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Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

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Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#111

Post by username135 »

tmountain wrote: post #8

It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately. Going further, the IRS already knows the details of most people’s taxes before they file, yet everyone is expected to complete what amounts to a complex task for many people. I cannot fathom why it is still done this way.

Why is it done this way? Capitalism bby!

If you can make a market out of it, someone will.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#112

Post by saulrh »

dsr_ wrote: post #16
lolinder wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, this system exists largely because ProPublica shined a light on how corrupt the TurboTax deals were and the IRS couldn't pretend they thought everything was okay anymore. I'm hopeful that the IRS knows that we're on to it and doesn't get cozy with them again.

The IRS is not 'cozy' with Intuit, HRB, etc. The IRS is underfunded by political design. All of this crap is the fault of corporate lobbyists and the politicians who take their money.

For people who aren't aware of this, the IRS is so underfunded right now that funding IRS enforcement has an ROI of between five and nine, that is, for every dollar we put into funding the IRS it would be able to claw back up to ten dollars in unpaid taxes. That's the kind of number that you usually only see on "the next Google" type unicorn startups. It would take eighty billion dollars, invested over ten years, to fund the IRS to the point where diminishing returns bring the ROI back down to reasonable levels; those eighty billion dollars would return almost 200 billion dollars in newly collected taxes. Almost all of that would come from high-wealth taxpayers, large corporations, and partnerships, which are currently very under-audited due to lack of resources - the audit rate is currently lower for high-wealth entities than it is for random poor people simply because auditing people with a lot of money is complicated. The current audit rate is currently dramatically below where it was twenty years ago.

Source: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57444

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#113

Post by tadfisher »

jrockway wrote: post #13
tmountain wrote: post #8

It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately. Going further, the IRS already knows the details of most people’s taxes before they file, yet everyone is expected to complete what amounts to a complex task for many people. I cannot fathom why it is still done this way.

> it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately I assume most people have too much money taken out of their paycheck for taxes, so the net result is that the government takes in extra money.

Withholding too much is literally required under the law. If you don't withhold enough, at tax time you could be liable for penalties unless you also pay quarterly to make up the difference. This counts for all of your income, not just the income from a W-2 job.

Fixing the withholding system to account for the real world would go a long way toward simplifying reporting and would improve compliance.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#114

Post by xu_ituairo »

VS1999 wrote: post #60
Barrin92 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>we change the way the government is intimately entangled with our lives? I've lived in Sweden where taxes are not just automatically filed but every citizen can trivially look up anyone's tax returns and nobody ever saw it as the government being intimately entangled with anyone's life. Privacy violation would be to look into how and on what you spend your money, not that everyone pays their share of taxes. That tel…

That you've "lived in sweden" implies you have the luxury of hopping to whatever country suits you most. Nobody wants to hear a cosmopolitan's take on how we have too much privacy and how the government should be more involved in our lives. If the government mistreats you, you can just go to a nicer country.

Your reply feels unkind. They just said they lived in Sweden for a time. I don’t think it implies luxury or that they’re a wealthy jet-setting cosmopolitan. It could be for one of many reasons.

I also don’t know what’s wrong with hearing the opinion of a jet-setting cosmopolitan anyhow.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#115

Post by delfinom »

loeg wrote: post #38
jimbob45 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like TurboTax. It just works, year after year. The fee is worth the peace of mind that I wouldn’t have by letting a government program lose my submission accidentally.

I switched from TurboTax to FreeTaxUSA this year and it was almost exactly the same (in some ways easier). The amount owed was identical. The IRS doesn't lose submissions and provides a very clear system for tracking the status of eFiled taxes.

"That's the secret"

Those tax prep companies like TurboTax spent a lot of marketing dollars on making it seem they are finding you secret deductions and other crap. There isn't. It's all pretty straight forward.

Some of it comes from the pre-online era where tax accountants did and still do commit fraud by falsely claiming deductions for individuals. And you eventually hear of a hundred million dollar IRS fraud arrest.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#116

Post by dwaltrip »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #66
janalsncm wrote: post #22

Listening to Congress “debate” this made me unreasonably upset. If you as a sitting politician have received monetary benefits from a tax filing service you should not be allowed to speak.

>> If you as a sitting politician have received monetary benefits from a tax filing service you should not be allowed to speak Should people who are receiving welfare benefits be allowed to vote?

This is the entire point of a representative government.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#117

Post by nox101 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #15
tmountain wrote: post #8

It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately. Going further, the IRS already knows the details of most people’s taxes before they file, yet everyone is expected to complete what amounts to a complex task for many people. I cannot fathom why it is still done this way.

The anti tax republicans believe that if Americans had an easier time filling their taxes then they would have less objections to the same or higher level of taxation. https://www.npr.org/2013/03/26/175332655/what-would-the-u-s-...

Why wouldn't that be the case? People put up with raises in all kinds of expenses without really noticing or complaining. Why would it be any different with taxes?

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#118

Post by nox101 »

tmountain wrote: post #8

It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately. Going further, the IRS already knows the details of most people’s taxes before they file, yet everyone is expected to complete what amounts to a complex task for many people. I cannot fathom why it is still done this way.

> It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level,

AFAICT this is a mis-interpretation. IIUC the actual study says "54% of adults in the United States have a literacy IN ENGLISH below 6th grade level". They might be highly literate in some other language but that wasn't tested.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#119

Post by klyrs »

pydry wrote: post #46
janalsncm wrote: post #22

Listening to Congress “debate” this made me unreasonably upset. If you as a sitting politician have received monetary benefits from a tax filing service you should not be allowed to speak.

That's standard behavior. The US is more plutocracy than democracy at this point. You can help choose the brand of oligarchy that runs the United States but you can't vote against it.

Technically, you can vote for anybody you like, including yourself or Santa Claus. But no, LaRouche was never going to make it.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#120

Post by klyrs »

willcipriano wrote: post #36
nneonneo wrote: post #2

I did my Canadian taxes for me and my spouse on a free filing site last night, in less than two hours, for $0. Everything was prefilled; practically the only thing I had to fix was to convert an imported investment statement from USD to CAD, and double check that everything was accurate. I welcome the Americans to the delightful convenience of hassle-free taxes!

> less than two hours > hassle-free taxes That's still a crazy demand on the time of someone paying for everything. My bank, my employer and my brokerage all report on me, the IRS should be able to just mail a check or a bill most of the time.

"Less than two hours" does sound like a lot. I'm also in Canada and spend about 10 minutes per year on my Canadian taxes.

Settling with the US government as an expat, on the other hand... I pay handomely for somebody to handle that.

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