Tax year 2024 means the filing due in April 2024 or the one in April 2025?
Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states
281–290 of 350 posts
Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states
#282There are lots of comments along the lines of "xxx is cheap" Why on earth do you need a third party for your tax calc and resolution? It is surely the antithesis of the "land of the free" and all that stuff. In the boring old UK I login to a govt. run website to do my annual tax self assessment. My P60 is already filled in (that's my PAYE - pay as you earn, my normal salary) I'm a company director too so I have divid…
> Why on earth do you need a third party for your tax calc and resolution? It is surely the antithesis of the "land of the free" and all that stuff.
Because the IRS isn't allowed to tell you what you owe. You're supposed to calculate that yourself... (And it's so damn complicated that it's worth paying someone to do it, unless you were the kid who did the math textbook for fun.)
Eventually, the IRS calculates what they think you owe, and if you underpaid, they send you a bill. You can respond explaining why they are wrong, or pay. The interest is so low that, as long as you don't goof up every year, you're better off risking underpayment than overpayment.
Honestly, the system would work better if the tax prep software could see all the information the IRS has, because then it would be easier to correct their mistakes and harder to make mistakes.
Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states
#283Why not start with simplifying the tax code, instead of letting it metasize in complexity, and then laying more complexity on top with software packages?
Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states
#284Why not start with simplifying the tax code, instead of letting it metasize in complexity, and then laying more complexity on top with software packages?
Because complexity is how you get loopholes, and The Powers That Be will never give up that option
Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states
#285Why not start with simplifying the tax code, instead of letting it metasize in complexity, and then laying more complexity on top with software packages?
Because complexity is how you get loopholes, and The Powers That Be will never give up that option
That's absolutely true, so I guess a better question is "Why do so many people online get excited about free filing systems, without also getting excited about reducing the complexity of the tax code as a complement to those systems".
Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states
#286This is great news; no matter how restricted it may be initially, I think having a "guaranteed-free" tax filing system will be great for most people, especially lower-income people. The private companies have demonstrated pretty clearly that they will do everything they can to avoid people actually having free tax filing, and while ~$50-100 might not seem like a ton of money, keep in mind that at the current United S…
No one earning $7.25 is going to pay anything to file their taxes, unless they got duped(which is totally possible).
It's worse than that, them are the prime target for rebate advance loans, Very convenient only 30% interest.
Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
> keep in mind that at the current United States minimum wage ($7.25 as of this writing), it would take upwards of working 6-14 hours just to pay for tax filing Relatively few people in the US earn the Federal minimum wage. It's less than 1/2 of 1% of the labor force. It's a very poor reference for anything in terms of personal finance comparisons. You can walk into a CVS or Walgreens and earn $15 / hr as the minimum…
> It's less than 1/2 of 1% of the labor force. So it's only millions of people.
According to BLS, 141k workers earned exactly minimum wage in 2022, with another 882k earning a base rate under minimum wage [0]. The latter category, though, isn't the complete picture, because tips and commissions would tend to push compensation up over minimum wage as a rule.
Of the 141k, 53k are teenagers, so that leaves 88k full adults (age 20+) making minimum wage. That's not nothing, but it represents 0.1% of those paid an hourly rate and 0.06% of the workforce as a whole.
[0] https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2022/home.htm
Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states
#288This is great news; no matter how restricted it may be initially, I think having a "guaranteed-free" tax filing system will be great for most people, especially lower-income people. The private companies have demonstrated pretty clearly that they will do everything they can to avoid people actually having free tax filing, and while ~$50-100 might not seem like a ton of money, keep in mind that at the current United S…
Likely it comes from your tax, so calling it free might be just an illusion.
Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states
#289There are lots of comments along the lines of "xxx is cheap" Why on earth do you need a third party for your tax calc and resolution? It is surely the antithesis of the "land of the free" and all that stuff. In the boring old UK I login to a govt. run website to do my annual tax self assessment. My P60 is already filled in (that's my PAYE - pay as you earn, my normal salary) I'm a company director too so I have divid…
You're expecting coherency in the American libertarian mindset. There is none. "why should the government control the means of tax filing! I need to be free to pay a private company to do it!"
*Conspiracy hat on*
Paying income ta is made into an arduous task so people are likely to vote against taxes or for repeal of taxes instead of being accepted as a fact of life.
Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states
#290This is only tangentially-related, but I know I'm asking the right audience: I switched, blissfully, away from Quicken/Quickbook/Xero/all that heavy crap to very simple and elegant textfile-based accounting (ledger/hledger) and it's been the best and most flexible accounting experience I've ever had. I finally feel completely in control of my companies' books. Is there an equivalently-blissful tax-filing software/ser…
If you're looking for the same level of manual control because you don't want the "wizard" interface, you should use "Free File Fillable Forms" [1], which is the product of a public-private partnership with the IRS. It's literally just filling out the paper forms except in a web interface and it does most of the math for you. And then you can file electronically for free regardless of your income level, and it produc…
https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...
That's interesting. Apparently submits electronically sometimes - but if you need attached statements, for example for f1116, you have to print the product and mail it. Otherwise supports surprisingly MANY forms - many of them with some limitations which are enumerated for you. Some schedules are not included, for example this year f1116 requires 1116 Schedule B for carryovers and that's not provided here. So again if you need f1116 then you'll be printing and mailing that. Really... Many forms are included.