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Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

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Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#251

Post by foxglacier »

ainiriand wrote: post #120
foxglacier wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't America have uniquely complicated tax that requires you to keep all your receipts to claim all sorts of confusing deductions? How can the IRS know what you spent your income on if you don't tell them? I've had the misfortune of having to fill in a W8-BEN-E form [1] and the first time, I just gave up and refused to work with the client because it was too complicated. The 2nd time, I got an LLM to tell me how t…

When you say America you certainly mean USA? Or is America a country now?

I think this is a cultural difference around the world. In my county, people call it America. USA sounds a bit wanky or what Americans themselves call it. It doesn't matter because everyone knows what you mean.

Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#252

Post by foxglacier »

didgeoridoo wrote: post #151
com2kid wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lobbyists aren't the problem. They are doing what they are paid to do. If you donate to a large charity, there is a good chance some of that $ goes to lobbying, as it should. (Presumably you want the issues goy care about to be fixed!) If you work at a large company, 100% chance it lobbies, for good reason. Large employers lobby for better mass transit (because parking garages are expensive), more housing (because it…

We recently made a fairly large donation to a children’s hospital to support a specific research program. They directly told us that the highest-impact way to deploy the funds would be to pay lobbyists to try to get earmarks injected into federal bills. Like, >10x expected ROI. Not all lobbying is straight-up mustache twirling. But it definitely left a bad taste in our mouths.

That kind of is mustache twirling. Instead of spending your donation on research, they would use it to divert money from some other cause to their own. Your donation may harm a different - and possibly more deserving - research program.

Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#254

Post by [deleted] »

foxglacier wrote: post #60
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #44

Meanwhile in pretty much all other nations you go online to the free website, see your employer contributions already filled in and acknowledge they are correct for the year, add any extra income, check boxes for relevant deductions and you’re done.

Doesn't America have uniquely complicated tax that requires you to keep all your receipts to claim all sorts of confusing deductions? How can the IRS know what you spent your income on if you don't tell them? I've had the misfortune of having to fill in a W8-BEN-E form [1] and the first time, I just gave up and refused to work with the client because it was too complicated. The 2nd time, I got an LLM to tell me how t…

[deleted]

Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#255

Post by andrewf »

Thorrez wrote: post #241
RajT88 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All right, I guess I see your point. If you company doesn't handle the complexity, it can be a nightmare. Where I've worked, they withhold the necessary number of shares from RSU's and it just gets taxed as W-2 income. Then, it shows up with the taxed cost basis in Fidelity so you don't get double taxed when selling shares. It doesn't appear like they have to factor in travel into that equation - that's only for your…

>Where I've worked, they withhold the necessary number of shares from RSU's and it just gets taxed as W-2 income. Then, it shows up with the taxed cost basis in Fidelity so you don't get double taxed when selling shares. The same as where I work (Schwab though for me, not Fidelity). However, they don't track wash sales for me. Do they track wash sales for you? From what I understand, federal law tells brokers to trac…

Morgan Stanley at Work seems to track wash sales. Last year I had two vests in May, one week apart. I'd instructed the brokerage to sell some of those shares on vest. On the first date, I experienced a capital loss (less than $20), due to price movement between the RSU vesting and the broker selling the resulting stock. This was reported on the 1099B as a disallowed wash sale due to my acquisition of more stock with the second vest a week later.

Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#256

Post by projektfu »

beej71 wrote: post #160
Amezarak wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to pay. https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form... As for "having most of your tax information", they don't. They know your reported income. You see that on your W2s/1099s/etc. What they don't know is whether or not you had a kid this year, or whether you lost a kid this year, whether you got married or divorced, if your spouse is claiming the kids this year or not, the number or a…

I use free fillable forms. There are zero people on the planet who insist they are remotely as easy as Direct File.

The error messages are also wonderful, as they come a day or two after you submit, and are basically the output of XML schema validation.

Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#257

Post by xeromal »

QQ00 wrote: post #248
Thorrez wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20 pages? My 2024 full pdf from turbotax was 644 pages.

644 pages? WTF

80% are just boilerplate text with one text box per page. It's shitty paperwork but it's not 644 pages of tons of input. There person you're replying to probably owns a business or works in multiple states or something goofy like that. They're on the upper end of complicated

Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#258

Post by projektfu »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #82
RajT88 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not that complex. RSU's or options are pretty straightforward. Deductions can get esoteric if you sold a bunch of stock. Even then, not that bad.

Congratulations on having simple taxes. It can definitely get more complex. There is a reason Americans spend staggering amounts of time and money on tax preparation. It is simple until it isn’t.

Yes, it's complicated because the tax code has been designed for special cases, where there is an opportunity cost to identify and use the special case, but that can be paid for with large enough savings. If hiring that tax preparer/accountant costs $1000 more, but reduces the tax by $1001, then it is economically worthwhile. But in reality, most people are not able to use these provisions and of those who technically can, only a few can use them efficiently.

If you mostly have income from wages, interest, and dividends, your tax is hard to reduce using special provisions and your return is easy to file. If you have a lot of income from business investments, property, minerals, esoteric securities, gambling, etc., then you have more places where you can use these things, and your taxes are accordingly complex.

Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#259

Post by tharne »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #207
terminalshort wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is basically how it works here too. If you just have W-2 income from an employer it takes less than 10 minutes to fill out the form. Sure, the system you mention is more convenient, but the difference is minimal.

In theory, yes. In practice, no. Also, Americans have to file both fed and state taxes (with different rules)

> Also, Americans have to file both fed and state taxes (with different rules)

And if that weren't enough, you've go municipal taxes too, in a few places like New York and Detroit.

Re: Direct File won't happen in 2026, IRS tells states

#260

Post by nerdponx »

mindslight wrote: post #221
superxpro12 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this needs to be the left wing "abortion" fight. Something we need to fight for 50 years before its finally overturned. Dont stop talking about it.

The problem is that Citizens United directly derives from a few straightforward concepts that are much more entrenched. The summary that "corporations are people" is kind of a misframing that makes you think the decision could have easily gone the other way, but that refrain is actually disempowering because there isn't much that could be changed at this level of abstraction. This is a better exploration of what need…

I'm nothing close to a scholar on the topic, but that CAP article does not at all make it sound like Citizens United was inevitable. It does make it clear that the ruling builds on other old and bad rulings, but it's still quite a leap.
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