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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

#331

Post by singron »

extraduder_ire wrote: post #263
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FreeFillableForms (.com) is 100% free, has no income limits, has every IRS schedule & form. It's basically backed by the IRS and implemented by Intuit et al, but appears independent. It works a little better every year, but you do still have to manually carry over some numbers from form to form. I've been using it for the last 8 years at least. I don't love it to death, but if it wasn't available I'd do my own paper…

I think the URL is freefilefillableforms.com (note the "file", the "FreeFillableForms" domain is parked by someone) based on some light googling and a contact email I saw on the irs.gov site. Glad a digital equivalent to paper forms exists, the US tax code is far less hellish than I previously believed.

The actual tax code is still hellish. Physically filling out the forms is the easiest part. Figuring out what to put in the forms is all the effort. Each page of form usually has many pages of instructions, which are long and complicated because the tax code is long and complicated.

If you are a typical tech employee and have highish income, incentive stock options, interest, dividends, capital gains, etc. don't think you can use freefillableforms to do your taxes in a couple hours.

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

#332

Post by zzzeek »

willdr wrote: post #264
zzzeek wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

im not sure what argument you're making. are you claiming the IRS' statement is just fabricating that this program has anything to do with the congressional bill it's actually proposed and funded within ?

That's not necessarily uncommon is it? It was my understanding that bills get passed with extra funding for relatively disconnected causes all the time. They may have to credit the bill under which this was passed, but that doesn't necessarily reflect positively on the rest of the bill or the government's fiscal policy in general.

>that doesn't necessarily reflect positively on the rest of the bill

so what? Biden's bill made a good thing happen, so much that HN readers gave it 859 upmods (which is a lot). I point this out mostly so that I can be amused at how infuriating it is to Hacker News readers who can't help but be hypocrites that they love certain policies but continue to rail against the kind of government that brings about such policies.

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

#333

Post by Vixel »

This is great, but a lot of people think it will be a Intuit or H&R Block "killer". It won't. People don't pay for the "expert" tax prep, they pay for the hand holding. I have worked for HRB corporate for years and have seen countless people with simple W2's that happily pay $100+ per year just to have an office to go to, to shake a hand and talk to a person about their past year. As long as there are lonely elderly people, these businesses will always be there.

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

#334

Post by IIsi50MHz »

Freedom2 wrote: post #315
throwaway2037 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of taxes that are filed by US taxpayers are simple. I assume you meant "tax returns" (instead of taxes). Have you ever paid income tax in another country (other than the US)? Many highly advanced countries do not require a tax return as long you are a regular salaried employee who makes less than X (usually a pretty large number). Even interest paid from a bank account or capital gains from securiti…

I have, and I don't disagree that other countries are vastly simpler than the average, or even most simple, US tax return. I just think it's disingenuous to paint all US tax returns as this difficult, complex beast.

Seems ingenuous to me. Except when Tele-File was a thing, every time has been 1-4 hours of torture, hoping all the places that are required to send me forms have done so (on time & correct), hoping that I have filled everything correctly, hoping that some unknown change of requirements hasn't made my past experience with some section irrelevant or misleading, and sometimes wondering why for the exact same inputs as the previous year (as occasionally happens) I am now told that instead of getting $X back I now owe $n*X.

I sometimes end up plugging the currently requested info into 2 to 4 tax prep sites (discarding the highest results, unless the lowest seemed to come from a glitchy or confusingly-worded site), because even they can give wildly different results.

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

#335

Post by r00fus »

xtracto wrote: post #251
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.

A tangential comment given your mention of whatever 99 B form: Every time HN discussion about US taxes comes, I imagine a sizeable group of users from developed country watch in amusement the craziness that the IRS makes its taxpayers go through to charge them money. I know in Mexico and Chile everything is highly automated. In Mexico 50%+ of working class dont have to do ANYTHING, as whatever tax stuff needed is sub…

Blame this on the "government can't do anything right" party that gets into power and then proves themselves correct by shutting down efforts for the government to actually do things (because ideology).

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

#336

Post by gamblor956 »

lr4444lr wrote: post #200
gamblor956 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, my wife paid a joint filing online under my SSN, and the system couldn't figure that out It's not surprising the system couldn't figure that out. There is no such thing as a joint-filing under a single SSN. You need to include both spouse's SSNs or ITINs on the 1040 to file jointly, and the return is treated as a "joint" return (meaning, equally by both spouses).

We did include both, but we either had to make an account under one of our names, or the check had a name that didn't match on another spot (it was quite a while ago). Despite the IRS having our filing records, they couldn't match it to the payment. It's really not a hard problem.

The check doesn't have to match either name, since names are not what the IRS uses to match payments to returns. The check simply has to have the SSN (or ITIN) of at least one of the joint filers.

It's really not a hard problem.

It's actually an extremely hard problem if you try to match payments by name, since there are a lot of people with the same exact name, many of whom even live in the same state or same city. Most checks don't include an address, and even those that do don't always match the address the taxpayer gave on the return.

It sounds like you failed to include your SSN on the check, which means this problem was one of your own making. That being said, if you could provide proof that payment was timely sent and the check details (check #, account, etc.), the IRS can match the payment received and will void penalties and interest that were assessed.

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

#337

Post by Kon-Peki »

fire wrote: post #194
Kon-Peki wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t know enough to know how much you owe them, but they do know that you got $xx,xxx from a brokerage account and that the tax would be $7,000 unless there were some things unknown to them that would make it a lower amount. You didn’t tell them about any of those things, so they assumed the full amount but were perfectly willing to be shown that that this assumption was wrong.

my favorite part is how brokerages like morgan stanley don't report the cost basis when they report your sales to the irs, and for no reason I can find. This means that if you don't report sales from your side so you can note the cost basis, the irs assumes a cost basis of 0 and calculates owed tax on the entire sale value - this applies to stuff like RSU grants as well, and trips up a great many people entering the…

Cost basis is not so cut and dry. In fact, the IRS (federal law?) allows you to use almost any reasonable method for determining it as long as you are consistent.

An example of where the brokerage wouldn't know:

You buy 5 shares of stock at $X and then a few months later buy 6 more shares at $Y. Later on you sell 3 shares for $Z. What is your cost basis? It could be $3X or it could be $3Y. Or maybe a blend of the two $(2X + Y)! The IRS thinks that you should be the one to decide, not the brokerage.

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

#338

Post by CogitoCogito »

throw10920 wrote: post #319
CogitoCogito wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people have you met who are excited about free filing systems, but not excited by simplification of the tax code? Personally I've never met such a person.

It's rare that it gets mentioned on Hacker News, and the previous few times that I've brought it up, people actually attack it, like simplifying the tax code is a bad thing.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone with the opinion that simplifying the tax code is bad. You must be reading a different internet than me.

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

#339

Post by wutwutwat »

The fact we have to file income tax is stupid. The IRS knows what you owe (try not filing your taxes or filing them wrong and you'll get a bill from them for what you owe or any adjustments due to your errors), so if you're not claiming anything or have special forms, why is it needed? For people who do a standard deduction there should be nothing to file.

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

#340

Post by Freedom2 »

maccard wrote: post #310
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…

> Most UK employees don't do self assessment. PAYE is such a simple and obvious idea - routine taxation should be done by routine. Just to double down on this, what gerdesj is describing only affects a very small portion of workers. For those who _don't_ do the steps above the process is: - It's automatically taken out of your pay, and you don't do anything. That's it.

An argument can be made that since Americans are inherently distrustful of any forms of government whatsoever, it emboldens them if they feel like they're the one who has agency when submitting these forms to the IRS.
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