221–230 of 495 posts
Lots of people are hyperventilating about DirectFile, but: 1. IRS itself created DirectFile. 18F merely provided some unquantifiable "support" 2. DirectFile is not shut down.
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Taxes aren’t hard but people have been encouraged to talk about it like it’s a colonoscopy by Roto-rooter. Someone can have all W-2 income and only take the standard deduction, but thanks to that messaging they’ll act like filing your own taxes is incredibly dangerous with a high chance of ruining you for life (I know someone whose parent worked for the IRS as an auditor and they noted that many people ended up neutr…
The reason I think taxes are hard isn't because of messaging. I might be an idiot, but it's because of an experience I had years ago where I was trying to follow the rules and pay taxes on some contracting income. I screwed something up. I ended up corresponding with the IRS dozens of times. Somehow I had recorded some income that never happened. I think I spent more time writing letters than I spent on the contract…
Is there any meaningful reason that states couldn’t start their own equivalent 18F at the state level? I live in Massachusetts and I know a bunch of socially conscious techies who’d love to help out in this manner. I have no idea if there is need for 18F at the state level, but I could see something like this working OK in MA, CA, and maybe NY.
Many states do have something like 18F. Massachusetts has Mass Digital[1], Washington has WaTech[2], Maryland has announced[3] the formation of one. [1] https://www.mass.gov/orgs/massachusetts-digital-service [2] https://watech.wa.gov/services [3] https://governor.maryland.gov/news/press/pages/governor-moor...
Texas Department of Information Resources: https://dir.texas.gov/
New York State Office of Information Technology Services: https://its.ny.gov/
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I have heard of this argument many times but it doesn't make sense to me. Most often, the ways to lower taxes come from things like finding new deductions and credits that you didn't know apply to you. This is what the difficult part is. Otherwise, taxes are simple if you just have some W-2 and 1099-INT or 1099-DIV, and claim the standard deduction. Indeed if taxes are too difficult or painful, a reasonable person wo…
Taxes aren’t hard but people have been encouraged to talk about it like it’s a colonoscopy by Roto-rooter. Someone can have all W-2 income and only take the standard deduction, but thanks to that messaging they’ll act like filing your own taxes is incredibly dangerous with a high chance of ruining you for life (I know someone whose parent worked for the IRS as an auditor and they noted that many people ended up neutr…
Enough 401k, mild investments over time with disposable income, or transfers from friends / family / inheritance, that the process becomes quite challenging. You make a couple thousand on a decent year in capital gains or dividend distributions, yet end up with rather confusing paperwork piles to deal with at tax time. Finding out it was necessary to note each buy / sell and the holding time individually for the entire year just seemed crazy in the detail necessary.
Mild awareness of why the actual wealthy hire accountants and firms with specialized teams and software to deal with those issues.
The part that's also not dealt with, at least in terms of those deductions, is that usually they're related to businesses and expenses. The deductions are available, yet often you have to be treating almost your entire life like a business expense every moment. Business cell phone. Business internet. Business supplies. Business ads, website, and marketing. Business travel. Business property depreciation / amortization. Business legal and accounting. Business mileage. Business loan interest. Business meals.
A (personal opinion) funny one is "Hire your own children as workers." You can write-off the payment you make to them which reduces your taxes and the income they earn can be tax-free if you pay them less than the standard deduction.
Amazing how the idea of being able to file tax returns online, without paying for a commercial service to do it, is considered far-left extremism in the US. You’d think that simplifying tax returns and reducing costs in the taxation system would be something the right could get behind?
Citizens need to understand the tax code themselves, they shouldn't need an entire government division to write software that is the only way to understand it.
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Who would downvote this?
Someone who thinks it's off topic or doesn't contribute I guess.
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My main recollection of 18F and the USDS is that they expanded the number of identity logins on VA.gov from one to three during their tenure. During one of these transitions, I lost access to my account and had to go through a full re-validation process. When the VA added ID.me last year as 4th identity provider, and mandated its use by March 4th 2025, it felt like an admission that private-sector providers outperfor…
Login.gov is the default idp for the Social Security Administration, supports 200+ federal agencies for identity, and IRS was in the works to onboard Login.gov (to replace ID.me). They handle over 10 million monthly active users and 40 million monthly sign-ins across nearly 50 agencies and states. I would be interested in knowing why it could not serve as the sole idp for VA.gov, as there must be a reason, regardless…
Has anyone agency completed replacing ID.me with Login.gov?
For that matter do any agencies that support both Login.gov and ID.me have a way for users to switch which one they use?
When the ssa.gov first started asking people who used username/password login to add one of Login.gov or ID.me, I picked ID.me because I already had an ID.me account for use with the IRS and did yet have a Login.gov account.
Since then I've gotten a Login.gov account and would prefer to use that with ssa.gov but there doesn't appear to be any way to set that up. There's nothing I can find in account settings to add another login method to an account.
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who, exactly, is in control of independent agencies if Congress never corrects their power and the Executive isn't in charge? For example: the perennial fight over "net neutrality" was because Congress absconded their duty to write regulation and handed it off to the Executive to figure out in a vague way that allowed for flip flopping policies with the force of law every time the administration changed. You know wha…
> The Republicans in Congress are more to blame for this mess than the White House. The fact that Congress is ineffective in no way absolves the executive branch of irresponsible or illegal behavior. The president took an oath.
Amazing how the idea of being able to file tax returns online, without paying for a commercial service to do it, is considered far-left extremism in the US. You’d think that simplifying tax returns and reducing costs in the taxation system would be something the right could get behind?
I don't think that far-left was primarily only written because of the tax returns. I followed some links in the article and came to this twitter thread which might explain where that notion comes from: https://x.com/lukerosiak/status/1885523747425399247 (Disclaimer: I don't live in the US and don't want to take any political stance with this)
The right is deranged with intolerance. All the talk about "free speech" and they can't stand that someone might not think or act like them.
The "anti-woke" crusaders are honestly more unbearable than any social justice warrior type I've met because they will not shut up about it and it colors their whole life.
It's just another flavor of identity politics with in and out groups.