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

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

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is the confusion? You're the one bringing up "rule of law" as if I live to be the government's personal slave along with millions of others.

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

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What is the confusion? You're the one bringing up "rule of law" as if I live to be the government's personal slave along with millions of others.

The confusion is that that doesn’t follow, at all.

[edit] it occurs to me that this is a term of art you may be unfamiliar with, so reading it in an unusual sense:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law

Basically, it’s a super-important thing to have if you want to live in a “developed” country that doesn’t have all kinds of very-bad problems, and isn’t some proxy for level-of-authoritarianism, which is how it seems you’ve read it. It’s about actual and perceived equal treatment under and efficacy of the law, not how much law (if you will) you have. A minarchist libertarian state would sensibly seek to have high rule-of-law, for instance.

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

#133
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hun…

> so a direct file that handled state returns would take several years and hundreds of staff to develop and maintain

Or just contract one of the companies that already do it with a public-private partnership. HR Block or whatever gets paid say 2x their current tax prep revenue in exchange for being the white-label direct-file available for free to everyone.

Like these tax prep companies are crazy cheap for just being able to hit import next next next next next submit and never think about taxes ever. The work is already done, why duplicate it?

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

#134
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hun…

> There are 50 states, and every single one of them has their own idea

That's not my problem. The states are part of the country. This is as bad as restaurants charging tips instead of stating one number. Government dudes should meet and work it out between state/federal and give me one damn number.

All I want is one number.

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

#135

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 think this has been studied and low-to-medium income filers are more likely to actually commit tax fraud so you get better returns as the IRS by focusing on these filers

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

#136
post #112
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…

94% of Americans make less than $200k a year. Not everything is meant for "software engineers in California".

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

#137
post #112
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…

Yes? That was the point of my comment? If they had tried to support everyone's tax situation on day one they likely would have failed, but instead they shipped something that works, got made permanent, and now we all get to look forward to using this tool sometime in the next few years as it graduates from MVP to entrenched software

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

#138
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

[flagged]

Sorry but the elected leader of a party openly stating his objectives is not "partisan propaganda." So free of Koolaid you think simply citing the actual words that a grown adult said of his own free will and cognizance is "partisan propaganda."

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

#139
post #136
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

94% of Americans make less than $200k a year. Not everything is meant for "software engineers in California".

I meat this is Y Combinator Hacker News, so I would expect "software engineers in California" to be a significant fraction of the user base here.

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

#140
post #112
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…

I'm confused, I used (what I thought was) DirectFile for Massachusetts via MassTaxConnect (totally free). I make more than that threshold.

Did I do something wrong?

Edit: I understand now. DirectFile is for Federal and MassTax is for State taxes.

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