71–80 of 148 posts
How many articles are we going to have on this?
As many as it takes for Congress to change the asinine laws that make it so the IRS has us search for and input information it already has about us.
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Is there even a reason we have to file? My understanding is that if you don't file, the IRS knows about your W2 or 1099s anyway and will punish you, so what's even the point of filing yourself? Just have the IRS send a check or bill in the mail in April and end this nonsense industry.
Do you know how tax withholding works in other countries? Like if you have two jobs, does one have to know about the other so that they know which bracket the salaries they pay you fall into?
Not that it really matters though, it all comes out in the wash.
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> It probably takes only a weekend for me to do this Seriously? I know there are "10x" developers out there (I actually have worked alongside one extensively) but the PDF export of all the forms and IRS eFile integration alone seems like it would take a little longer than a weekend, even for an extremely prolific developer.
Thanks for the advice, I didn't think it would be this complex when I posted the comment. Because, where I live, it's really a breeze to file taxes online. So, I had my mind setup ("How hard could this be?") until I saw another commenter's linked PDF that had about 200+ pages of spec.
Heh you are off by an order of magnitude there. The linked pdf is only pub 17. There are numerous other publications you'd need to include to actually implement fully correct software for this.
For one relatively trivial example, if we see page 255 of pub 17, it describes the tax computation work sheet. But wait, there's more! If you have dividends or capital gains, you need a different worksheet, which is in a different publication, Mario.
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Can you give me a specific example of something that you think would be very complex? Just to make sure I'm not missing out on something obvious.
Here's the spec. It's only 289 pages and changes almost every year. Good luck! https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p17.pdf
I'm still trying to figure out how to unwind the mess with California. I've just been hit with this warning (after trying to log in, being forced to change my password, and attempting to find the landing page):
You are about to leave the EDD's Employer Services Online website and will be taken to the EDD's Employer Services Online web page. The Employer Services Online web page will open in a new tab.
FWIW, Turbotax/H&R's hiding of their Free File site pages was discussed here about a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19758126 They have since made their pages discoverable by search engines and have denied that it was intentional obfuscation. But the news in TFA is that apparently someone at (or formerly at) H&R leaked internal documents with explicit guidance: > “Do not send clients to this Web Site u…
Is there even a reason we have to file? My understanding is that if you don't file, the IRS knows about your W2 or 1099s anyway and will punish you, so what's even the point of filing yourself? Just have the IRS send a check or bill in the mail in April and end this nonsense industry.
There are also multiple ways of doing things, and picking one path may be strategic to you (if you expect more or less income in the following years). Giving up on this flexibility and its ramifications will affect your outcome negatively.
For simple filings, yes, it should be possible for them to give you a bill that is close to what you'd compute yourself.
This is my experience for the US system.
How many articles are we going to have on this?
I feel like at least 1-2 times per week until next tax season and perhaps daily once W2s start coming in for 2019. Free tax filing seems one of the biggest issue people are facing in USA.
I have had this discussion many many times with many people.
I get it, filing taxes could be easier but it isn't - on the scale of things to worry about, is it really that important? What about on the scale of things that government is inefficient at - does this rank in the top 1000?
Again, I'm not saying we can't improve it, and I agree with calls for the IRS (and CRA) to send pre-filled forms. What I'm calling into question is the outsize coverage that this particular issue got over the last few weeks as certain Democratic nominees (Elizabeth Warren) decided this was the path to their relevance.
The real blame is Congress for making such a complex tax system will all their attempts to keep their offices secure. The tax system used to have meaning but generations of politicians found they could reward and punish with it and they did so with abandon.
The system should never had become so complex as to need a program. If your middle class or higher the chances you need more than 1040A/1040EZ put you into the category it just isn't worth the risk to do them without guidance and that is where Congress should be taken to task.
Now one good effect of that "Republican" tax change was the standard deduction got pushed so high most people will never need to itemize again. It also increased the progressiveness of the tax system by that and other changes. I guess if we cannot rid ourselves of all those tax laws that make itemization the punish/reward system it is then just raising the standard deduction is best.
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> It probably takes only a weekend for me to do this and I'll be happy to do it if there is significant interest from my fellow HNers. I think you are underestimating by a long shot. Let's say that you forgo any UI and just make a command line tool that only developers use. And let's assume that you don't have tests, don't have any bugs, no any significant things that trip you up. To get something useful, you would n…
Don't forget that just because you can doesn't mean you should. You can deduct your home office, but then you depreciate the room: when you sell you need to figure capital gains differently on that room. The above might or might not apply depending on exact details and how the tax laws change over time.
The issue is more than free filing. Everything seems to be broken. I helped my brother in law file for an extension through the IRS web site. The IRS directed us to private companies including TurboTax to file the extension. We clicked on the free TurboTax link which nowhere had an ability to file for an extension! I finally told my brother in law to print the extension form and mail it to the IRS. The IRS should not…
What was wrong with this to begin with?