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IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

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291–300 of 338 posts

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#291
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Zupkus said, adding that the IRS wants "to extract as much as possible from the taxpayer." The IRS doesn't want your tax dollars, they are just the mechanism by which the federal government enforces tax collection according to the law. I've gotten refunded by the IRS for taxes they found that I overpaid years ago. Neither I nor my accountant did anything to initiate that. I'm not alone in getting an unprompted refu…

I've met people who thought that the IRS makes money from collecting taxes - like that employees there get a cut.

Maybe they were talking about the program where you report tax evasion and then once the missing money is collected you get up to 30% of it? That exists.

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#292
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taxes are used to run society, from it's roads, fire department, education, social services, and much more The "much more" is much, much, much more than anyone thinks. The federal budget is tremendous. People cannot conceive of trillions, yet the federal government alone spent over six of it a year, three years in a row. Virtually nobody has a problem with tax funds being used to build roads and bridges, fire depar…

Most public education funding at the K-12 level is from state and local taxes.

Yeah, to be more specific:

> The federal government provides 10.5% of funding for public K-12 education.

https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statisti...

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect. You must not be a US citizen (or else went to a poor quality K12 school that failed to teach the basic civics) States are NOT an administrative subdivision of the larger country. This is a common misconception. They are not at all like Japanese prefectures, not like Canadian provinces, nor like the counties or parishes that US states are subdivided into. States are fully sovereign entities that retain to t…

No need for personal attacks. The states and the federal government could better coordinate tax filing, it would not be against the US constitution.

Not a personal attack. There is nothing wrong with being a foreigner or having grown up in a bad school district.

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#294
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why there's an income cap though. There's nothing that gets more complicated on income alone, only if you add extra stuff to track

Anybody who makes more than about $200K-$300K/year is likely making a mistake if they don't have a CPA.

Yeah no. I thought I'd hire a CPA one year to see what 'breaks' they might offer.

All they did was fill out Turbotax for me, and charge me an extra 150 for that.

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#295
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$200k puts you in the top 5% of earning, FYI.

Why does that mean they should be excluded?

There are special taxation concerns for high income individual. Dealing with these would have certainly delayed the launch of the service. I'd rather have the service launch now for 95% of people and have coverage improve over the years, than have it launch in several years (or possibly never) for 100% of people. Besides, if you're in the top 5% of income, you can afford a CPA.

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#296
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are 50 states, and every single one of them has their own idea That's not my problem. The states are part of the country. This is as bad as restaurants charging tips instead of stating one number. Government dudes should meet and work it out between state/federal and give me one damn number. All I want is one number.

Incorrect. You must not be a US citizen (or else went to a poor quality K12 school that failed to teach the basic civics) States are NOT an administrative subdivision of the larger country. This is a common misconception. They are not at all like Japanese prefectures, not like Canadian provinces, nor like the counties or parishes that US states are subdivided into. States are fully sovereign entities that retain to t…

The US Constitution is not required reading for the citizenship test.

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've met people who thought that the IRS makes money from collecting taxes - like that employees there get a cut.

Maybe they were talking about the program where you report tax evasion and then once the missing money is collected you get up to 30% of it? That exists.

According to https://www.irs.gov/compliance/whistleblower-office the whistleblower reward program is not available to employees of Department of the Treasury.

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if that's true, the number of dollars being evaded is substantially lower. Not reporting $2000 a year in tips isn't exactly going to have the same effect of a billionaire not reporting $100,000,000 of their income. There are plenty of legal ways to evade (or at least not pay) taxes as well, though. An easy way, for example, is to store wealth in the form of stock; generally you don't pay taxes until you sell, so…

> For that matter, they could also buy a piece of art for a million dollars, a year later get it appraised as worth $40 million, donate it, and then write off $39 million. Again, as far as I know this isn't strictly illegal, but it can be used to evade taxes. This is so wrong it hurts my brain. The IRS requires using a qualified appraiser , and none of them will suddenly appraise an artwork for 40x its last sold valu…

Isn't this one of the reasons why most very expensive art pieces are sold in auctions? The auction acts as a qualified appraiser because of price discovery via competition makes the price very real (after all, what is price but supply and demand?)

Although I guess there is nothing stopping Soteby's from setting the base price absurdly high to begin with . . .

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#299
post #232
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% Correct. People all too often look at Congress and say "gee, they aren't passing all the things I want them to do, therefore Congress must be broken!" This fails to realize Congress works entirely the way it was designed. As you said, inaction == lack of consensus. Imaging running a country where significant ways of life (influenced by laws) change willy-nilly depending on the flavor of the day? The legal whipla…

> This fails to realize Congress works entirely the way it was designed. Don't really think so. The 1929 Permanent Apportionment Act subverted the intentions of the founders and clearly swayed the power balance back towards rural areas, even though they have equal representation in the senate.

Oh man this and the 17th Amendment I think created a serious flaw to the framers' original designs. But people look at me crazy when I say that the 17th Amendment probably was a mistake and the 1929 Permanent Apportionment Act a serious mistake to our democracy.

Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the confusion? You're the one bringing up "rule of law" as if I live to be the government's personal slave along with millions of others.

No matter what society you live in, you will have to obey rules. There has never been a society where this is not the case, and there never will be one. You can call that slavery if you want.

You have to breath in mere seconds after you breath out, this action must continue until your bodily functions completely fail or otherwise.
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