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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

#241

Post by steelframe »

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.

I've filed my taxes myself for several years. A couple of times the IRS sent me letters after the fact saying I messed something up. Then it's another several hours combing through all their paperwork trying to correct whatever they said I did wrong. One time they directed me to "explain why you won't make this mistake again in the future." Which is a particularly asinine thing to ask. "Well, Mr. Tax Man Sir, I probably won't make that particular mistake again because now I know not to make that particular mistake again."

This year things got complicated enough that after spending an entire Saturday staring at forms, instructions, and spreadsheets trying to figure out what I was supposed to do, I finally gave up and hired a CPA that specializes in tax returns do my 1040.

The whole thing ended up being 27 pages long. I guess I needed forms 1040-ES, 2210, 8949, 8995-A, 8960; Schedules 2, B, D, and 8812; and several worksheets. I consider myself fairly capable and experienced in filing my own taxes having done it 20-something times, but I don't think I would have ever figured out that I'd need all those forms and schedules this time around.

It's particularly frustrating that they are somehow able to tell me that it's wrong after the fact and harass me to correct it. If they can do that, why not just tell me what they think it's supposed to be in the first place, and then give me the option of correcting what they send me if I spot something that doesn't make sense to me?

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

#242

Post by superb_dev »

lesuorac wrote: post #214
II2II wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> instead of asking why do we need to do taxes when the government knows everything about us that they could do it for us They cannot do everyone's taxes since what they know about many individuals is incomplete. > should we really have that little privacy? Put that way, the answer is no. On the other hand, virtually everyone demands services from their government and very few people want those services to be transac…

> For various reasons, it has been decided that a person's income should be a portion of those revenues. In order to ensure that people are paying their dues, the government needs to collect some information. Are there other ways the government could get revenues? Sure, but all of them are going to be problematic in some form or other. No, just a singular reason: Prohibition.

Taxes existed before prohibition, right?

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

#243

Post by superb_dev »

dh2022 wrote: post #216
alistairSH wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of which apply to the vast majority of filers. Nobody is saying filing taxes should never be necessary. Only that it shouldn’t be necessary for most people. The flow should be… Employer and financial institutions send info to IRS (they mostly do already). Then, in January, IRS sends a “Is this correct?” notice to residents. If correct, no action is needed. If not correct, then make adjustments.

How would the residents verify the amount on the notice is correct? It sounds like the residents would have to do their taxes to verify the amount on the notice....

They don’t just send the amount, they would also send their work

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

#244

Post by jjav »

II2II wrote: post #162
thegrim33 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it was originally done this way because in the past people actually had some semblance of privacy and the government didn't actually know a great deal about people's income. Eventually, privacy was eroded away year after year to the point where the government now knows an extreme amount about each citizen. I guess I'd refrain the question - instead of asking why do we need to do taxes when the government know…

> instead of asking why do we need to do taxes when the government knows everything about us that they could do it for us They cannot do everyone's taxes since what they know about many individuals is incomplete. > should we really have that little privacy? Put that way, the answer is no. On the other hand, virtually everyone demands services from their government and very few people want those services to be transac…

> They cannot do everyone's taxes since what they know about many individuals is incomplete.

For the vast majority of people they have all the info needed. Hardly anyone can take any deductions other than the standard deduction anymore, so that's covered. For income, most people have W-2 jobs so that's covered and all financial institutions send 1099s to the IRS with all your interest, dividend and stock transactions so that's covered too.

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

#245

Post by voussoir »

derangedHorse wrote: post #231
II2II wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> instead of asking why do we need to do taxes when the government knows everything about us that they could do it for us They cannot do everyone's taxes since what they know about many individuals is incomplete. > should we really have that little privacy? Put that way, the answer is no. On the other hand, virtually everyone demands services from their government and very few people want those services to be transac…

> since what they know about many individuals is incomplete No, for most individuals it is complete. Most people don’t own stocks directly (only an estimated 21% do)[1], and the ones who don’t are not probable to deal with complexly taxable transactions as the norm. [1] https://www.axios.com/2023/10/18/percentage-americans-own-st...

Your comment is phrased as a disagreement, but it's not. The GP post said the IRS can't do everyone's taxes, and you replied that they can do most. I think we're all on the same page that people would benefit from having available information autofilled while still having the opportunity to review and make corrections as needed.

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

#246

Post by jjav »

kanbara wrote: post #169
nkrisc wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No 1099, it needed to be a W2. What made it difficult was: finding out we needed to do anything at all, finding out what that “anything” even was, finding instructions for doing it, parsing the instructions and figuring out if we were reading the correct instructions, figuring out if the various exceptions and other special clauses applied, researching those, then figuring out how to actually do any of this, and so o…

> “all this for…” — you’re employing someone for 40% a full time duration. of course you need to do the right thing, ensure they get the right wage, if you need to pay benefis, etc. this is such a privileged position and you think you should’ve just been able to pay cash and potentially screw someone over?

> you think you should’ve just been able to pay cash and potentially screw someone over

You're only benefitting the babysitter by paying them cash, big win for them. And benefitting yourself to avoid all that payroll hassle that nobody understands. Win-win.

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

#247

Post by thfuran »

ImJamal wrote: post #229
ghaff wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you own property in your name you could look up your address. Some people do not directly own their house though.

Approximately 0% of people have property in a trust instead of in their own name.

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

#248

Post by yorwba »

Maxatar wrote: post #208
yorwba wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about dicing them this way: "Sixth-graders already read about as well as the median adult." Sounds pretty good to me. The shock value of the original statement derives from the idea that sixth-graders are basically illiterates who can barely function in society, but what if that's not the case and six years in school are actually enough to learn reading and writing? It's a pretty long time already. What further i…

The shock value should come from the fact that the US scores very low among developed countries. The UK, Canada, and most of Europe score much higher on literacy tests. The US has exceptional universities and colleges, but its K12 education system leaves much to be desired.

On which literacy test? The PISA 2022 reading scores for the US (504), Canada (507), UK (494) and OECD average (476) are not that far apart, and unlike what you said, the UK and most of Europe score slightly lower than the US. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/53f23881-en/index.html?i...

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

#249

Post by [deleted] »

yorwba wrote: post #147
throwup238 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How about dicing them this way: "Sixth-graders already read about as well as the median adult." Sounds pretty good to me. The shock value of the original statement derives from the idea that sixth-graders are basically illiterates who can barely function in society, but what if that's not the case and six years in school are actually enough to learn reading and writing? It's a pretty long time already. What further i…

[deleted]

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

#250

Post by thfuran »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #232
porphyra wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting for one of two parties compresses the will of the people to a single bit.

Even worse: individual states are on a campaign (nationally) to ban ranked-choice voting [1] among their constituencies (e.g. Tennessee recently did so, to prevent a Memphis-area jurisdiction from implementing fairer voting). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

That should be treason.
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