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Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

irs.gov

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Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#141

Post by kgermino »

bigbillheck wrote: post #111
ghaff wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That list suggests that if you have a 1099 (which I assume is most people with meaningful savings), you probably won't qualify.

I think there are probably a lot fewer people with meaningful savings than you might think.

Especially meaningful savings with taxable interest.

Yes, most people with more than a few hundred bucks in savings accounts will get a 1099-INT, but a lot of people just use checking accounts and if you're at a big bank like Chase even savings account interest is so low you still might be under the $10 threshold.

The average American's investments (if they have any at all) are in retirement accounts so they'd avoid those taxes too.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#142

Post by loeg »

tombert wrote: post #135
radlad wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, FreeTaxUSA[0] is much cheaper than Intuit and has worked great for me the past few years. I find it slightly easier than TurboTax, in fact. [0] https://www.freetaxusa.com/

Jackson Hewitt Online isn't terribly pricey (Cost me a total of about $25 last year), so that's what I've used for the last two years. Keep in mind that Jackson Hewitt Online is a different thing that the vanilla Jackson Hewitt Still, I kind of feel annoyed that I have to pay any amount of money to do something legally required of me to avoid going to jail. I think the IRS should provide a free option for filing, and…

You can fill out the forms manually for free? It just sucks.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#143

Post by dublinben »

dalyons wrote: post #131
Analemma_ wrote: post #9

I've been using FreeTaxUSA for a while now to do my taxes, and I like it very much. (If you use TurboTax or H&R Block or something, I strongly recommend giving FreeTaxUSA a look). I was sort of wondering if the IRS would just buy them wholesale and use that as the free file software, since it's already "finished" and making another one would be duplicated effort. But is there precedent for that, the government just b…

I gave FTuasa a go after seeing it mentioned here a lot. Unfortunately it seems the investment part is very manual compared to TurboTax. I have a couple of robotrader , brokerage accounts etc. on TurboTax it’s a few clicks and that’s imported, FTusa is tediously transcribing numbers off dozens of forms that I have no idea if I’m doing it right. I reluctantly gave money to TT again.

This is not tax advice:

If your brokerage reports all of your trades to the IRS, which they likely are, then you can just enter a summary. You don't need to grant access to your outside accounts and import anything.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#144

Post by kdmccormick »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #134
kdmccormick wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd say if the government creates inefficiencies, such as for basic tax filing, it should remove them if possible The complexity of the US tax code is certainly inefficient from the perspective of someone trying to get through their taxes, but many economists would argue that it enables a very economically efficient way to soft-enforce policy and influence behavior without resorting to regulation and law enforcemen…

Most of the inefficiency comes from the implementation rather than the policy, and the use of an income tax rather than a consumption tax. If you had a national VAT instead of a national income tax and the government wanted to subsidize e.g. solar panels, they would simply exempt solar panels from VAT and individuals wouldn't have to file anything, they would just pay less for solar panels because the seller wouldn't…

Everything you're saying sounds great, but afaict VAT doesn't have the power to rework a society the way income tax does:

* Marriage is incentivized via the advantageous married-filing-jointly option.

* Donations are deductible.

* Employers are incentivized to replace part of wages with benefits packages including health insurance, which incentivizes people to not be unemployed.

(I'm not saying any of this is a good thing, especially that last one :)

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#145

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

zzzeek wrote: post #60

Credit to Joe Biden and the Inflation Reduction Act for making this possible. If Trump wins again he's going to have a lot of work destroying all the progress Biden has made in just one term.

My satire detector is surely broken. It’s just wobbling between wtf and woosh. It’s OK, I don’t need to understand everything all the time.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#146

Post by LordDragonfang »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #127
LordDragonfang wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, this is the thing that gets me. For almost anyone who fits in this box, you shouldn't have to file in the first place . Not "shouldn't have to pay", but literally, "should not have to send documents to the government telling them how much you owe them" - because they already have all of that information . They should just give you an itemized breakdown and ask if it's correct.

You might have additional deductions they don’t know about. There are also things like your filing status, # dependents, etc that can change.

>They should just give you an itemized breakdown and ask if it's correct.

I'm sorry, but this response comes up every time, and every time the answer is "yes, that's why I said you should be able to just tell them it's correct." It doesn't have to be any more difficult than checking a box.

90% of people are just going to use the standard deduction (no, seriously: in 2019 it was 87.3%[1]), and for most people their filing status will only change a handful of times in their lifetime. It makes no sense to waste everyone else's time for what should be at most 3 or 4 yes-or-no questions.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-tax-stats-at-a-...

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#147

Post by [deleted] »

ghaff wrote: post #88
amalcon wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, that's a whole lot of people -- probably almost everyone who is not a homeowner, and quite a few who are.

That list suggests that if you have a 1099 (which I assume is most people with meaningful savings), you probably won't qualify.

[deleted]

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#148

Post by junar »

kgermino wrote: post #141
bigbillheck wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are probably a lot fewer people with meaningful savings than you might think.

Especially meaningful savings with taxable interest. Yes, most people with more than a few hundred bucks in savings accounts will get a 1099-INT, but a lot of people just use checking accounts and if you're at a big bank like Chase even savings account interest is so low you still might be under the $10 threshold. The average American's investments (if they have any at all) are in retirement accounts so they'd avoid…

"Interest of $1,500 or less" is eligible according to the announcement.

Dividends and capital gains are not mentioned, and presumably not eligible.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#149

Post by tombert »

loeg wrote: post #142
tombert wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jackson Hewitt Online isn't terribly pricey (Cost me a total of about $25 last year), so that's what I've used for the last two years. Keep in mind that Jackson Hewitt Online is a different thing that the vanilla Jackson Hewitt Still, I kind of feel annoyed that I have to pay any amount of money to do something legally required of me to avoid going to jail. I think the IRS should provide a free option for filing, and…

You can fill out the forms manually for free? It just sucks.

I've thought about doing that before just to say that I've done it, but it always seemed a bit intimidating. I also have completely illegible handwriting now, so filling anything in by hand is effectively a non-starter.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#150

Post by bluGill »

loeg wrote: post #142
tombert wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jackson Hewitt Online isn't terribly pricey (Cost me a total of about $25 last year), so that's what I've used for the last two years. Keep in mind that Jackson Hewitt Online is a different thing that the vanilla Jackson Hewitt Still, I kind of feel annoyed that I have to pay any amount of money to do something legally required of me to avoid going to jail. I think the IRS should provide a free option for filing, and…

You can fill out the forms manually for free? It just sucks.

I quit doing paper forms ~10 years ago when I missed coping line 12c from form 5678-e to line 34-f of form 9876-k. The hassle of correcting that was enough to make me quit doing taxes by hand.

It takes longer to do my taxes via the web forms than it did by hand (which says just how bad the UI of tax prep is!), but it saves me from human mistakes.

Note that the ISR already has all the information they need to do my taxes for me. They just don't do them.

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