Poll: US residents, how do you do your taxes? • Hacker News Board

Re: Poll: US residents, how do you do your taxes?

#41

Post by 1wheel » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 2:34 AM UTC

idle_processor wrote: post #23

gergles wrote: post #15

It's a shame ReadyReturn[1] is so nerfed (due to intense lobbying from Intuit) - as otherwise it'd be pretty great. 1: https://www.ftb.ca.gov/readyreturn/ A federally-based solution for this would be ideal; the government is already well-aware of the relevant data. The only reason we have to do any work at all is because of the bizarre vagaries and loopholes of the tax code (and the gigantic amount of lobbying from t…

Can you please elaborate a bit on the imposed constraints that nerf it?

> Joseph Bankman, a Stanford Law School professor who helped design ReadyReturn, says he spent close to $30,000 of his own money to hire a lobbyist to defend the program in the legislature. Intuit made political contributions to scores of legislative candidates, Bankman said, and gave $1 million in 2006 to a group backing a ReadyReturn opponent for state controller.

> ReadyReturn survived, but with essentially no marketing budget it is not widely known. Fewer than 90,000 California taxpayers used it last year – although those who do use it seem to be happy. Ninety-eight percent of users who filled out a survey said they would use it again.

http://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-maker-of-turbotax-...

Re: Poll: US residents, how do you do your taxes?

#42

Post by kyrra » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 2:38 AM UTC

migrantgeek wrote: post #38

It was H&R Block until tonight. I started my 2013 filing in H&R but hadn't submitted. I stumbled on this post and saw all the votes for TurboTax and re-entered my info into TurboTax and it saved me 5K. Even the UI and help sections are nicer in TurboTax than H&R.

H&R Block @ home here because they sent me a free copy (since I did TurboTax last year). I don't do anything too complicated and both seem to get the job done. I like the flow of H&R block a bit more than TurboTax, but both really get the job done for me.

Re: Poll: US residents, how do you do your taxes?

#43

Post by whbk » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 2:41 AM UTC

My father's worked in international tax at a Fortune 100 for the bulk of his career after starting as a CPA - I was talking with him yesterday and he mentioned that he knows several people in his department that still use TurboTax despite presumably being well-equipped to handle it on their own.

Re: Poll: US residents, how do you do your taxes?

#44

Post by Jtsummers » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 2:41 AM UTC

idle_processor wrote: post #23

gergles wrote: post #15

It's a shame ReadyReturn[1] is so nerfed (due to intense lobbying from Intuit) - as otherwise it'd be pretty great. 1: https://www.ftb.ca.gov/readyreturn/ A federally-based solution for this would be ideal; the government is already well-aware of the relevant data. The only reason we have to do any work at all is because of the bizarre vagaries and loopholes of the tax code (and the gigantic amount of lobbying from t…

Can you please elaborate a bit on the imposed constraints that nerf it?

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/21/opinion/la-oe-ventry... - an op-ed from 2010

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/intuit-turbotax-... - another, more recent, report.

Intuit's lobbying is intended (it seems) to reduce funding to the program and replace it with their own variation. Not in CA so this whole thing is news to me, otherwise I'd probably have been paying attention to the details (like I did when Time-Warner-bought legislators were screwing over city-owned broadband in NC).

Re: Poll: US residents, how do you do your taxes?

#45

Post by gst » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 2:45 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #40

gst wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless there's a tax treaty between the US and the country where you reside.

This is not relevant, you still have to file and can deduct your foreign paid taxes in any event. The tax treaty becomes relevant when you are working in the states on behalf of your foreign employer (china and USA really needs a better tax treaty).

This really depends on the particular tax treaty. Do you have to file taxes? Most likely yes. Do you have to deduct taxes? This depends: Some tax treaties specify that you only have to pay the "difference" in taxes, i.e., by deducting the taxes that you paid to the other country. Some other tax treaties specify that only one country is allowed to tax a particular type of income.

In my particular case (foreign citizen, resident alien) this means that I currently pay 100% of my taxes in the United States (where I also reside). In case I would move back to my home country the tax treaty wouldn't allow the United States to tax the income I make in my home country.

Re: Poll: US residents, how do you do your taxes?

#46

Post by dajohnson89 » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 2:45 AM UTC

I do them manually, using pen and paper and snail mail. This is my eighth year straight doing it this way, and so far it's worked perfectly. The technical overhead of e-file, or TurboTax and its ilk, puts me off.

Every year I have one or two W-2 forms, and a income deduction form for interest paid on student loan. For federal, state, and local combined, it all takes no more than 3 hours. Invariably, the state taxes have the worst instructions, and they are usually very poorly designed, compared to the federal IRS-1040. That goes for KY, CA, and MD, the 3 states I've filed taxes in. My refund (if any) never takes more than 4-6 weeks to arrive via direct deposit.

Doing taxes manually gives me (a perhaps false) sense of control over the process. Most importantly, it only costs two postage stamps.

Re: Poll: US residents, how do you do your taxes?

#47

Post by swalsh » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 3:00 AM UTC

You ever consider how much power Turbotax and H&R block have? The government could behind the doors make a deal with them that could potentially make billions of dollars of revenue by simply omitting a question for example.

Re: Poll: US residents, how do you do your taxes?

#48

Post by andrewem » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 3:00 AM UTC

migrantgeek wrote: post #38

It was H&R Block until tonight. I started my 2013 filing in H&R but hadn't submitted. I stumbled on this post and saw all the votes for TurboTax and re-entered my info into TurboTax and it saved me 5K. Even the UI and help sections are nicer in TurboTax than H&R.

What was the thing that H&R did differently than TurboTaxthat accounts for the difference?

Re: Poll: US residents, how do you do your taxes?

#49

Post by rdtsc » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 3:10 AM UTC

jebblue wrote: post #21

I was going to select H&R Block Online but that's not an option, guess I could select other but when I think probably a lot of people use it, it should be a poll option. Why do we use it? Simple, TurboTax Online _still_ in _2014_ says my system is not supported. I run Chrome on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. H&R Block Online is just fine with my system, doesn't complain and works great, we've used it for six years, on Ubuntu.

It complained for me as well. I just overrode user agent for many years and never had a problem. I think I pick IE or Firefox. So I still stick with TurboTax.

Re: Poll: US residents, how do you do your taxes?

#50

Post by Bahamut » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 3:14 AM UTC

whbk wrote: post #43

My father's worked in international tax at a Fortune 100 for the bulk of his career after starting as a CPA - I was talking with him yesterday and he mentioned that he knows several people in his department that still use TurboTax despite presumably being well-equipped to handle it on their own.

As they say, time is money.

Although I used TurboTax because as military, I get service for free, including direct deposit. I could've filled out the tax forms myself (done so multiple years in the past), but it's a lot of time, and I had 3 W-2s to do this time.