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

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

#301

Post by 1oooqooq »

in this thread: people clueless to the political process giving excuses for the wins of lobbyists.

no, the irs is not "avoiding code complexity" by those limits. the limits are purely chosen by intuit and irs "goals".

first, irs already have how to calculate all of your tax. period. they do that since the 50s and let you guess if you got it right.

then the limits exclude everyone who is the market for intuit, not some complex to code form. have a job were paying $200 is nothing? keep payinh intuit. have some stocks in your retirement plan? keep paying intuit. are too poor that you would rather no bother paying taxes? heres free file from the irs!

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

#302

Post by runako »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #285
Jtsummers wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$70/hour is about $145k/year. If you're meaning it's close to $200k/year, that'd be $95/hour assuming 2080 hours/year (52 weeks at 40 hours a week).

I always assume 48 weeks (1 month vacation per year as is normal in most places)

Could you show your math? This is driving me crazy because I get:

48 x 40 x $70 = $138,240

Which is far from $200k. How are you computing?

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

#303

Post by runako »

dheera wrote: post #175
cududa wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is you're exposing yourself as someone extremely self-centered, and someone that assumes their lived experience is equivalent of everyone else's, and adjudicating the utility of this particular thing as if you are reflective of the larger population. Saying the majority of engineers in California make at least $200k makes you even more out of touch. According to Glassdoor, over $200k for a SE in CA is 90t…

GlassDoor and Ziprecruiter are grossly out of date. https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/san-fra...

Use Levels, but change the location to the other big cities in California. The LA number is ~$80k lower than the SF number, while the Fresno average is $120k. The SF area is a wild outlier even in big California metros.

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

#304

Post by fooker »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #213
CamperBob2 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What makes you say that? I'm assuming you're adding other assumptions. My wife and I combined make about $300K/year. We don't run a business, don't make charity contributions, only pay ~$5K in mortgage interest, and don't have kids. We don't even do retail stock investing (EDIT: And I haven't exercised any employer stock options), just a 401k, an IRA, and a 5.25% savings account. We take the standard deduction. I can…

The IRS prays for citizens like you!

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

#305

Post by fooker »

randerson wrote: post #141
yndoendo wrote: post #53

I would argue that having to file taxes through a 3rd party accountant or service is not only forced commerce but also broken glass economics. Looks like it helps the economy by creating jobs but the job is redundant and does not create anything of value. Where are crimes more likely to occur, a city with 10,000 or 1 million? Where are financial crimes more likely to occur, people that make $10,000 a year or people t…

I keep hearing that its mostly the wealthy who evade tax, but I don't understand it. Service workers love being tipped in cash because its easy to not report. OTOH the wealthy have more to lose if they're caught, and can afford to pay their taxes and accountants.

There is not much 'getting caught' happening.

It's all layers of legalized scams. Business expenses, mortgage interests on investment properties, technically charitable donations, massive tax exempt funds, etc. And all these interacting in creative ways.

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

#306

Post by fooker »

tombert wrote: post #282
blackhawkC17 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I doubt every "qualified appraiser" is above being bribed. I thought it was implied that writing off $39 million didn't mean a $39 million dollar reduction in taxes.

Merely a ~20 million reduction, nothing to sneeze at.

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

#307

Post by fooker »

jimbob45 wrote: post #182
nly wrote: post #28

As a Brit it's baffling that this is even an issue. I filed my taxes online with HMRC for free this year (we call it Self Assessment), it took 20 minutes, and I received a 4 figure refund in ~2 weeks directly in to my bank account.

US government services are bad almost across the board. Most of us would pay a premium to use a private version over a government version of almost anything. I’m guessing you would find it equally confusing if I told you we’d pay a premium to use a private DMV or private post office. Here in the US, that statement wouldn’t be controversial at all.

I'm from a third world country and have lived in a few European countries.

Switzerland was the only one with better govt service. Everywhere else it was significantly worse than the US.

Surprisingly France and Germany were worse than India in terms of obscure things needed for getting anything done and no exceptions for anything. The US on the other hand, if you can go talk to someone in person they'll make it happen.

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

#308

Post by skirmish »

danans wrote: post #297
skirmish wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure. But during a casual chat maybe somebody mentioned that reporting tax fraud can earn you money, and then somebody else assumed that they were talking about IRS employees even though they were not.

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

#309

Post by itake »

ThunderSizzle wrote: post #290
ashconnor wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It cost me $490.00 to file my taxes with H&R Block this year. I can't use free software.

Why can't you use freetaxusa?

I didn’t check last year but free tax USA didn’t support importing stock trades. I didn’t wanna have to input every single trade I made.

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

#310

Post by londons_explore »

bloppe wrote: post #176
londons_explore wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conventional wisdom is that if one can fund the IRS with one extra dollar, and they use that dollar to collect two dollars more taxes (from evaders), than that was a good way to spend taxpayers money. Many economists don't agree though. If you care about economic success of the country, the goal isn't 'collect as many taxes as possible'. The goal is to make the citizens wealthier in real terms. Effort your citizens p…

> Effort your citizens put into tax collection is 'dead weight', and doesn't contribute to exports etc. Hot take: a lot of tax revenue does contribute to exports etc. The government is spending a lot of money re-digging that shipping channel in Baltimore after the bridge collapsed. Just one recent example, but pretty much every bridge and port and road in the world has a lot to do with taxes. The government is also s…

I was referring to the effort of collecting taxes themselves - ie. The salaries of all the IRS workers who have to chase everyone up.
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