Fun fact, the US did not have a federal income tax until 1861 to help fund the Civil War. Also there are 8 states that do not have state income tax.
The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax
41–50 of 56 posts
Re: The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does the IRS have way to know all of your income?
Your bank, employer, cash app and brokerage all report to the IRS so unless you are a drug dealer or similar, yeah for the most part they already know it. Heres the best bit, people working under the table are going to be making less than 100k generally so it doesn't really matter, anyone making real money will be making big enough waves in the financial system to be detected, small movements of cash doesn't matter a…
> unless you are a drug dealer or similar
IRS might not know about those activities, but that income is supposed to be reported.
Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 8z, or on Schedule C (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.
Re: The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax
#43The IRS should open-source at least the ‘rules’ part of the code, with enough functionality to let people add new forms. I think they’d get a lot of contributions and good QA.
The rules part of the tax code has been open source for a century.
It's called the Federal Register.
Re: The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does the IRS have way to know all of your income?
Your bank, employer, cash app and brokerage all report to the IRS so unless you are a drug dealer or similar, yeah for the most part they already know it. Heres the best bit, people working under the table are going to be making less than 100k generally so it doesn't really matter, anyone making real money will be making big enough waves in the financial system to be detected, small movements of cash doesn't matter a…
My bank doesn't know whether a deposit came from a long- or short-term capital gain. (You may think that you've covered that with "brokerage" but there are lots of property types where there's no third party that knows the purchase date.) Said deposit may even be tax-irrelevant.
And then there's crypto...
Re: The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
State taxes as well. The IRS didn't partner with individual states for this initiative. They also don't have limits on interest income or household income, which make this worthless for people who file high income returns.
Your comments set off my spidey senses; they don't pass the sniff-test for a trustworthy, well-informed, pro-Intuit stance, especially on message board catering to tech. Intuit practices the classic rent-seeking behaviors endemic to late stage capitalism. Who is this helping? They also actively lobby against tax reform because it's an existential threat to their cash cow.
Luckily, it’s easily confirmed[1].
The IRS service is only available in a few states, to people with very simple returns. I don’t see anything about an income limit (which may be a misunderstanding/conflation with the “free file partner” program). Even though my own tax situation is pretty simple, I’m specced out of the pilot system because mine is slightly more complex than dead simple.
(For the record, I don’t use TurboTax. I think Intuit is a bad actor, and I am very pleased that the IRS will now finally offer this basic, no-brainer service. However, the new system just isn’t there yet, so people aren’t crazy for continuing to use TurboTax even if they live in one of the pilot states.)
[1]: https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-f...
Re: The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax
#46The government requires us to pay taxes. It also requires us to file tax returns. It's unconscionable that we have to pay a third-party to fulfill our legally-mandated obligations. It is way past time for tax filing to be made available for free at all levels of government. (Don't come to me with paper forms or FreeTaxUsa or whatever. FREE IRS software should be able to handle taxes of any complexity and situation. I…
Free File Fillable Forms is offered without limitation, and should handle any situation. The problem is that this is still too intimidating for most people without a guided wizard or a human advisor because of the intrinsic complexity of our tax code and the amount of data entry involved. https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...
Last time I tried this, the form doesn't do automatic calculations. Is that still the case?
Re: The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax
#47The IRS should open-source at least the ‘rules’ part of the code, with enough functionality to let people add new forms. I think they’d get a lot of contributions and good QA.
The rules part of the tax code has been open source for a century. It's called the Federal Register.
I meant the program’s code, to add more of the tax rules and forms to it.
Re: The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax
#48The government requires us to pay taxes. It also requires us to file tax returns. It's unconscionable that we have to pay a third-party to fulfill our legally-mandated obligations. It is way past time for tax filing to be made available for free at all levels of government. (Don't come to me with paper forms or FreeTaxUsa or whatever. FREE IRS software should be able to handle taxes of any complexity and situation. I…
Free File Fillable Forms is offered without limitation, and should handle any situation. The problem is that this is still too intimidating for most people without a guided wizard or a human advisor because of the intrinsic complexity of our tax code and the amount of data entry involved. https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...
Those are just paper forms online. I'm not talking about that.
Re: The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax
#49It's not really an answer to TurboTax, because it's not good enough. I'll continue to pay Intuit for now. It's relatively speaking a small price to pay for something done well.
This is correct. According the article: > Direct File isn’t perfect—the program is available in only 12 states, and it isn’t able to handle anything beyond the simplest tax situations—but it’s a glimpse of a world where government tech benefits millions of Americans. In turn, it is also an agonizing realization of how far we are from that reality. According to directfile.gov, those states are: Arizona, California, Ma…
I'm getting tired of posting here on HN at all, honestly. It's just a bad experience. Anyone can see TurboTax is clearly a better product. But whatever, sure the IRS releasing a product with a $1,500 interest income limit better than TurboTax?
You might as well just file your taxes on physical paper and mail it by snail mail.
Re: The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comments set off my spidey senses; they don't pass the sniff-test for a trustworthy, well-informed, pro-Intuit stance, especially on message board catering to tech. Intuit practices the classic rent-seeking behaviors endemic to late stage capitalism. Who is this helping? They also actively lobby against tax reform because it's an existential threat to their cash cow.
Luckily, it’s easily confirmed[1]. The IRS service is only available in a few states, to people with very simple returns. I don’t see anything about an income limit (which may be a misunderstanding/conflation with the “free file partner” program). Even though my own tax situation is pretty simple, I’m specced out of the pilot system because mine is slightly more complex than dead simple. (For the record, I don’t use…
There are a few different income limits that make you ineligible. https://directfile.irs.gov/income