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Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

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Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#451

Post by kwhitefoot »

atoav wrote: post #77
fsloth wrote: post #25

Oh man, I've had government provided automatic filings for ages now (Finland). US is really odd how it emphasizes the benefit of the middleman over the benefit of the individual citizen (it seems). Or have I completely misunderstood what's going on here?

I live in Germany, which is said to have one of the most complicated tax systems known to man. If I had one (realistic) wish for a German government, it would be to do it like Finland. Sadly there is a whole branch of people working on this, without any interest to make it easier..

Norway is very simple too. Most people can just do nothing at all. The way it works is that the tax authority creates a proposed tax record and notifies you by SMS or email or both or even by letter if you ask for it. If you agree that it is correct you don't need to do anything at all, otherwise you log in to the web site and adjust whatever needs adjusting in a bunch of simple forms.

The tax authorities also have a duty to calculate the taxes in the way that benefits you most.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#452

Post by DubiousPusher »

mindcandy wrote: post #399
DubiousPusher wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I say it's not a bribe I mean in the classic "quid pro quo" sense. I certainly think it's not a great way to run a republic. My point is exactly that it's cheap because the representatives aren't looking to get rich off that money. It's cheap because they're just buying 20 minutes of time.

Politicians don’t put the bribes in their pockets. They put them in their re-election campaigns because without those bribes they will get voted out of office by The People in favor of an opponent with a larger, bribe-based ad budget. They don’t want the bribes, they need them just to stay in power. In return, the real goal of “access” is to hear what the bribing company wants written into law or else the bribes will…

> Politicians don’t put the bribes in their pockets.

That is also my understating. That is where the revolving door comes in. Many a career Senator or House member has capped off a career with a lobbying job. It's also good to note that most people who ever sit in the House or Senate were quite wealthy before running. You kind of have to be.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/09/how-did...

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#453

Post by kristopolous »

dosy wrote: post #441
xbryanx wrote: post #8

This is pure anecdote, but... A NOAA employee told me about the time their boss caught holy hell from a Senator because the NWS had the gall to update a particular weather product they offered by adding color to the map. Evidently someone had a business essentially downloading the free NOAA data and improving it by coloring the maps and selling that as a product. When NOAA made it free, they called their Senator in a…

this is stupid. shouldn't free market competition include government services?

Free market dogma is a scam: an intellectual framework invented to rationalize a position.

There's a long history of people doing these things such as with monarchist theory or eugenics for colonialism and slavery. People have theories and frameworks to justify misogyny, child abuse and being harsh to homeless people.

In this case it's an ability to do whatever you want to make money without any oversight, laws, restrictions, or limitations. Being against unethical things such as sweatshops, lying to consumers, or vulture capitalism is itself unethical because it "interferes with the market" oh dear!

It's a symmetrical theoretical framework with beautiful equations to rationalize an otherwise indefensible power structure and insulate reprehensible criminal behavior as essentially the Unquestionable Divine Will.

When anyone justifies things through purity or perfection arguments they're likely pulling a fast one on you. In fact it's this fast one. This exact technique.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#454

Post by aaaaaar »

xbryanx wrote: post #8

This is pure anecdote, but... A NOAA employee told me about the time their boss caught holy hell from a Senator because the NWS had the gall to update a particular weather product they offered by adding color to the map. Evidently someone had a business essentially downloading the free NOAA data and improving it by coloring the maps and selling that as a product. When NOAA made it free, they called their Senator in a…

By what power vested in the senator can they slap NOAA's wrist?

Is it just the importance and influence by being a senator? Or is there some direct control? Or via a threat to cut funding?

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#456

Post by ncallaway »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #177
jonathankoren wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pen. Seriously. I used TurboTax this year, and honestly I was underwhelmed, especially when it came to the state forms. It didn’t really seem like it did much, and the California form experience were full of obvious bugs. Questions with no context. (“Enter city 2”) Questions being given out of order. PDFs being viewed through a mail slot. PDF forms where the entry blanks and the entries would scroll at different…

I'm thinking about self-filing this year. Although, I'm really running down to the wire. It's basically as easy as filing out a W2 if you're a full-time salaried employee with no deductions, right?

It's really not that bad.

I have to file mildly complicated taxes due to getting my income from a partnership, and even that I can do in a couple hours by following the 1040 instructions, and the filling out any ancillary schedules that are required.

If you have straightforward W2 income, taking the standard deduction, and a reasonable number of retirement or investment accounts, it should take you an hour to fill out the form following the instructions. Maybe plan on a couple hours the first year, while you get used to it, but it's no so bad.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#457

Post by atticmanatee »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #451
atoav wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Germany, which is said to have one of the most complicated tax systems known to man. If I had one (realistic) wish for a German government, it would be to do it like Finland. Sadly there is a whole branch of people working on this, without any interest to make it easier..

Norway is very simple too. Most people can just do nothing at all. The way it works is that the tax authority creates a proposed tax record and notifies you by SMS or email or both or even by letter if you ask for it. If you agree that it is correct you don't need to do anything at all, otherwise you log in to the web site and adjust whatever needs adjusting in a bunch of simple forms. The tax authorities also have a…

In Portugal, of all places, it’s just a web form. This year it took me a grand total of 3 minutes to review all info and less than 10 clicks after logging in.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#458

Post by fock »

baroffoos wrote: post #455

From what I understand, there are a lot of businesses that make money off the system being very complex but what is stopping an open source program being created that does everything for you like the paid tools do?

probably the lack of an open API, which is stable? (at least that's the case around here)

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#459

Post by dosy »

kristopolous wrote: post #453
dosy wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is stupid. shouldn't free market competition include government services?

Free market dogma is a scam: an intellectual framework invented to rationalize a position. There's a long history of people doing these things such as with monarchist theory or eugenics for colonialism and slavery. People have theories and frameworks to justify misogyny, child abuse and being harsh to homeless people. In this case it's an ability to do whatever you want to make money without any oversight, laws, rest…

I definitely agree that the intentions of the ruling elite will be formalized into nice-sounding theories, irrespective of their faithfulness to reality or their utility outside of supporting the system of rule. Marxism for example

and you can replace ruling elite, with people who want to be that. Then you get notions like identity politics, feminism, cultural Marxism, misandry, racism.

There's an interesting second order effect here as well, that drives the narrative aggression and dissent shaming today. Democracies need to create as many of these competing theories as they can to keep people locked in constant conflict and division.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#460

Post by HashThis »

Calloggs wrote: post #298

Planet Money covered tax filing a few years ago and visited it again recently: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor... My understanding is that the main opposition appears to be (1) the tax preparation lobby to protect their business interests and (2) anti-tax activists that believe that making people calculate their own taxes will make them more aware of how much they are paying in taxes. The…

Congress sells out the american people. Congress doesn't work for the American people. Congress works for moneyed interests (corporations). This is congress aiding crony capitalist theft
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