IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by atombender » Sun, Jan 07, 2024, 2:13 PM UTC

whakim wrote: post #86

hackernewds wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This claim is not correct in several ways. The $80B was not earmarked for hiring agents; that was an additional $80B for the entire agency spread over 10 years. While some of that money might be used to hire additional agents, it will also be used to upgrade old technology (the IRS still uses software from the 1950s), make fixed capital investments that have been long-deferred, regulate third-party tax preparers, pro…

A large part of the Individual Master File processing engine is also written in mainframe assembly language.

But the broader issue seems to be that the IRS is really bad at planning, goal-setting, and managing its development lifecycle [1]. They've burned through $5.9B just on modernization projects since 1998, with very little to show for it. Many of those projects, including replacing IMF and CADE (which was supposed to be the modern system that would replace IMF, but which failed), have been paused indefinitely. Clearly replacing these legacy systems is time-consuming work, but any way you look at it, it should not take 30 years (that's how long it would have taken if they accomplish their current goal of retiring the IMF by 2028).

It's not just that development is slow; this is holding back IRS from operating efficiently. IRS employees reportedly have more than a hundred internal applications they have to be trained in and switch between in order to accomplish basic tasks, and they have a huge backlog.

[1] https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF12525.pdf

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

#302

Post by ants_everywhere » Sun, Jan 07, 2024, 2:15 PM UTC

tbrownaw wrote: post #258

ants_everywhere wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just hate the argument that government inherently because it's government is inefficient and will never be effective The big incentive problem here is that democracies reduce the power held by private individuals. So (primarily wealthy, powerful) private individuals have an incentive to market the idea that government is inefficient to reduce the impact of decisions made by democratic choice. This same conflict o…

> For example, the Magna Carta was a major concession of the power of the English King to lower nobility. There are always going to be people who dream of running their own fiefdom and see democracy as at best a nuisance and at worst an active impediment. ...what? Are you seriously trying to claim that absolute monarchy is a form of democracy?

The opposite. Absolute monarchy is essentially when an individual (the monarch) has absolute power over a fiefdom. Similarly to how slave-owning plantation owners wielded near-absolute power over their plantation.

What I'm saying is that there has always been this conflict where (some) private individuals want absolute reign over others, and democracy limits this power. The Magna Carta is just one classical example of that.

The distinction between private and public is a little blurred when it comes to absolute monarchs, but the general trend is that the more absolute power a monarch has, the more they're running it essentially as a private estate. That's why lists of the wealthiest people in history often include rulers with absolute power.

Due to the conflict, the private power of monarchs has weakened. That's why, for example, in The Crown we see a monarchy that has to concern itself with public perception and the Prime Minister. But William the Conquerer essentially owned much of England.

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

#303

Post by atombender » Sun, Jan 07, 2024, 2:21 PM UTC

akira2501 wrote: post #81

hackernewds wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Precisely. They'll spend $80b to hire "agents." They won't spend a time to make the system actually easy to use. They're not underfunded, they're just incompetent.

Not quite. Of the $79B, $46B was earmarked tax law enforcement, while $4.8B is designated tax processing modernization, including a plan to replace the current legacy systems (IMF and others that are written in a combination of COBOL and assembly language and that run on 1960s mainframes against IBM VSAM data files, and which the IRS have been trying to replace since the 1990s) by 2028. That money is supposed to be spent that way, and the IRS have to get approval from Congress' House and Senate Appropriations Committee (and TIGTA, Office of Management and Budget, and GAO must all sign off on each request) for all their expenses.

I won't disagree that their IT woes seem to be in large part due to incompetence, however.

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

#304

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 07, 2024, 2:37 PM UTC

mcherm wrote: post #200

pezezin wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I live in Japan, last month I had to fill my taxes, and I found the process to be really convoluted and annoying compared to my home country (Spain). Likewise, banks feel really obsolete and inefficient here. I shudder to imagine how bad the American system is to make Japan look good :/

My wife calculates and submits our taxes (here in the US). It typically takes her 40 to 60 hours to complete, and that's after spending around $100 USD on tax preparation software to make it easier. To be fair, our taxes are more complex than many people's (I live in a different state than my employer and we have some stock market investments), but it's still ABSURDLY difficult. And I'm not counting the time needed t…

[deleted]

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

#305

Post by mindslight » Sun, Jan 07, 2024, 4:08 PM UTC

CrendKing wrote: post #89

usaar333 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless you're dealing with foreign income, are a business, or do a lot of contract work for cash, I don't see much reason why the IRS can't just handle all the taxes automatically - apart from the fact that some company wants to charge me $150 a year to file my taxes and making sure that my tax situation (which would fit on a beer coaster otherwise) is as complicated as possible. I imagine there are heavy software…

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…

> TurboTax, which I'm effectively forced to use

FWIW TurboTax is easily piratable. There are even instructions out there to crack it yourself with a .NET assembly editor.

