IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system • Hacker News Board

Re: IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

#171

Post by PopAlongKid » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 10:59 PM UTC

arbuge wrote: post #155

PopAlongKid wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have a hard time understanding why the IRS doesn't at least have a basic web portal for individuals and businesses to do simple things They do have such a portal which does some of the things you list and several other things too. https://www.irs.gov/payments/your-online-account

Yes, I know about that. It has a limited subset of the functionality I mention - for individuals. Does not exist for businesses.

Yes, there is one for business too.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/business-tax-account

How do we know that your list better matches the most common desired/needed features than the initial implementation by the IRS?

IRS business features:

Sole proprietors with EIN

A sole proprietor who files with an EIN can:

    View business balance due 
    View business tax records
    View select digital notices 
    Request a tax compliance check 
    View business name and address on file 
    Give account access to your employees 
    Register for clean energy credits (if eligible)

Partners and shareholders

An individual partner or shareholder with access can:

    View business balance due 
    View business tax transcripts 
    View business name on file

Access for more business types and roles coming soon.

Re: IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

#172

Post by neilkk » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 11:01 PM UTC

_ihaque wrote: post #98

For anyone interested in why the system looks the way it does, I recommend patio11's insightful recent blog post, which is nominally about payroll systems but ends up discussing the history of taxation in the US because that's the origination of many of these systems: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/payroll-providers-pow... A relevant quotation for much of the discussion here: > And, relevant to the question o…

patio11 has a huge and well known bias here, which is that he wants to claim, not necessarily with evidence, that all inefficiency is caused by governments and not by the private sector.

A comparison of tax filing in the United States with other countries, including those where governments are much bigger and more interventionist, leads to a different conclusion.

Re: IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

#173

Post by lern_too_spel » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 11:04 PM UTC

bezier-curve wrote: post #106

nerdponx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only will they, but Trump's Secretary of Treasury will order the IRS to cancel the program as soon as he's elected.

I get that people don't want to underestimate someone as bad as him being president again, but at the same time, he's not even going to be on the ballot in Colorado, he's pretty much already finished as a politician.

He wasn't going to win any electors in Colorado anyway. The only reason it matters at all is that it affects down ballot races.

Re: IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

#174

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 11:05 PM UTC

downut wrote: post #170

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're referring to Free Fillable Forms, the error messages are not DB errors, but "business logic rules errors". They do look like gibberish, but buried inside them is a code that can generally give a pretty clue as to the error. I agree that it would be much nicer if they said "The amount of line 29 of Form ABCD does not appear at line 18 of Form WXYZ". Even nicer if you never had to manually transfer amounts be…

Oh yes I am sorry; I didn't mean to imply that I thought that the DB was throwing an error. What the filing process email message body stated looked something like approximately "Form line xxx violates schema requirement such and such: ". I was thinking when I scanned the message was that I bet I could reverse engineer the problem from this back end generated text but why not do what the instructions say and just fee…

Yeah, me too! Been using FFF for about 8 years now.

Re: IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

#175

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 11:13 PM UTC

georgeecollins wrote: post #167

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So…they know very little actually. We just got a nasty tax bill from the IRS because when my wife gets an RSU grant, her company sells some stock to pay income tax for that grant. Little did I know, that generates a 1040 for the stock sale (to pay ordinary income taxes) with a cost basis of zero! Instead, you have to adjust the cost basis to the entire sale (or even more!) via supplemental information. Annoying, so I…

True, but 99.5% of Americans don't get RSUs. There are other cases like business expenses and unusual deductions, but again most people don't have those. So the IRS can probably only calculate taxes for 80% of Americans. (I'm guessing, not an expert)

Last time I looked it up, it is indeed somewhere between 10% and 20% of individuals that file Schedule C to report business income, and thus could not be handled by an automatic IRS tax system. Good guess!

Re: IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

#176

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 11:14 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #128

proc0 wrote: post #113

They should also work with companies and have an opt-in for automatic filing since a lot of people just have one job. Not only do you have pay them a chunk of your salary but you have to also do the work to report it accurately according to a complicated system.

