IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free • Hacker News Board

Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free

#51

Post by jcranmer » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 1:18 AM UTC

HaloZero wrote: post #33

KyleJune wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point is it recommended to not use a software like freetaxusa? I've been using it for years.

I volunteer with VITA and do taxes a lot but not a full time accountant. I've been doing my own taxes for years. I would say you need your own accountant and not software if: 1) You have complexities involving trusts/inheritance 2) Anything involving crypto (this is just a grey area to me and things change) 3) Anything that sounds more complex than anything above. If you're getting a bunch of 1099-DIVs/INT & W2/W9s i…

4) You run your own business.

5) Foreign income, other than simple investment income (e.g., own stocks in foreign companies).

Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free

#52

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 1:20 AM UTC

gavinhoward wrote: post #42

wespad wrote: post #19

https://www.freetaxusa.com/ and their parent company https://www.taxhawk.com/ They charge $14.99 for the state filing. Usually a coupon code available. Or go to the state's website (CA at least), and file that for free, too. But for the convenience of not having to input my info again, I'll pay their fee.

Relative of a TaxHawk employee here. I'd be happy to pass along any bugs or issues since they probably don't have any employees on HN. Also, supporting TaxHawk means supporting a company that cares about their employees. They have done so many things for my relative that it makes me jealous. They have also kept raising wages ahead of inflation . Anyway, TaxHawk is a great company to support!

[deleted]

Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free

#53

Post by IgorPartola » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 1:21 AM UTC

coderintherye wrote: post #9

bobro wrote: post #7

I tried the fillable forms in previous years. They certainly aren’t easy and don’t make you confident you are filing an accurate form. Paying $50-100 to save a few hours and a lot of worrying is well worth it to me, even if along the way I bemoan the complexity and inaccessibility of the current tax system.

I'm not going to claim they are easy, but they are accurate (they have a Do The Math calculation button). Even if you mess up, the IRS will typically send you a response noting where their calculations diverged from yours and offer to automatically adjust. (Which denotes the absurdity of this exercise for most taxpayers because the IRS already has all the information it needs to complete your taxes).

Yup. I suppose they can use the cell phone tracking to figure how many miles you’ve put on your personal vehicle and use AI to figure out how many were business use miles. /s

In reality only if you take standard deductions and only get paid with a W-2 can they actually figure it out. But I agree that overall the process is messed up.

Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free

#54

Post by nostromo » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 1:21 AM UTC

itslennysfault wrote: post #47

I've been using https://TaxFreeUSA.com for the past 5 years, and it's great. Just as intuitive as TurboTax, but totally free for federal (you pay for state, but I lived in WA until this year so it was totally free). Also, I sleep better at night knowing I'm not giving money to Intuit who is the largest lobbyist that keeps tax codes complex.

Intuit does not "keep tax codes complex" -- your legislators do that all on their own.

Intuit does try to prevent the IRS from making it easier to file electronically for free -- that much is true.

Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free

#55

Post by georgemcbay » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 1:21 AM UTC

tekla wrote: post #17

baby wrote: post #10

Why do I even have to do anything? Just take it from my paycheck directly

The IRS is not actually a godly being that has omniscient knowledge of every transaction that ever goes on and in the future. How is the IRS supposed to figure out how much money to take away from your W2 when you could get a billion dollar windfall at the end of the year and massively change tax bracket?

> The IRS is not actually a godly being that has omniscient knowledge of every transaction that ever goes on and in the future.

For the majority of people they have complete knowledge of everything you are going to report. If you don't believe this its easy to test: file your taxes with omissions and see how quickly they contact you to let you know you messed up.

There should absolutely be an option where you just tell the IRS to figure it out based on electronic reports that are already being reported to them from your employer's payroll system and other sources and have it just show you a summary that you checkmark (or override if you're one of the minority that has an exceptional case).

This is basically what things like TurboTax do for most people, most users rarely enter much of anything, the data is pulled from databases that have the same data that was already forwarded to the IRS. But of course there's a fairly substantial price for this 'convenience' when it should be built into the federal tax system and free for everyone to use as it is in some other countries.

What's stopping this from being the norm isn't the small percentage of exceptional cases but rather lobbying from Intuit, etc.

Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free

#56

Post by fear_and_coffee » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 1:26 AM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #5

olliej wrote: post #2

Remember H&R Block, TurboTax, etc have all been caught tricking people into paying for free services, so watch out when using them if you are expecting free filing. Of course, this doesn't change the US Tax code being intentionally designed to be easy to make errors that can lead to significant fines.

[deleted]

[dead]

Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free

#57

Post by sublinear » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 1:26 AM UTC

throwaway98797 wrote: post #21

sublinear wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense intended, but my taxes must be a lot simpler than yours because I do the Free File forms in about 30 minutes every year.

1099s, K1s, SEPs, list goes on add in retirement trusts owned by self directed IRAs invested in leveraged real estate and id love to see a 30 min tax return i pay $1k and spend a few hours setting data up to give to the accountant oh let’s not even consider the mess crypto or poker winnings are

> id love to see a 30 min tax return

That looks like one or two W2s, maybe a 1099, deductions, no state taxes, capital gains... and that's about it.

Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free

#58

Post by itake » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 1:27 AM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #51

HaloZero wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I volunteer with VITA and do taxes a lot but not a full time accountant. I've been doing my own taxes for years. I would say you need your own accountant and not software if: 1) You have complexities involving trusts/inheritance 2) Anything involving crypto (this is just a grey area to me and things change) 3) Anything that sounds more complex than anything above. If you're getting a bunch of 1099-DIVs/INT & W2/W9s i…

4) You run your own business. 5) Foreign income, other than simple investment income (e.g., own stocks in foreign companies).

6) your employer submits incorrect w2s

Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free

#59

Post by autoexec » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 1:30 AM UTC

neilv wrote: post #39

Looks like IRS Free File Fillable Forms isn't yet available for 2022 Tax Year returns. Also looks like that's the only IRS e-File option for AGI over $73K that doesn't involve using a commercial software/service (which I assume will probably sell user's financial data, and then also let it get breached).

That's my assumption too. There's no reason why the IRS can't create something that walks people through their own rules. Their list of "providers" is always filled with the most sketchiest sounding companies. ezTaxReturn.com FileYourTaxes.com 1040now.net and TaxSlayer.com sound like scam domains you'd see in a phishing email or a late night TV ad.

People shouldn't have to surrender their data to third parties just to have a website walk them through their taxes.

Re: IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free

#60

Post by paxys » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 1:32 AM UTC

neilv wrote: post #31

paxys wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, paying 20 bucks just for a better user interface and a step-by-step guide is absolutely worth the money.

Is the reality not just paying 20 bucks, but also paying having your data both sold and eventually also breached?

You can download the software (TurboTax, H&R Block, maybe others) and run it on your own machine and eFile on IRS directly. The data never has to leave your computer.