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Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

nextgov.com

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Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#101

Post by sofixa »

themafia wrote: post #84
hiddencost wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're clearly not paying attention. Which checks? The supreme Court OKed stopping people because they were brown ("Kavanaugh stops") and Congress has lost the power of the purse.

> You're clearly not paying attention. You clearly just want to have a convenient source for your frustration and show no interest in actually solving the problem permanently. > Which checks? Congress. They pass laws. The administration is bound, by the constitution, to follow those laws and to administrate them with "due care." > The supreme Court OKed stopping people because they were brown ("Kavanaugh stops") and…

> Congress. They pass laws. The administration is bound, by the constitution, to follow those laws and to administrate them with "due care."

About that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States

Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#102

Post by sofixa »

realusername wrote: post #85
foxglacier wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't America have uniquely complicated tax that requires you to keep all your receipts to claim all sorts of confusing deductions? How can the IRS know what you spent your income on if you don't tell them? I've had the misfortune of having to fill in a W8-BEN-E form [1] and the first time, I just gave up and refused to work with the client because it was too complicated. The 2nd time, I got an LLM to tell me how t…

I highly doubt that it's more complicated than the French or German tax system.

Based on what?

The French tax system is pretty simple. Taxes are high, but simple. The website you use to file your taxes is also pretty simple, and every single field has a button that explains what it is about and in which cases you should write stuff inside.

The only annoying parts are if you have accounts outside of France, you have to declare them. And if you get dividends/capital gains in foreign currencies outside of the EU, you have to calculate yourself how much tax you owe using a bunch of tables per country and currency.

Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#103

Post by realusername »

sofixa wrote: post #102
realusername wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly doubt that it's more complicated than the French or German tax system.

Based on what? The French tax system is pretty simple. Taxes are high, but simple. The website you use to file your taxes is also pretty simple, and every single field has a button that explains what it is about and in which cases you should write stuff inside. The only annoying parts are if you have accounts outside of France, you have to declare them. And if you get dividends/capital gains in foreign currencies out…

For basic taxes yes but you have annex forms which are 20 pages long in the french system.

Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#104

Post by mulmen »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #82
RajT88 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not that complex. RSU's or options are pretty straightforward. Deductions can get esoteric if you sold a bunch of stock. Even then, not that bad.

Congratulations on having simple taxes. It can definitely get more complex. There is a reason Americans spend staggering amounts of time and money on tax preparation. It is simple until it isn’t.

Yes, the reason is Intuit.

Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#105

Post by sofixa »

realusername wrote: post #103
sofixa wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on what? The French tax system is pretty simple. Taxes are high, but simple. The website you use to file your taxes is also pretty simple, and every single field has a button that explains what it is about and in which cases you should write stuff inside. The only annoying parts are if you have accounts outside of France, you have to declare them. And if you get dividends/capital gains in foreign currencies out…

For basic taxes yes but you have annex forms which are 20 pages long in the french system.

Yes, and? Nobody would fill all annexes. They are annexes because they're not part of the common path, and are only needed in specific scenarios. Their length is kind of irrelevant.

Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#106

Post by whoooboyy »

petralithic wrote: post #97
whoooboyy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try telling people you voted third party because of a deeply held conviction about not electing corrupt politicians. You will be told you are evil, that you've got an unreasonable/impossible purity bar, that you don't really believe in that deeply held moral conviction actually, that you are worse than the people who voted for the other guy, that you are a utopian idealist, etc etc. Don't get me wrong, I did vote thi…

It's more that voting third party in a first-past-the-post voting scheme is systemically pointless.

Parent poster said to stop voting for bad candidates. I said you would be mocked/judged/told off for doing so. And here we are.

Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#107

Post by anon291 »

_vertigo wrote: post #58
dlcarrier wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The form that you fill out has a very tearse description of the field, but the actual instructions are in a separate document. For example, form 1040 is here: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf and the instructions document is here: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040gi.pdf The instructions make it very clear when a field in the form should be used and what should go in it.

Yes, obviously, everyone knows that. When all you have to file is a 1040, reading one of the instructions documents is fine. When you have to use several forms it start to add up.

I've filed my own taxes for years and have a complicated set up; real estate, stocks, rsus, espps, private shares, amt, etc ... It's extremely straightforward and takes less time than using turbotax if you've done it before. The instructions are obvious.

You can also call the IRS and be told for free what the rules are. People pay h&r block and Intuit when the irs is extremely responsive and will connect you with an actual American irs rep to answer your questions.

People pay for the software because they've been marketed to not because they need it. For the situations that are actually hard, then a software like TurboTax is useless.

Also if you get the numbers wrong the IRS just corrects it

Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#108

Post by chneu »

terminalshort wrote: post #62
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #44

Meanwhile in pretty much all other nations you go online to the free website, see your employer contributions already filled in and acknowledge they are correct for the year, add any extra income, check boxes for relevant deductions and you’re done.

Which is basically how it works here too. If you just have W-2 income from an employer it takes less than 10 minutes to fill out the form. Sure, the system you mention is more convenient, but the difference is minimal.

Lol not really in practice.

Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#109

Post by chneu »

ksimukka wrote: post #69

Ok, fine, I’ll use TurboTax. I live and work abroad and Turbotax requires a US billing address to pay the fee of using Turbotax. :facepalm All the other self-service options do not work and I’m not sure if the risk is worth it to file it myself. To my fellow Expats, what are you doing?

Does FreeTaxUSA work for you?

Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#110

Post by chneu »

delfugal wrote: post #34

[flagged]

Not only are Americans dumb, they're incredibly ego driven and stubborn. That means Americans always think they're right. Everyone else is doing it wrong.

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing after they've tried everything else.

I'm American. If you don't buy into the insane status-symbol ego culture, it's daily insanity of excess consumption and selfishness.

The worst part is no one wants to hear this. There's a crazy culture of "Saying anything is mean". We shove our heads in the dirt all the time.

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