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Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

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Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#131

Post by sn9 »

jimbob45 wrote: post #25
kelthuzad wrote: post #3

wait until turbo tax comes in hot with their lobbying efforts - didn't they manage to prevent or diminish a free tax filing service already a few years ago?

I like TurboTax. It just works, year after year. The fee is worth the peace of mind that I wouldn’t have by letting a government program lose my submission accidentally.

I hated giving my money to Intuit so they could lobby for our complicated and unnecessary tax filing system.

I qualified for using the IRS free option this year and I'm so happy and I hope I never go back.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#132

Post by throwup238 »

nox101 wrote: post #118
tmountain wrote: post #8

It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately. Going further, the IRS already knows the details of most people’s taxes before they file, yet everyone is expected to complete what amounts to a complex task for many people. I cannot fathom why it is still done this way.

> It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, AFAICT this is a mis-interpretation. IIUC the actual study says "54% of adults in the United States have a literacy IN ENGLISH below 6th grade level". They might be highly literate in some other language but that wasn't tested.

Only 14% of the US is foreign born according to the last census so that’s not enough to make up the difference.

The functional literacy statistics are bad no matter how you dice them.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#133

Post by latency-guy2 »

hiddencost wrote: post #43
jimbob45 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like TurboTax. It just works, year after year. The fee is worth the peace of mind that I wouldn’t have by letting a government program lose my submission accidentally.

Gotta be honest, the "government is unreliable" crowd are not people I think of as honest. Government works fine, and for less money, if you actually try to make it work.

How unquantifiable.

The standard that government organizations run off of is "use up all the budget, or else your budget gets cut the next year". Are you going to lie and say that is not the case?

Be honest.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#134

Post by philistine »

akira2501 wrote: post #39
janalsncm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liberty and privacy are fashionable. The problem is that our Congress passes hundreds of pages of domestic spying legislation in the middle of the night. It’s not exactly the School House Rock democratic process we learned about in 4th grade. But that’s really beside the point. If you are like millions of other Americans filing W2s, the fact that you work for your employer isn’t a secret. Your salary isn’t a secret.…

> the fact that you work for your employer isn’t a secret I would prefer if it was. It's even worse than that, the government has entitled itself to be a party to every transaction over $600, so even the self employed have to shoulder this unseemly burden. > Your salary isn’t a secret It is. It's a shared secret. Again, I would prefer if I didn't have to do this. My salary is not at all the same as my "taxable income…

There never was a point in the period of time when people filed taxes in the US that the government wasn’t entitled to know your salary. It used to take more time and effort to get the info, but better technology doesn’t change the game, it highlights that it wasn’t a « shared secret ». Your employer has a ton of paperwork to file related to your pay.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#135

Post by ghaff »

bedobi wrote: post #63
Barrin92 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>we change the way the government is intimately entangled with our lives? I've lived in Sweden where taxes are not just automatically filed but every citizen can trivially look up anyone's tax returns and nobody ever saw it as the government being intimately entangled with anyone's life. Privacy violation would be to look into how and on what you spend your money, not that everyone pays their share of taxes. That tel…

Uh plenty of Sweden see that as a huge invasion of privacy Sweden also doesn’t have secret ballot In Sweden, anyone can look up your address, phone number, social security number, your car registration etc etc This is not cool or desirable

If you own property in the US, I can look up your address, your landline if you still have one, probably not that hard to find SSN, etc.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#136

Post by pompino »

_mlbt wrote: post #69
pompino wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tax code is also designed to incentivize behavior that we wish to promote as a society. for example, directly reducing the tax versus tax benefits of a 401(k) and other such mechanisms. ultimately, the government is there to serve the interests of the people and society.

I understand the noble intent behind much of the tax code, but it has grown into a gnarly beast full of loopholes for the rich, and the wrong kind of societal incentives for the poor.

Is there a specific country's tax system that you look up to as the ideal?

I see often people claim that the US tax code sucks (nobody is going to defend it with the rising inequality), but there isn't any proposal about how exactly to enact the changes while still keeping the benefits of the tax code that apply to the disadvantaged.

Also, I'd like to point out that the tax code has every type of federal tax, administrative elements, and isn't just about income tax, and I'd argue that most of the federal tax code has nothing to do with "loopholes for the rich".

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#137

Post by orthoxerox »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #66
janalsncm wrote: post #22

Listening to Congress “debate” this made me unreasonably upset. If you as a sitting politician have received monetary benefits from a tax filing service you should not be allowed to speak.

>> If you as a sitting politician have received monetary benefits from a tax filing service you should not be allowed to speak Should people who are receiving welfare benefits be allowed to vote?

No, and neither should people on federal payroll.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#138

Post by deprecative »

pompino wrote: post #58
tmountain wrote: post #8

It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately. Going further, the IRS already knows the details of most people’s taxes before they file, yet everyone is expected to complete what amounts to a complex task for many people. I cannot fathom why it is still done this way.

that’s a common talking point, but that is not exactly true. they don’t know how many dependents you have, if you are eligible for certain tax credits, whether you use your home as a work location, etc., etc.

If only there were a way for you to tell the IRS how many dependents you have. Seems like we should just scrap the ability for folks to fill out anything and let Daddy Intuit do it for us since we're all so helpless with our taxy waxies.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#139

Post by bobthepanda »

nox101 wrote: post #117
bobthepanda wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anti tax republicans believe that if Americans had an easier time filling their taxes then they would have less objections to the same or higher level of taxation. https://www.npr.org/2013/03/26/175332655/what-would-the-u-s-...

Why wouldn't that be the case? People put up with raises in all kinds of expenses without really noticing or complaining. Why would it be any different with taxes?

it is just a bit hypocritical that the anti-tax people, who cloak in words about small government, are opposed to a less intrusive form of government services that would also generally cost taxpayers less (since Turbotax et. al. are always steering users of their products into higher tiers they probably don't need)

"we want to make your life worse so that you align with our political goals" is generally a terrible thing to admit to out loud

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#140

Post by bananskalhalk »

bedobi wrote: post #63
Barrin92 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>we change the way the government is intimately entangled with our lives? I've lived in Sweden where taxes are not just automatically filed but every citizen can trivially look up anyone's tax returns and nobody ever saw it as the government being intimately entangled with anyone's life. Privacy violation would be to look into how and on what you spend your money, not that everyone pays their share of taxes. That tel…

Uh plenty of Sweden see that as a huge invasion of privacy Sweden also doesn’t have secret ballot In Sweden, anyone can look up your address, phone number, social security number, your car registration etc etc This is not cool or desirable

Secret ballot was introduced 1866 in Sweden. I think we were the third country in the world to do so.
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