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Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

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Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#321

Post by ChrisRR »

gwbas1c wrote: post #282
gerdesj wrote: post #229

There 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 th…

> Because the IRS isn't allowed to tell you what you owe

Is there a legitimate reason for this or is this just a joke?

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#322

Post by spdif899 »

ChrisRR wrote: post #321
gwbas1c wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

> Because the IRS isn't allowed to tell you what you owe Is there a legitimate reason for this or is this just a joke?

There's a perfectly legitimate reason - citizen's united allows corporations to bribe government officials into writing laws that benefit them.

If taxes worked simply and logically, the whole population wouldn't have to pay $100+ each year to Intuit and H&R Block, which would not please the shareholders.

https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre...

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#323

Post by elktown »

refurb wrote: post #317
elktown wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what did it save me over the way US taxes are done? The form prefilled the numbers, that’s it. All the rest is the same. Same collecting forms, same doubling checking math. I'd wager that ~90% of people where I'm from where we have pre-filled tax forms does their taxes in less than 5 min (ah, looks reasonable, click ).

That's a good reason why low income people stay low income. It's your money. You'd be smart to spend more than 5 minutes to make sure it's 100% right

Not everyone is a arrogant cheapskate like yourself. The actual reason is that it's 99% of the time correct due to it generally being a well-functioning system proven over time.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#324

Post by refurb »

elktown wrote: post #323
refurb wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good reason why low income people stay low income. It's your money. You'd be smart to spend more than 5 minutes to make sure it's 100% right

Not everyone is a arrogant cheapskate like yourself. The actual reason is that it's 99% of the time correct due to it generally being a well-functioning system proven over time.

Easy thing to say when you’re rich.

In my case it was $900 difference.

I guess I’m not making those fat tech dollars like you where $900 extra is “close enough”.

Must be nice. But try and remember not every is rich like you. $900 is the difference between paying rent and being homeless for a lot of people.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#325

Post by sdfghswe »

dpifke wrote: post #80
nlh wrote: post #14

This 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…

With Beancount, I use metadata tags in my chart of accounts for the tax form and line number, e.g. 2017-01-01 open Expenses:GA:Insurance USD tax_form: "1040 Schedule C" tax_line: "15" tax_description: "Insurance (other than health)" I can then report my transactions based on the tax_form and tax_line attribute, which gets me much of the way there. I still have to do the math on derived lines on the forms, but this at…

I don't supposed you're also familiar with GnuCash and can compare and contrast? I've been using GnuCash for a couple of years. I like that it's free software and I control it, and I like that it stores its state in text files (XML?). That said, there's some annoyances. It's difficult to automate anything (e.g. all transactions that have a string X, should go into account Y). Also I don't think it supports labels (???!)

I'm considering whether to move away from it but it would of course be a considerable investment of effort.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#326

Post by robertlagrant »

sys_64738 wrote: post #128
robertlagrant wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If an entire industry can be killed by a public service, it probably didn't deserve to exist in the first place. It was created by a public service. It would be better if they'd just made a rule that those with super simple tax affairs just didn't need to file, as we have in the UK. But there's probably no pork in just making things better.

The Tory government introduced this filing BS in Britain a while back. You never used to have to file anything with the Inland Revenue before the Tories.

Can you cite this? I thought you just have to file if you make over a certain amount, or you have a setup that requires filing (e.g. you rent part of your house out, or you're a sole trader).

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#327

Post by elktown »

refurb wrote: post #324
elktown wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone is a arrogant cheapskate like yourself. The actual reason is that it's 99% of the time correct due to it generally being a well-functioning system proven over time.

Easy thing to say when you’re rich. In my case it was $900 difference. I guess I’m not making those fat tech dollars like you where $900 extra is “close enough”. Must be nice. But try and remember not every is rich like you. $900 is the difference between paying rent and being homeless for a lot of people.

90% of people in my country means that obviously not all are rich.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#328

Post by mminer237 »

starik36 wrote: post #230
mminer237 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your 1099-B should give you all the info right on the first page in a table.

Not really because FreeTaxUSA asks questions about whether there are state specific bonds that have already collected taxes, whether the investment qualifies as a foreign investment, etc... That requires digging in a bit.

Foreign taxes are lines 7 & 8 on the summary. A brokerage account shouldn't have state bonds, and I thought those were in line 12, but I can see how that would be more confusing.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#329

Post by nashashmi »

mmanfrin wrote: post #256
nashashmi wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just print out the sheet from your broker of all the trades you did with the end result of gains circled. Send that in. You should be ok from doing anything more complex.

You are doing your taxes wrong and should be careful this ain't audited.

I don't know how that could be such a thing. Basically, you don't have to necessarily use any of their forms. You simply list down all income totaled by category of taxation, list out all value appreciation and depreciation that you are considering to be part of the year's gains and losses, and provide backup material of how you came to those numbers (if that is even necessary).

Taxes were made to be done on a simple blank sheet of paper. The forms are more instructional record keepers, than they are systems of procedure every taxpayer must follow.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#330

Post by nashashmi »

fire wrote: post #185
nashashmi wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just print out the sheet from your broker of all the trades you did with the end result of gains circled. Send that in. You should be ok from doing anything more complex.

are you referring to like when you do summarized trades? or something else?

Every transaction of stock should be listed. The broker will total the gains. If you want to play with the rules with a little bit more finesse (like trying to leverage the 30 day end of year rule), you will have to do this manually.
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