I do my taxes in a VM without Internet access and mail in the filings, so there's no way for any information to be backhauled to Intuit or anyone else.

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

#306

Post by moduspol » Sun, Jan 07, 2024, 4:49 PM UTC

nouveaux wrote: post #236

moduspol wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's why our west coast cities, which are not run by the half that hates government, are shining beacons of just how effective and successful governments can be.

I'll bite. In what ways are non west coast cities is more efficient than west coast cities?

I'm not sure they would be. I limited to "west coast" cities because other cities' issues are sometimes blamed on Republican governors. West coast cities typically aren't.

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

#307

Post by CogitoCogito » Sun, Jan 07, 2024, 6:06 PM UTC

leereeves wrote: post #154

_ihaque wrote: post #98

For anyone interested in why the system looks the way it does, I recommend patio11's insightful recent blog post, which is nominally about payroll systems but ends up discussing the history of taxation in the US because that's the origination of many of these systems: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/payroll-providers-pow... A relevant quotation for much of the discussion here: > And, relevant to the question o…

> Norquist considers a public filing option a tax increase by stealth and opposes it automatically. When phrased that way, it sounds ridiculous. But those are the author's words, not Norquist's or ATR's. What Norquist and ATR want is for people to be aware of taxes. In their words (from the article): "More than any other public policy, the way the government raises revenue—how much, at what rates, under what circumst…

> What Norquist and ATR want is for people to be aware of taxes.

Norquist is entirely disingenuous. Nothing would stop a tax payer from looking into the details of taxes assessed just because the government prepared something for them. (In fact, nothing would prevent a tax payer to continue to use TurboTax to verify and understand the taxation.) On the flip side, nothing about the current system actually makes tax payers more aware of the taxes they’re paying. Half the marketing of TurboTax is to allow you to finish your taxes quickly by basically just clicking through and adding basic information.

Speaking for myself, I would definitely be _more_ aware of taxes I’m paying if the government would prepare taxes for me. When comparing my filing of taxes in the US to the filing in Sweden that’s definitely the case. Sweden sends me information which I can then verify and correct if necessary. The grunge work is done and I can focus on details. In the US, I need to waste a bunch of time duplicating work and the go through the details later (and hopefully have enough time and energy to do so).

P.S. I keep using TurboTax as an example but they’re obviously not the only one. I chose them since they’ve parasitically attached themself to the current system and lobbied government to keep it from making things more efficient at a detriment to their bottom line.

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

#308

Post by LelouBil » Sun, Jan 07, 2024, 6:15 PM UTC

alanbernstein wrote: post #247

LelouBil wrote: post #230

Is there any documentation on how an average person living in the US files their taxes ? Are you forced to use third party services ? How exactly is it hard to do your taxes on your own ?

Have you ever done US federal taxes? I did my own as long as I could, but as your tax situation gets more complicated, your taxes get more time consuming. No, nobody is "forced" to spend $60 to save hours of their free time researching tax code. If the tax system were simpler, doing it yourself would be more appealing.

No I live in France, but I always see talks online about how people in the US pay for software to do their taxes and didn't really understand the scope of it.

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

#309

Post by intended » Sun, Jan 07, 2024, 6:24 PM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #254

ksenzee wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's this idea that west coast cities are shitholes, and honestly it's BS. I live in the Seattle suburbs and I'm downtown regularly, and the only obvious problem is the public disorder visited on us all by Martin v. Boise. It's pretty clear from housing prices that wealthy people are still happy living in Seattle: the market is speaking loudly. Don't get me wrong—I live in the suburbs for a reason, you couldn't pa…

I agree that in many cases there isn't any substance behind the talk. Yet the single largest state-to-state flow of people is from California to Texas, not the other way around; surely there's something objective that is driving that. And, given the time and effort required for such a move, it's not something most people would do on a whim without doing at least some research.

COVID.

Return to office seems to be changing that flow.

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

#310

Post by loeg » Sun, Jan 07, 2024, 6:36 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #260

ksenzee wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's this idea that west coast cities are shitholes, and honestly it's BS. I live in the Seattle suburbs and I'm downtown regularly, and the only obvious problem is the public disorder visited on us all by Martin v. Boise. It's pretty clear from housing prices that wealthy people are still happy living in Seattle: the market is speaking loudly. Don't get me wrong—I live in the suburbs for a reason, you couldn't pa…

That doesn’t really respond to the point, though. Is Seattle’s government efficient and effective? To my recollection, Seattle doesn’t have great public services.

Seattle's 2021 budget was $5.5B against a population of 734k or about $7,500/head. Bellevue, WA's 2021 budget was $1.7B for a population of 149k, or $11,400/head. To pick a random DC suburb as a comparison, Alexandria's 2021 budget was $955M for a population of 155k or about $6,200/head.