it’s incredibly disingenuous when politicians debate against it by bringing up the cost of such a system, without comparing it to the current cost of the private system it would replace.

Government size as a proportion of GDP is at 42.36% [1]. How much bigger should it get? 1. https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA/FRA/JPN/...

However big it makes sense to be?

I don’t get how “big” became a persuasive argument when it comes to the public sector, rather than “ineffective” or “inefficient”. Raw “size” isn’t a good target on its own.

At the end of the day all I care about is that things are done effectively and efficiently, and sometimes maybe we trade those things off so that they can be provided fairly and equitably (such as fire departments, I don’t care if a private sector solution would be more cost effective, I don’t want private companies selectively putting out fires).

Re: 13 States join the IRS direct-file test after tax prep firms dropped the ball

#133

Post by dudul »

INTPenis wrote: post #128

This federal government thing is really confusing to me as a european. Like the federal government can come to California and shutdown a cannabis dispensary, but they can't make you use an easier way to file your taxes.

Even in Europe, countries have several levels of administration/government. Cities, regions, districts, whatever. The national government is not all powerful.

Re: 13 States join the IRS direct-file test after tax prep firms dropped the ball

#134

Post by recursive »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #91
ghaff wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the reality today is that, if like a lot of people, you just have a W2 and maybe a 1099 or two, while the 1040 form is probably a bit intimidating, it's pretty straightforward if you're just taking the standard deduction as most people do since Trump era tax changes. Basically, if you're eligible for any of these direct-file arrangements, your taxes are pretty easy to file anyway. I'm all for simplifying tax fili…

I think a lot of people who complain about the complexity of the US tax code and the "need" for TurboTax would benefit from directly filling out the 1040 by hand one year - most of them would have a pretty easy time doing it. For most people, all you need is a 4-function calculator, your W-2s/1099s, and a pencil, and it will take at most an hour or so. Where the IRS's UX is really bad for the average taxpayer is all…

I'm one of the people you're talking about. I tried it and it had the opposite effect.

I tried to do it with the plain forms once about 15 years ago. Somehow I ended up reporting the same input twice or something? I'm still not sure what I did wrong, but I ended up getting taxed for income that didn't exist. I didn't know how to correct it. I wrote letters and called the IRS probably dozens of times. I spent more than 50 hours poring through documents trying to figure it out. I tried to find an accountant that could understand what was happening. Eventually, it went away. I'm not sure what I did differently or if the IRS just got tired of dealing with me and waived it.

I was probably doing all of this incompetently, but I could not get a "foothold". I have somewhat of a tax phobia to this day.

The problem had something to do with some independent contracting I had done that year. I just resolved not to do that anymore.

Re: 13 States join the IRS direct-file test after tax prep firms dropped the ball

#135

Post by Retric »

amerkhalid wrote: post #86
ghaff wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the reality today is that, if like a lot of people, you just have a W2 and maybe a 1099 or two, while the 1040 form is probably a bit intimidating, it's pretty straightforward if you're just taking the standard deduction as most people do since Trump era tax changes. Basically, if you're eligible for any of these direct-file arrangements, your taxes are pretty easy to file anyway. I'm all for simplifying tax fili…

I think they should get rid of all deductions at the individual levels. They just cause confusion and hide true cost of things. For example, I went to buy Jeep. 4xe version was $8000 more. But its battery lasts only 2-3 miles and it would have taken forever to breakeven. But dealership kept insisting that I will get $6000 in tax rebate/deductions so the actual cost is only $2000 more. They had marked up the car by ho…

The dealer wasn’t really lying just unclear. The car is not designed to stay fully electric until the battery hits zero because the ICE engine is only 150hp. Instead it’s optimized to be a hybrid that’s reserving battery power for acceleration, which lets the engine stay in more efficient and lower RPM ranges for much longer. You can press a button every time you get in to drain the battery but that’s really not the intended use.

Anyway, the subsidy is really designed to setup the used car pipeline. In 20 years someone with significantly less money is probably going to be driving your car and they aren’t going to be thrilled with having ~14mph.

Re: 13 States join the IRS direct-file test after tax prep firms dropped the ball

#136

Post by maccard »

glimshe wrote: post #31
maccard wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> taxes were relatively simple because I basically had two sources of income (job and interest investments). You enter 2 forms, ignore a lot of prompts in the tax software (do you do X? Do you do Y?) and go for it. You can even file your taxes for free - in theory - if you have a simple life like that. A lot of taxpayers do. That's way too complicated. In the UK, for the vast vast majority of people, there are no for…

You can call it relatively complicated, but it was not complicated in the absolute sense. Perhaps tedious and busy work-ey. The process was basically typing 10-15 numbers that I read from 2 forms sent to me by mail rather than thinking/reasoning. Don't get me wrong, it would be a lot better to not do it like you describe, but as far as bureaucracy is concerned, I'll take this over all the other bureaucracy you have t…

> ll take this over all the other bureaucracy you have to deal with in Europe

I'm a bit surprised to hear this - what do you mean here? My experience is that bureaucracy is rife in the US.

Re: 13 States join the IRS direct-file test after tax prep firms dropped the ball

#137

Post by dudul »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #22

We have in France pre-filled taxes, you go to the tax site, click next a few times and you are done. Takes 30 seconds for 90% of the population. Usually people do not even check what they click if they have a standard job. Is the system in the US much more complicated to require software purchases? I get it that it is not prefilled, but is there a lot to actually input in the system?

It's not much more complicated for 90% of the population. You just need to wait for forms from your insurance, your employer, etc and then you copy some numbers from a form to another.

If you want to optimize to death yeah you start dealing with deductions and all.

I think people just use a software cause it gives them peace of mind and it helps them understand all the "life events" they could use to reduce their taxes.

Re: 13 States join the IRS direct-file test after tax prep firms dropped the ball

#138

Post by ajcp »

justinzollars wrote: post #125
comte7092 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s just the classic anti public sector service line in general. Whatever your feelings are about single payer healthcare, it’s incredibly disingenuous when politicians debate against it by bringing up the cost of such a system, without comparing it to the current cost of the private system it would replace.

Government size as a proportion of GDP is at 42.36% [1]. How much bigger should it get? 1. https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA/FRA/JPN/...

39.41% according to your own source.

It was ~32% pre-pandemic, and excepting for the Great Recession, looked to be stable at ~30%. Considering the governments revenue over that same period, again according to your own source, is also ~30% we're at less than 1/3 of GDP expenditure.

I think that is a reasonable public expenditure for a representative government, especially for the third most populous country on the planet and the largest GDP.

Re: 13 States join the IRS direct-file test after tax prep firms dropped the ball

#139

Post by _DeadFred_ »

comte7092 wrote: post #116
gumby wrote: post #69

I love the quote from the Intuit VP, which complained that it would end up “costing billions of dollars in taxpayer money.” The current system costs billions of dollars in taxpayer money, it’s just that today those dollars flow to Intuit. The IRS one should end up costing less overall, even at govt contracting rates.

That’s just the classic anti public sector service line in general. Whatever your feelings are about single payer healthcare, it’s incredibly disingenuous when politicians debate against it by bringing up the cost of such a system, without comparing it to the current cost of the private system it would replace.

Or when they just ignore that we already have socialized healthcare, just in the worst way possible, at the Emergency Room level only. So no preventative care just extremely expensive emergency care.
Post reply on HN