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

nextgov.com

261–270 of 284 posts

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

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such a cheap bribe holy crap.

When you look at the donations politicians receive and the ROI they produce you quickly realize that they are way too cheap. Politicians should ask for way more money so lobbying is not that incredibly profitable.

The individual bribes aren't the whole picture. The bribes are statements of loyalty. If I am reliably donating to your campaign every couple of years, then I am probably not donating to your opponents' campaigns.

And loyalty seems particularly important with the current administration, because they have an agenda full of things that are illegal or otherwise unsavory and un-American, so they need a nation run by loyal henchmen if the agenda is to succeed.

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

#262
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Politicians should ask for way more money so lobbying is not that incredibly profitable. Except those corrupt politicians want lobbying to be profitable, so they can profit from it too. And if they ask for too much, they’ll just bribe the next guy or may even try to put their own in office. Can’t have that!

Especially since they so often land jobs for themselves and their kids with the people that lobby them. Kirsten Sinema got a job as a senior lobbiest after her short congressional stint.

Synema is a particularly fun example because you can tell where her loyalties laid from her voting record.

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

#263
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthy competition, the free market has resolved the issues of overpriced bribes. /s

I'm surprised that politicians haven't established burdensome and expensive professional compliance and licensure requirements for their own trade to restrict upstart competition. Every other trade pays them to implement the same so it's not like they're not familiar with how to do it.

No need: campaign financing, low turnout, and incumbent bias are all substantial barriers to entry.

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

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do these other countries described above know whether you had a kid or got divorced?

Even the US knows that you've had a qualifying event, they're just being stubborn.

The federal government doesn't always know if you've had a child or if you've died. Not even specifically the IRS, but its possible for you to have a child and never involve any organization that reports to the federal government.

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

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more that voting third party in a first-past-the-post voting scheme is systemically pointless.

It obviously isn't since the UK, for example, has fptp for general elections and far more than two parties.

Parliamentary systems are not comparable to presidential ones when it comes to voting systems.

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

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That time has passed.

Now you have me really curious. When did "that time" start, and when did it end?

Well, in the 90s there was almost total adoration of the US in Russia and America meant only one thing - the US.

Decade later the US lost most of its soft power due to the abuse of its dominant military and economic position in the world and then lost its dominant position too with the rise of the economies around the world.

People now see the US as a strong state on the lands of native Americans on the continent called North America.

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

#267
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I do not own a business. In 2024 I only worked in CA. However, a couple years back I worked in MI for a few days, which means for the following 4 years I have to file MI taxes as well due to RSU vesting. So my 2024 taxes were federal + CA + MI.

For details about why RSU vesting requires 4 years of MI taxes, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43676698

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

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Huh, very interesting. I wonder why Schwab doesn't do that.

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

#269

I just looked up https://directfile.irs.gov/ . While it says closed, the testimonies on this site speak to how easy the filing was. Almost feels like it is intentional to keep rest of the site as is with a small banner on top announcing the closure, as a way to hint at this stupid move by the administration.

Update 2: The site is back without testimonials.

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

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument is that you don't need a third party like Intuit to get this information. The IRS could get it themselves - they choose not to.

They can’t. Because IRS IT has been starved, beaten and abused for 20 years. If they had the resources and leadership, all of this could be possible via MOUs and better data access/normalization from the mainframes.

I agree, but IMO this is a choice. Not a fact of life.
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