Live data from Hacker News

Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

propublica.org

281–290 of 717 posts

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#281

Every time I pay for TurboTax I hate them even more for lobbying for this type of legislation.

Have you considered any alternatives? I use taxcut but have used sites in the past like taxbrain.

For the vast majority of people, filing your taxes by hand is so easy, I'm not sure why more people do not do it. It also has the side benefit of making the government pay more to collect your taxes.

The IRS is also extremely wonderful to deal with, and is happy to answer your questions. I've had questions about procedures before (even made a mistake), and you just call (or they call you) and you fix them.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#282

If I read this right, you can still use the free service the IRS provides if you make less than $66,000. Has anyone used Turbo Tax or H&R "free" versions to file? I can't use them & last time I tried they charged you to submit your taxes electronically but otherwise it was simple & easy. I also know many cities offer services to help people file simple taxes for free. I believe this bill also states the IRS cannot se…

> I don't expect the IRS to make software for complicated taxes as that's a very difficult challenge.

Well, I do expect them to:

1. Verify 99% of taxes automatically anyway, and that's a very difficult challenge. There's no way IRS can use a human to verify every single tax filing.

2. Make a public service off it for those 99%.

3. I suppose that even for complex cases it's probably even _easier_ to make a software for that. There's no human that can remember thousands of pages of tax code.

Humans are still needed, but for correcting/adjusting/verifying the software itself.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, American exceptionalism has little to do with the glories of our IRS. Our tax code is also absurdly complicated- https://www.businessinsider.com/2014-how-many-pages-in-the-u... as an example. As I've said elsewhere, some of the most significant opposition to the IRS pre-filing taxes is trusting that it operates in good faith - or at least competently - and appropriate applies all deductions that a person…

that concern is simply not valid. The IRS would send you a proposed return and you could make whatever changes you want to make.

And many people will still go to a private tax service to verify that everything that could be accounted for is accounted for. The concern isn't that people wouldn't be able to make changes, the concern is that people would naively accept whatever they are told they should get back, even if that isn't the case.

To be fair though, I think this is somewhat less of an issue after President Trump's tax reforms; with the doubling of the standard deduction, it's become less fruitful for most people to attempt to itemize their deductions.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered any alternatives? I use taxcut but have used sites in the past like taxbrain.

Can you pay an accountant to do your taxes instead? I do that in the UK and they cost less than the prices I see online for US tax software. I just give him a pile of pay slips and receipts and he does whatever he needs to do to fill things in.

> I do that in the UK and they cost less than the prices I see online for US tax software... and he does whatever he needs to do to fill things in.

Really? For less than $29?

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#285

The easier it is the file taxes, the closer you get to a direct link to your bank account where you "don't have to think about it". Affordances and friction can be good. And if you (actually) believe in equality, those affordances should apply to all.

Ugh, I hate this argument so much. It's the argument Grover Norquist goes around making to every Republican in Congress that that (in addition to Intuit's lobbying efforts) to stop this from ever happening. (There's a great episode of Planet Money [1] about it.)

In addition to just about every major country other than the US, California already has this and it's absolutely fantastic. I've literally never heard anyone who's actually used it complain about it and say they'd rather not have the option of filing their taxes in this way.

Imagine if your cell phone bill worked like US federal taxes. They would send you a blank sheet of paper and make you write down your minutes, texts, and megabytes for the month, and any other applicable fees you might owe, calculate the total bill yourself from that, and send a check for that amount. The provider already knows what you owe and calculated it themselves; they just aren't telling you, and you're threatened with additional fines or burdensome audits if your calculations don't match theirs. This causes you weeks of anxiety and dozens of hours of lost productivity every year. (Paraphrased this argument from the subject of the Planet Money episode.)

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/03/22/521132960/epis...

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#286

Meanwhile, in my little country (NZ), as a regular salaried worker, I only had to interact with the IRD in the years that I had a few side gigs in addition to my regular employment. Most years I don't interact with them at all. Don't even have to file. I guess in the USA they are worried the IRS will get it wrong, so on the chance they will, everyone has to follow really complicated processes, even if their tax affai…

> I guess in the USA they are worried the IRS will get it wrong, so on the chance they will, everyone has to follow really complicated processes, even if their tax affairs are simple...Am I wrong?

New Zealand has extremely limited deductions compared to the United States: http://taxsummaries.pwc.com/uk/taxsummaries/wwts.nsf/ID/New-.... For example, just from Google, it looks like you can't deduct expenses for daycare in New Zealand.

What we're worried about in the U.S. is that making deductions "opt in" will lead to an effective tax increase from people not claiming them (or being afraid to contest the "bill" sent to them by the IRS). You know the studies showing how organ donation rates shot up when it was made "opt out" instead of "opt in"? Same thing.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#287
As a vehement proponent of free markets I wholly oppose this sort of crony capitalism. I think this is something everyone in politics can and should agree on.

If the government is going to collect taxes they shouldn't be giving a certain industry a leg up on for charging money for people to pay taxes.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#288

I've often read headlines noting that the tax-prep lobby spends huge sums to preserve the status quo. But the numbers quoted in the article as evidence don't appear to support that claim. $6.6m seems low relative to these figures https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2018&inde... * *I can't vouch for this site or its data Relevant quote from the Tech Crunch article: "One reason why folks Congress could b…

The perrenial misunderstanding about lobbying in the US is that it's about money. It's not. It's about access. The money spent by lobbying firms is almost always in pursuit of that access. AKA buying a $10,000 plate at this donor dinner gets you a sit down with the Senator. Not only do lobbyists get more accessible they get more credibility. The lobbyists are high paid lawyers at respected firms. They have degrees fr…

I think this is a very level-headed view of lobbying and I want to say that I appreciate your comment. It’s enticing to imagine that Intuit is building a new pool on Chuck Schumer’s vacation property, and in a dark room somewhere a bunch of fat white guys are lighting this bill in fire with the ends of their cigars.

One other factor is that in “government time” we’re not far removed from the Healthcare.gov fiasco and in the middle of a debate over the technical debt of our easily hacked voting machines. Along with that, Premera and Equifax have suffered attacks.

I imagine there is nobody inside the actual government that is willing to try and “outdo” Turbotax.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#289
post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you pay an accountant to do your taxes instead? I do that in the UK and they cost less than the prices I see online for US tax software. I just give him a pile of pay slips and receipts and he does whatever he needs to do to fill things in.

> I do that in the UK and they cost less than the prices I see online for US tax software... and he does whatever he needs to do to fill things in. Really? For less than $29?

TurboxTax is showing like $250 for someone with a house, a job, shares, expenses, etc. Not sure how anyone of this works so maybe I'm wrong.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#290

If I read this right, you can still use the free service the IRS provides if you make less than $66,000. Has anyone used Turbo Tax or H&R "free" versions to file? I can't use them & last time I tried they charged you to submit your taxes electronically but otherwise it was simple & easy. I also know many cities offer services to help people file simple taxes for free. I believe this bill also states the IRS cannot se…

> If I read this right, you can still use the free service the IRS provides if you make less than $66,000. You did not. You can contact the private companies such as H&R Block and request Their free service if you make less than 66k - and subject yourself to their upselling and scam artistry, to try and get you to pay anything more than "free." > I don't expect the IRS to make software for complicated taxes as that's…

Exactly. W-2 and 1099 income is really straight-forward. If anything the IRS should provide ways for you to submit all your non-W2/non-1099 income to them and roll them up into a new form so that no matter what your situation you can "fetch" your current returns, sign them, and submit them. No need for third-parties at all. Any additional complexity is a symptom of rent-seeking IMO.
Post reply on HN