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IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

nytimes.com

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Re: IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

#131

Post by PopAlongKid »

arbuge wrote: post #50

I have a hard time understanding why the IRS doesn't at least have a basic web portal for individuals and businesses to do simple things like update addresses, send secure correspondence, check on the status of correspondence, file forms electronically, etc. A lot of paper forms and letters, human resources and time could be saved with such a system, even if it doesn't actually provide for any tax computations itself…

>I have a hard time understanding why the IRS doesn't at least have a basic web portal for individuals and businesses to do simple things

They do have such a portal which does some of the things you list and several other things too.

https://www.irs.gov/payments/your-online-account

Re: IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

#132

Post by ghaff »

fsmv wrote: post #78
practicemaths wrote: post #44

I just file my taxes by hand and mail it in. Somewhat less concern with 3rd parties holding my information and losing it to leaks/hacks. It is free. A little obnoxious but the forms do have instructions/directions.

I heard that this sometimes takes them much longer to process the returns that way. Has that been your experience? One time I reproduced the forms in a spreadsheet following the instructions and it wasn't much different from doing the online wizards. I would have liked to mail it in but I just paid to e-file anyway.

Honestly, I’m rarely getting enough of a refund to care; I’m more commonly writing a check.

In any case, I’m complicated enough I just outsource to an accountant. Yes it’s expensive but I’ve never had an issue even with very thick tax filings.

Re: IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

#133

Post by ndriscoll »

actuallyalys wrote: post #104
ndriscoll wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it gives feature parity with the existing solution, it seems fine as a start. At least we'll presumably be able to file on a .gov now instead of freefilefillableforms.com, which seems like it was chosen to be intentionally sketchy looking. Edit: actually looks like it doesn't reach parity with the existing free e-file system and only covers the simplest cases, and "the annual cost of a direct-file system could ran…

The high end estimate would be for 25 million households and would mostly go to customer service [0]. It may well be too high, but "absolutely absurd" doesn't seem fair. [0]: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5788.pdf#page=18

The customer support costs make that seem more reasonable (or at least I'm not familiar enough to judge), but $7M in technology costs to go from 5M to 25M users without an increase in product scope seems very steep. Like even with 100KB of data stored per user, which seems like way more than necessary, that's only 2.5 TB. So storage isn't the issue. And if everyone did their returns in the last possible hour and did 100 requests/return, that's ~700k requests/second. In actuality the load should be far lower; maybe it'd peak in the thousands. I'm not seeing why there would be any variable technology cost at that level, much less $7M.

Putting some concrete numbers on the infrastructure, for $500k you could have like 10 servers each with 60 cores and 32 TB of mirrored NVMe storage. Any one server could handle the load while being almost completely idle (i.e. you're really just buying extreme redundancy). So what are the other $6.5M for, and how is that an annual variable tech budget?

Re: IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

#134

Post by wolfgang42 »

hackernewds wrote: post #68
freedomben wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who don't know, of those 12 states, only 4 actually have income taxes. The other 8 do not. This whole system stinks. The overly complicated tax code, the sleazy corporations making tons of money on it, the entrenched politicians and bureacrats who make a living on it, etc.

We can still appreciate progress. And this is progress. Although if the IRS is gonna audit when I under pay, they technically already know how much I owe. Why not just tell me? Reckon it's since people also over pay, and there's no refunds for doing that.

I have overpaid my taxes several times due to clerical errors, and each time the IRS sent me a letter explaining what happened and a check for the overpaid amount, plus interest. One time I forgot to deposit the check, and after waiting a year they automatically sent me a replacement along with a reminder of why it was they owed me money. My general impression is that they’re tedious and bureaucratic, but scrupulously inclined towards accuracy in both directions.

Re: IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

#135

Post by victorbjorklund »

mjamesaustin wrote: post #82
hackernewds wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

IRS funding is objectively efficient. Every additional $1 spent on IRS budget brings in $5-9 of additional funding through enforcement. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57444

No, that just means it makes economic sense to spend it. Doesnt mean that IRS is run the most optimal and efficient way. You can have a very inefficient monopoloy that still makes a lot of money because it is a monopoly. One can imagine where IRS is more effcient and 1 dollar spent results in 20 dollars more etc.

Re: IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

#137

Post by ghaff »

sseagull wrote: post #108
CrendKing wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what "wash sale" is. I only heard that term when I was reading the help page in TurboTax, which I'm effectively forced to use. Seriously, I doubt there is more than 100k people in US that have this "wash sale" any year. I'm so tired of every time someone suggests automatic tax filling, there is always one guy bring up some tax term that 99.99% people never heard of. Sure, if auto tax filling doesn't so…

Beware the paradox of averages. I bet a lot more than 99% of people have some wrinkle with their return. One person has a wash sale, another has some real estate stuff, another became disabled, another has child care stuff, another has education credits, etc etc etc. Actually now I am curious how many people file the “simplest” return (wage only, standard deduction, and absolutely no other adjustments).

It’s probably less than 99% but it could be the majority in a given year.

Re: IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

#139

Post by worik »

bubbleRefuge wrote: post #136

[flagged]

> Federal income taxes are unfair and unnecessary. Since it had been demonstrated (via MMT) that taxes do not fund the Federal government,

That is incorrect

MMT does not propose that the state can fund itself without tax, except for some seriously deluded proponents who have lost their grip on reality

The use of resources by the state requires those resources are unavailable to other actors

Money is a slippery and an abstract concept. But it must always connect to physical reality

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