Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 338 posts

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#121

Post by gamblor956 »

dheera wrote: post #112
macrael wrote: post #81

It's SUCH a win that they managed to roll this out to a small set of tax situations and states to start. Every government project I've been on has required creativity in defining an MVP that doesn't include shipping to everyone. This was cited consistently as one of the great successes of this project, they were able to ship something that successfully filed 150k taxes b/c they were able to scope things down to somet…

sigh this is a baby step but - Many if not most software engineers in California earn more than the $200K household limitation for using Direct File - From my understanding there is no way auto-generate my state tax return from Direct File so I would have to do all the work twice even if I can use it - Complicating my tax situation (legally) allows me to save more money, I would save far more than the price of TurboT…

DirectFile was created by the IRS, a federal agency, for preparing your federal income tax return, in a manner similar to the streamlined e-file options available in other countries (i.e., for the most common/basic situations).

There are 50 states, and every single one of them has their own idea of what an income tax return should look like, so a direct file that handled state returns would take several years and hundreds of staff to develop and maintain.

The US also has significantly more tax planning/tax structuring opportunities than do other countries, and DirectFile doesn't even try to handle those...but neither do its foreign counterparts. If you have a more complicated tax situation, like most software engineers do, than DirectFile isn't for you, and never was intended for your use case.

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#122

Post by NickC25 »

giantg2 wrote: post #117

I'll still be using 3rd party software. The main benefit is the guarantee of audit support and legal representation. For such a small fee, that's decent insurance. You'll get no such benefit working directly with the IRS.

You're probably in the minority, or you make a significant amount of income.

If you are single or married without a family, a 1099 contractor or just inputting in a W2 or two, and have a single form from your healthcare company, chances are this really, really helps.

The IRS isn't going to audit someone who just files a single W2 and claims maybe 1-2 deductions and a small stock portfolio appreciation.

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#123

Post by Alupis »

gottorf wrote: post #104
thatguy0900 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congress honestly seems to have completely shut down as a body able to accomplish anything. The president is all we have

This is a feature of the US constitutional system, not a bug. It's designed such that things move very, very slowly. If Congress isn't able to pass laws, it probably reflects a division in how the voting populace feels about the subject of such laws. The president may be all we have, but he is constitutionally forbidden from acting like a king. Though, of course, that hasn't stopped presidents from trying.

100% Correct. People all too often look at Congress and say "gee, they aren't passing all the things I want them to do, therefore Congress must be broken!"

This fails to realize Congress works entirely the way it was designed. As you said, inaction == lack of consensus.

Imaging running a country where significant ways of life (influenced by laws) change willy-nilly depending on the flavor of the day? The legal whiplash would be absurd.

So, people often look to the president as some sort of king analog, and demand action via Executive Order - then cry foul when the next president undoes the previous one's EO's... it's lunacy and not a good way to run a society.

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#124

Post by troupo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #90
giantg2 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Please provide examples of Democrats undoing good policy/legislation just because it was passed by a prior Republican administration." It's going to be hard to argue with people on the basis of what was "good". That's subjective, and the very basis for why there are separate parties.

> going to be hard to argue with people on the basis of what was "good" I'd expand this to examples of either party undoing legislation the other championed and passed. It's exceedingly rare, in large part by design.

That's not how the opposition is undoes something. The opposition reduces funding and scope and passes legislation that effectively nullifies previous laws.

The reason Republicans are mentioned above is that they have a well documented public history of endorsing and carrying out these kinds of shenanigans. Democrats, though cut from the same cloth, somehow manage to be one step above on an imaginary decency scale.

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#125

Post by vundercind »

latency-guy2 wrote: post #97
vundercind wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very easy to draw extremely wrong conclusions from this line of thought without factoring in the long-term cost of declining trust in the rule of law.

Only if you're under the false premise of the people serving the government rather than the government serves the people.

I have no idea what connection you’re drawing there.

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#126

Post by Alupis »

llamaimperative wrote: post #68
Alupis wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps people should stop treating the president like a king, and you know, actually pass laws the way our government was designed to work...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtPgUrVPXeI https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/mcconnell-says-he...

[flagged]

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#127

Post by gamblor956 »

giantg2 wrote: post #114
yndoendo wrote: post #53

I would argue that having to file taxes through a 3rd party accountant or service is not only forced commerce but also broken glass economics. Looks like it helps the economy by creating jobs but the job is redundant and does not create anything of value. Where are crimes more likely to occur, a city with 10,000 or 1 million? Where are financial crimes more likely to occur, people that make $10,000 a year or people t…

"I would argue that having to file taxes through a 3rd party accountant or service is not only forced commerce but also broken glass economics" Where are people being forced to use a 3rd party? My understanding is that direct file is optional, hiring someone is optional, and using tax software is optional. Isn't it still possible to file with paper on your own?

Not only is it still possible to paper file, almost half of taxpayers still paper-file their returns, and a lot of them filled out the returns manually (by hand) on a paper copy of the return.

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#128

Post by randerson »

giantg2 wrote: post #114
yndoendo wrote: post #53

I would argue that having to file taxes through a 3rd party accountant or service is not only forced commerce but also broken glass economics. Looks like it helps the economy by creating jobs but the job is redundant and does not create anything of value. Where are crimes more likely to occur, a city with 10,000 or 1 million? Where are financial crimes more likely to occur, people that make $10,000 a year or people t…

"I would argue that having to file taxes through a 3rd party accountant or service is not only forced commerce but also broken glass economics" Where are people being forced to use a 3rd party? My understanding is that direct file is optional, hiring someone is optional, and using tax software is optional. Isn't it still possible to file with paper on your own?

Anyone with company stock grants, investments, or unusual scenarios is going to find it difficult to file their tax correctly without an accountant or software. The US tax code is too complex for a regular person.

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#129

Post by axus »

jawns wrote: post #12

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance spokesperson quoted at the bottom says: > Private tax services "have every incentive to find the deductions that will yield them the best return," Zupkus said, adding that the IRS wants "to extract as much as possible from the taxpayer." I think it's worthwhile to acknowledge that there are indeed slightly different incentives involved when it comes to the private sector handling tax…

It would be a real problem if IRS employees were promoted / rewarded based on extra dollars collected. As far as I know it's all political & unionized.

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#130

Post by delecti »

svggrfgovgf wrote: post #59
larkost wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the second sentence of the article: "will be made permanent for the 2025 tax season with all 50 states and Washington D.C. invited to participate" It seems very much that this is an opt-in thing, state by state. I would suspect that the results of this will be most Democratic-leaning states at least trying to opt-in for next year, and many Republican-leaning states refusing loudly during this election year, then…

States part of the pilot program (i.e., 2023 tax year): Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington (state), Wyoming as per https://www.irs.gov/about-irs/strategic-plan/irs-direct-file... . Looks like exactly half and half, Democratic/Republican to me ... But, who knows maybe next year ...

If you look at the tax situation across the states, the party split makes a bit more sense. Of the states involved in the pilot program, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and (to some extent) Washington do not have individual income tax. Also, Arizona and New Hampshire both have a flat rate income tax, which I readily admit knowing nothing about, but which I presume simplifies them being part of the pilot. So California, Massachusetts, and New York are the only states which have a variable tax rate and also opted in, and are also all about as Democrat leaning as it gets.

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-income-tax-ra...

Post reply on HN