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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

#171

Post by llamaimperative »

Alupis wrote: post #169
llamaimperative wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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 in…

No, that's actually not what I mean. Note that I'm not taking issue with any GOP policies, because I don't have a problem with GOP policies. I have a problem with stated goals of simply obstructing the people they are supposed to be collaborating with, thus I am directly quoting statements made that explicitly state their goal of obstructing their collaborators.

Again, citing someone's own words cannot possibly be considered "propaganda" against them, lol. They said it, and to my knowledge they weren't even held at gunpoint!

I mean you haven't even given me an analogous example of the problem I'm pointing out, so I'm not sure what "clear hypocrisy" I'm exhibiting. Give me an example case and I'll tell you what I think and then you can decide whether I'm hypocritical.

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

#172

Post by plorkyeran »

mrangle wrote: post #27
mrangle wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The people who are downvoting my "disagree" are likely assuming that I am speaking philosophically. I'm not. Philosophically, sure: the purpose of the government is to serve the people. A philosophy written specifically for the consumption of people. But now I'm speaking about its practical purpose. What a system produces is always its purpose.

The US Government operates at a massive deficit, so clearly the purpose of it is not to turn a profit.

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

#173

Post by Alupis »

llamaimperative wrote: post #171
Alupis wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 in…

No, that's actually not what I mean. Note that I'm not taking issue with any GOP policies, because I don't have a problem with GOP policies. I have a problem with stated goals of simply obstructing the people they are supposed to be collaborating with, thus I am directly quoting statements made that explicitly state their goal of obstructing their collaborators. Again, citing someone's own words cannot possibly be co…

There was oodles of collaboration during the Trump Administration - how did I ever forget how willing to compromise and collaborate Democrats were back then! It was an amazing time for our Congress - so much collaboration was done that we got sick and tired of collaborating!

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

#174

Post by INTPenis »

g15jv2dp wrote: post #105
whimsicalism wrote: post #51

It's pretty dumb that this has an upper income limit that covers plenty of regular W2 wage workers

$200k puts you in the top 5% of earning, FYI.

Interesting because in Sweden there is a turnover limit of around 284k USD/year for using their simplified tool for financial statements.

Which covers most sole-proprietors who have 1-2 contracts, like myself.

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

#175

Post by dheera »

cududa wrote: post #170
dheera wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 90t…

GlassDoor and Ziprecruiter are grossly out of date.

https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/san-fra...

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

#176

Post by bloppe »

londons_explore wrote: post #88
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…

Conventional wisdom is that if one can fund the IRS with one extra dollar, and they use that dollar to collect two dollars more taxes (from evaders), than that was a good way to spend taxpayers money. Many economists don't agree though. If you care about economic success of the country, the goal isn't 'collect as many taxes as possible'. The goal is to make the citizens wealthier in real terms. Effort your citizens p…

> Effort your citizens put into tax collection is 'dead weight', and doesn't contribute to exports etc.

Hot take: a lot of tax revenue does contribute to exports etc. The government is spending a lot of money re-digging that shipping channel in Baltimore after the bridge collapsed. Just one recent example, but pretty much every bridge and port and road in the world has a lot to do with taxes.

The government is also spending lots of money on social programs people like too much for even the Republicans to try to repeal, yet the government is not taxing enough to cover them. Letting rules slide for certain people means more debt for everyone else, and is what a lot of economists would call "arbitrary redistribution", which is bad.

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

#177

Post by rain_iwakura »

londons_explore wrote: post #88
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…

Conventional wisdom is that if one can fund the IRS with one extra dollar, and they use that dollar to collect two dollars more taxes (from evaders), than that was a good way to spend taxpayers money. Many economists don't agree though. If you care about economic success of the country, the goal isn't 'collect as many taxes as possible'. The goal is to make the citizens wealthier in real terms. Effort your citizens p…

It's good economic policy based on what? Did you run a counterfactual already? Comparing the US to other countries is meaningless, it's not the same set of init conditions and variables.

Do you realize that those taxes go to fund public services and help people stay afloat, which I don't need a study to show you, creates far more customers for all these tax evaders in the first place? Go back 50 years to see what this country used to be and how much shit it got done and compare it to today. There are measures of productivity engineered in math, and then there is common sense: majority of existing infrastructure was built decades ago and now it costs billions in overrun projects to build a single station in NYC.

The current system works just fine in terms of punishingly taxing everyone on this website and the poor, that's why it feels like I'm contributing half of my salary to the federal government. What it doesn't do is take its share from extremely wealthy, who in turn DO NOT SERVE the economy because they're effectively stateless agents, who can put their money into Seychelles or whatever. Nobody would bat an eye if those billionaires would contribute the billions to the economy. Instead you get people crying about how "the government is inefficient, it gets nothing done, I'd rather the titan spend it as they see fit." But if this ship called United States floods they will be the first to abandon it, just like a famous critter.

I'm sorry but posts like this are the exact definition of bootlicking.

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

#178

Post by llamaimperative »

Alupis wrote: post #173
llamaimperative wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's actually not what I mean. Note that I'm not taking issue with any GOP policies, because I don't have a problem with GOP policies. I have a problem with stated goals of simply obstructing the people they are supposed to be collaborating with, thus I am directly quoting statements made that explicitly state their goal of obstructing their collaborators. Again, citing someone's own words cannot possibly be co…

There was oodles of collaboration during the Trump Administration - how did I ever forget how willing to compromise and collaborate Democrats were back then! It was an amazing time for our Congress - so much collaboration was done that we got sick and tired of collaborating!

So again, since obstructing the opposing administration is "normal," you can find statements declaring such an objective. Right?

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

#179

Post by nickpinkston »

ohashi wrote: post #149
dheera wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some people have a broader view of the world and care about things which might not directly impact them

This 100% - thank you

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

#180

Post by 404mm »

> Taxpayers Protection Alliance spokesperson Kara Zupkus said in a statement that expanding the program will "radically increase the IRS's authority and scope" and "have devastating consequences."

Sounds like something Turbo/Block would say.

I don’t understand how more competition in this area could hurt the customers. All the “file federal taxes for free” offers usually cost me around $70 since I have more than just W2.

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