Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

irs.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 350 posts

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

#161

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #65
etskinner wrote: post #7

Before everyone gets too excited: This will probably only apply to simple tax situations: If you have more than these, you might not be able use it: #Income reporting W-2 wage income Social Security and railroad retirement income Unemployment compensation Interest of $1,500 or less #Credits Earned Income Tax Credit Child Tax Credit Credit for Other Dependents #Deductions Standard deduction Student loan interest Educa…

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.

Then people with informal income streams will systematically underpay.

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

#162

Post by bluGill »

sys_64738 wrote: post #136
whatever1 wrote: post #101

Why does the average American have to file taxes? You know my W2 you know my family members. Just send out the withhold amount to my employer.

There are too many additions to the tax code beyond that. Really, if they cut away 95% of the cruft then it could be dramatically simplified. Everybody has their thing they hold onto for dear life in a tax code.

Most of the cruft has been cut out (as of 1986!) People are just so used to accountants and tax programs that they never look at the details to realize how simple their tax situation really is. This is encouraged by the tax industry.

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

#163

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

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…

FreeFillableForms (.com) is 100% free, has no income limits, has every IRS schedule & form.

It's basically backed by the IRS and implemented by Intuit et al, but appears independent.

It works a little better every year, but you do still have to manually carry over some numbers from form to form.

I've been using it for the last 8 years at least. I don't love it to death, but if it wasn't available I'd do my own paper forms anyway.

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

#164

Post by starik36 »

coconut08 wrote: post #116
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/

sorry... cheaper? surely a place called free tax usa would be free?

It is free for federal taxes. The only thing that you are paying for are state taxes.

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

#165

Post by sircastor »

atum47 wrote: post #57

Declaring taxes in Brazil is free, but it's hard work (if you dabble with stocks, for instance). For 1/5 of the value of the minimum wage you can hire a accountant that does it for you. I think the service is worth it's price. All i have to do is send them a bunch of documents and they make sense out of it.

This is the way it should be here in the US, and this is the way it works in a lot of countries. The tragedy is, we all know it, and we all want it to change, but there are a few people who don't want it to change, and they're empowered to make it that way.

I hope this IRS effort works out.

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

#166

Post by gnulinux »

Anechoic wrote: post #115
parhamn wrote: post #51

One thing I really want to see is an official form where if you answer all the questions, to the best of your knowledge correctly, protects you from liability for incorrectly filing your taxes. End of the day with TurboTax and co, you, as expected, get a "not our system, not our problem" type response when dealing with the post-filing ramifications. There seems to generally be a lot of "I'm not sure if I did it right…

protects you from liability for incorrectly filing your taxes. In practice, it's not really needed. The thing is (and I realize that it's not the general perception) if you sincerely try to file your taxes and you screw up, the IRS will generally work with you to fix things. Sure, if you go all sovereign-citizen/Wesley Snipes and refuse to acknowledge taxes they'll kick in the door and take all your stuff. But if you…

Unfortunately, this is the fantasy but it's not the reality for some Americans. USA is a very complex country where blanket statements like this can be so far from the truth for some that you'd be surprised. Tax education in our country is next to 0 but our taxes are extremely complicated. Many Americans have non-USA ties (even some Americans who lived in the USA their entire lives can have family members outside the country, but definitely Nth generation immigrants and recent immigrants) and what you said is not true if non-USA finances (bank accounts, inheritance, income etc) are involved. It is possible to make a tiny honest mistake and have to face huge $$$ penalty consequences. Such as FBAR, Form 8938, Form 3520 to name a few, these are things almost no American knows but if your grandpa from Mexico dies and you don't report his property in Form 3520 you may be billed up to $100k penalty. Sure, if this was an honest mistake they'll waive this penalty but not always and certainly not without a tax lawyer fighting for you. Now you need to hire a CPA and a tax lawyer and this is not cheap.

I personally find it misleading to undersell how high stakes taxes are in the US. Sure for 95% of the people if you make a tiny honest mistake nothing will happen, but it's not like a small error in your taxes can't cause a huge ordeal. I tell my friends, taxes are an extremely high stakes deal and you need to understand what's happening on those papers and IRS website. I'll tell my kids the same once they're of age to understand.

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

#167

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

enahs-sf wrote: post #97
jjulius wrote: post #78

To clarify: This is not a full launch, it's just a "limited pilot" that will only be available in 13 states in 2024. Arizona California Florida Massachussetts Nevada New Hampshire New York South Dakota Tennessee Texas Washington Wyoming Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

AZ, CA, FL, TX, NY alone gets you to about 120m people. This is a pretty big first test.

The IRS says it will not be available to all tax payers in those states. It sounds as if it will be a fairly small number initially.

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

#168

Post by carabiner »

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.

Totally agree. A huge benefit of TT is the automated importing and parsing of forms, both for speed and accuracy in doing taxes. Without that connectivity, FreeTax USA is not much different from just filling out the IRS official pdf's.

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

#169

Post by starik36 »

dublinben wrote: post #143
dalyons wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right, I've always just entered the summary. However, that process is manual and requires scouring the forms for correct info. With TurboTax, it lets you integrate into the brokerage and just sucks down the info.

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

#170

Post by [deleted] »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #65
etskinner wrote: post #7

Before everyone gets too excited: This will probably only apply to simple tax situations: If you have more than these, you might not be able use it: #Income reporting W-2 wage income Social Security and railroad retirement income Unemployment compensation Interest of $1,500 or less #Credits Earned Income Tax Credit Child Tax Credit Credit for Other Dependents #Deductions Standard deduction Student loan interest Educa…

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.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN