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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

#161

Post by Jtsummers »

dheera wrote: post #134
gamblor956 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The US is a federated system, the states' tax laws are independent of the federal tax laws (mostly, there are some interactions in there) and the responsibility for collecting state taxes falls on the state. The federal government cannot step in without authority which would have to be delegated by the states because it is their authority, not the fed's.

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

#162

Post by Alupis »

llamaimperative wrote: post #156
Alupis wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain what happened during the Trump Administration then? It's so easy for people to hyper-focus on "my side good" that they lose sight of the overall picture. Resisting an administration's agenda is pretty normal and expected... the people who voted for Mitch simply do not agree with the Biden agenda. Mitch (and other R's) are there to enact the agenda their constituents want. What a shocker... Why is this…

Surely you can find examples of Schumer saying that his party is fully committed to obstructing the Trump administration, right? Or Harry Reid saying it during the Bush administration? No, it's not normal. That's exactly my point. If it's normal, cite it. Believing it's normal for one party to have as an explicit goal to simply obstruct everything the administration is doing is a symptom of drinking too much Koolaid.

[flagged]

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

#163

Post by gamblor956 »

kbolino wrote: post #21
bombcar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even correct - the IRS wants to follow their rules as closely as they can. I have had the IRS unprompted send me an additional refund because of a mistake I made on my forms, and they caught. (They also included a letter saying that if I thought my mistake was right, I could fight the refund, or file a new amended form and go for a bigger one.)

I have had the IRS charge me tax and accuse me of lying to them over a UTMA withdrawal used to pay for tuition even though the fund running the account refused to send me the paperwork because the account is in my parent's name first instead of mine. It is a massive organization filled with uncoordinated people doing their level best to produce Brownian motion.

UTMA withdrawals by the child are not taxable, however UTMA income is taxable to the child...

What exactly are you railing against? It sounds like the IRS is following the rules here.

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

#164

Post by plorkyeran »

latency-guy2 wrote: post #131
vundercind wrote: post #125

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.

That's not what the phrase "Rule of law" means.

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

#165

Post by llamaimperative »

Alupis wrote: post #162
llamaimperative wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you can find examples of Schumer saying that his party is fully committed to obstructing the Trump administration, right? Or Harry Reid saying it during the Bush administration? No, it's not normal. That's exactly my point. If it's normal, cite it. Believing it's normal for one party to have as an explicit goal to simply obstruct everything the administration is doing is a symptom of drinking too much Koolaid.

[flagged]

> "One-hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration"

Actual words stated by Mitch McConnell. His goal is not to pass policy that's good for the American people, not to prevent the administration from overstepping or making mistakes, not to do anything except simply "stopping this new administration."

The purpose of our government is to collaborate and compromise to find solutions that are good for the country.

Consider two children tasked with collaborating on a problem. One of them walks up and says "One-hundred percent of my focus is on stopping you."

Are you similarly confused about who's the asshole? Is that "partisan propaganda" to say that the child who states that is an asshole? Are you really so smart that this becomes a tricky situation to understand?

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

#166

Post by dessimus »

Spivak wrote: post #133
gamblor956 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Or just contract one of the companies that already do it with a public-private partnership.

The IRS tried that already and the 3rd parties just used dark patterns that tricked customers into paying for unnecessary services.

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

#167

Post by tombert »

whimsicalism wrote: post #144
randerson wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing that its mostly the wealthy who evade tax, but I don't understand it. Service workers love being tipped in cash because its easy to not report. OTOH the wealthy have more to lose if they're caught, and can afford to pay their taxes and accountants.

not sure how you keep hearing this, the IRS is very clear that lower income filers commit much more tax fraud which is why they focus audits on filers in this income bracket because it generates the best returns

I do wonder if part of this is because lower-income people don't have the legal resources to fight this though. If a billionaire hides their wealth in an illegal way and they're caught, they'll hire a bunch of lawyers and fight against, potentially dragging a court case out for years, and costing the taxpayers millions of dollars.

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

#168

Post by plorkyeran »

randerson wrote: post #128
giantg2 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

I personally used TurboTax the first few years I had RSU and ESPP income to report (and ran the end result by an accountant) but eventually switched to filling out the forms manually because I found it easier than entering the same information into TurboTax. Tax prep software is great for when your taxable circumstances change and you don't even know which forms you need to fill out, but I didn't find that it let me skip understanding the relevant parts of the tax code and I got to the point where I was having to generate preview pdfs look over exactly what it was generating to make sure I'd entered numbers into the correct spot in the software.

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

#169

Post by Alupis »

llamaimperative wrote: post #165
Alupis wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> "One-hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration" Actual words stated by Mitch McConnell. His goal is not to pass policy that's good for the American people, not to prevent the administration from overstepping or making mistakes, not to do anything except simply "stopping this new administration." The purpose of our government is to collaborate and compromise to find solutions that are good…

Clearly by "collaborate and compromise" you actually mean "so long as my side gets their way". This is the negative result of buying into entirely one-sided propaganda - it limits your perspective to, frankly, bullshit.

I do not see a point in continuing since you seem unwilling to actually contemplate the entire environment. Not only do you have absolutely no response to obvious intellecual hypocrisy, but you are indeed one of "those" people who links to propaganda to support their deliberately narrow and naïve perspective of the world - and demands others participate in this alternative reality.

It's not fun, nor intellectually stimulating to engage in this type of debate.

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

#170

Post by cududa »

dheera wrote: post #139
dmd wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is you're exposing yourself as someone extremely self-centered, and someone that assumes their lived experience is equivalent of everyone else's, and adjudicating the utility of this particular thing as if you are reflective of the larger population.

Saying the majority of engineers in California make at least $200k makes you even more out of touch. According to Glassdoor, over $200k for a SE in CA is 90th percentile. The average SE in CA makes $132,000

https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Software-Engineer-Sala...

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