If all you have is a modest W-2 and are taking standard deduction (most people in the US) it would be nice if the IRS pre-filled out a form. It’s also pretty simple to just fill out a 1040 in those circumstances.

There's even a special version of the 1040 for just such circumstances.

Re: IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

#177

Post by ghaff » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 11:21 PM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #176

ghaff wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all you have is a modest W-2 and are taking standard deduction (most people in the US) it would be nice if the IRS pre-filled out a form. It’s also pretty simple to just fill out a 1040 in those circumstances.

There's even a special version of the 1040 for just such circumstances.

Used to be I think. I believe the EZ doesn’t exist any longer.

Basic point is that if your taxes are simple enough to just say that yep these numbers square with the few pieces of paper I received in the mail, filling out a return is maybe 30 minutes work.

Re: IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

#178

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 11:27 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #177

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's even a special version of the 1040 for just such circumstances.

Used to be I think. I believe the EZ doesn’t exist any longer. Basic point is that if your taxes are simple enough to just say that yep these numbers square with the few pieces of paper I received in the mail, filling out a return is maybe 30 minutes work.

It's moronic that they got rid of that.

I would say (as someone whose taxes will never take less than several hours) that those 30 minutes are about 28 minutes too many.

Re: IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

#179

Post by toomuchtodo » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 11:28 PM UTC

neilkk wrote: post #172

_ihaque wrote: post #98

For anyone interested in why the system looks the way it does, I recommend patio11's insightful recent blog post, which is nominally about payroll systems but ends up discussing the history of taxation in the US because that's the origination of many of these systems: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/payroll-providers-pow... A relevant quotation for much of the discussion here: > And, relevant to the question o…

patio11 has a huge and well known bias here, which is that he wants to claim, not necessarily with evidence, that all inefficiency is caused by governments and not by the private sector. A comparison of tax filing in the United States with other countries, including those where governments are much bigger and more interventionist, leads to a different conclusion.

Indeed! Japan’s system is very efficient, and he has lived there for some time, so he should be familiar.

Similarly, it took the US forever to implement an instant payment system (commercial banks built Zelle via Early Warning Systems and RTP via The Clearinghouse, and the Fed finally built FedNow after Congress directed them to in order to ensure universal access) while India and Brazil rapidly rolled out their implementations (UPI and Pix, respectively).

These are intentional choices.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/opinion/filing-taxes-in-j...

Re: IRS to begin trial of its own free tax-filing system

#180

Post by consp » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 11:31 PM UTC

tpmoney wrote: post #166

consp wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And even the article admits that making taxes easier to file has the side effect of "decoupling public sentiment and policy changes" (that is, making "tax increases by stealth" easier) How on earth is this possible? Instead of not having any clue, you actually get to see everything. My taxes have been automatic for years and I still have to approve every step of them along the way and I get to see and approve every…

Two psychological mechanisms I can think of for this: It's one of the reasons why every company in the world wants you on auto pay. It's a lot easier to keep you as a customer through the price hikes if it's only a line item on your bank statement rather than an explicit payment you're making every month. If most people are the same every year, then a small increase from one year to the next barely gets noticed becau…

> It pre-assumes the amount owed is correct (in both the calculated and the policy sense) and sets the expectation that you probably owe whatever the pre-calculated amount is.

Considering the penalties for getting it wrong. Simply no. You assume it is correct if it matches the data you have, not by default.

What it does do is stop you from having to calculate the nitty whitty parts of the statements when the data from the tax agency matches the ones you got from the bank, your employer etc and you have the partial coverage of having been provided wrong data. You are still wrong but -most likely- you can amend if there are discrepancies outside of your control.

You get an extra point of reference, not a -get out of filing for free card-. Since the system I'm part of also forces companies to provide specialized summaries it's a lot easier to get the right data as well. Correctly filing (which includes ALL deductables) should never be so complicated you require a special degree or a leeching company to do it for you.