The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax • Hacker News Board

Re: The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax

#51

Post by gamblor956 » Sat, Mar 23, 2024, 7:41 AM UTC

kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #47

gamblor956 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is the point? The IRS would never accept external commits, since there is too great a possibility of malicious code being inserted. It would require vastly more resources to verify external commits are safe and comply with losses and regulations than it would to simply do everything themselves.

Re: The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax

#52

Post by rpdillon » Sat, Mar 23, 2024, 10:36 AM UTC

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #49

rpdillon wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I understand your frustration. Folks will tend to respond confidently in ways that align with their beliefs, often without reading the source or consulting any external material. They'll just say whatever. And those are the hard-working ones. Lazy disagreement just arrives as downvotes.

One way I've found to mitigate this is citing specific quotes and sources (that they should be aware of already if commenting), which often mitigates this effect, but commenting is nevertheless fraught. It basically amounts to defensive writing a lot of the time.

I keep coming back because I do think there are a bunch of us who do read, have expertise, and are here because we're curious and want to learn from others. But wading through the noise comes with that, sadly.

Re: The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax

#53

Post by exabrial » Sat, Mar 23, 2024, 1:32 PM UTC

testacpwoek wrote: post #11

exabrial wrote: post #10

[flagged]

I wonder what makes people think comments like this are constructive or intelligent in any way, shape or form.

Yet I wonder why despite obvious proof, people still fantasize that 30%+ of their money is actually doing something useful.

Your taxes are sent to straight to the pockets of the rich with only a small portion doing anything beneficial to society.

Re: The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax

#54

Post by kwertyoowiyop » Sat, Mar 23, 2024, 2:10 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #51

kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant the program’s code, to add more of the tax rules and forms to it.

What is the point? The IRS would never accept external commits, since there is too great a possibility of malicious code being inserted. It would require vastly more resources to verify external commits are safe and comply with losses and regulations than it would to simply do everything themselves.

I think review and approval would be faster than the coding, but certainly would need testing. Just adding tests would be valuable too.

Re: The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax

#55

Post by andrewmcwatters » Sat, Mar 23, 2024, 7:25 PM UTC

rpdillon wrote: post #52

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I understand your frustration. Folks will tend to respond confidently in ways that align with their beliefs, often without reading the source or consulting any external material. They'll just say whatever. And those are the hard-working ones. Lazy disagreement just arrives as downvotes. One way I've found to mitigate this is citing specific quotes and sources (that they should be aware of already if commenting), whic…

Thank you for your words. I appreciate you taking the time to reply. Those are some good thoughts, and I like your source-based strategy in particular.

Re: The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax

#56

Post by malshe » Mon, Mar 25, 2024, 6:11 PM UTC

sentientslug wrote: post #40

malshe wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very interesting. Is it difficult and/or expensive to file FOIA? I have never done it but I am aware of a few academic friends who have used it for their research work. However, I believe their universities handled the paperwork and expenses.

No, it’s generally free or subject to small fees to cover labor involved in processing the requests. It’s how all these YouTube channels with police bodycam footage have become so popular.

Thanks