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FreeTaxUSA

freetaxusa.com

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Re: FreeTaxUSA

#71

Post by parl_match »

Kluggy wrote: post #59
parl_match wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just a narrative, it was a discrete reality for years and years. Intuit stopped actively lobbying the federal government relatively recently. They did this for a few reasons, not just the smoke and bad PR it was getting them, but also because you can't grow a market that you have essentially captured. Source: my company got acquired by intu and their new CEO was very and frequently open about their past bad…

so they're going to just allow their captured market to evaporate and disappear because it can't grow anymore? That makes so little sense to me

I didn't say that. And they're not doing that.

What I said was that they stopped lobbying congress and that the market can't be grown.

I said nothing about letting it "evaporate and disappear".

Re: FreeTaxUSA

#72

Post by foobarbazboff »

dkokelley wrote: post #50

Honest question: Why don't more people (especially high earners) go with a CPA firm to take care of their taxes? With the amount of money involved, and the potential legal trouble for getting it wrong, the cost/benefit calculation seems to strongly favor hiring a professional to guide you.

I think the main reason is that most people have very straightforward tax situations, regardless of the amount of money involved. A high earner at a W2 job doesn't necessarily have anything more to report than someone working at a fast food restaurant. The tax brackets are higher but it's really all the same.

Different story if you're self-employed, own a business, or are involved in various types of investments.

Re: FreeTaxUSA

#73

Post by renewiltord »

dkokelley wrote: post #50

Honest question: Why don't more people (especially high earners) go with a CPA firm to take care of their taxes? With the amount of money involved, and the potential legal trouble for getting it wrong, the cost/benefit calculation seems to strongly favor hiring a professional to guide you.

You have to verify their work.

Re: FreeTaxUSA

#74

Post by Timothee »

dkokelley wrote: post #50

Honest question: Why don't more people (especially high earners) go with a CPA firm to take care of their taxes? With the amount of money involved, and the potential legal trouble for getting it wrong, the cost/benefit calculation seems to strongly favor hiring a professional to guide you.

For me, I don't always go with a CPA because I've had bad experiences where they've made mistakes or didn't know about some basic things and I still ended up doing a lot of work to gather and pass along the information.

Re: FreeTaxUSA

#75

Post by Kluggy »

parl_match wrote: post #71
Kluggy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so they're going to just allow their captured market to evaporate and disappear because it can't grow anymore? That makes so little sense to me

I didn't say that. And they're not doing that. What I said was that they stopped lobbying congress and that the market can't be grown. I said nothing about letting it "evaporate and disappear".

Allowing the creation of a federal site to do free tax returns seems like it can only lead to the evaporation of their current customers. Who would pay them $150+ when you can just go to irs.gov/taxreturn (or whatever it is) and do it for free?

The lobbying was the only thing preventing that, so the stopping of lobbying seems like it is entirely giving up on the market.

Re: FreeTaxUSA

#76

Post by gavinhoward »

godelski wrote: post #67
gavinhoward wrote: post #55

I am a (fairly) close relative of an employee and a happy user. Feel free to ask me questions, and I'll pass them onto her! Also, FreeTaxUSA is not only great for users, but they are fantastic to employees. My relative got to go on a cruise this summer, and she claims their pay has more than kept up with inflation.

No question, but can you tell them thanks? I used TT for years and even as a student it was always a hassle and difficult to just use the free service without ending up on a screen that made me pay or redo everything. Edit: actually, a question. Can we add better 2FA? I know it is a once a year thing, but I'd prefer something better than email or phone number.

She says they have an Authenticator option now, which makes me happy because I've been asking for it too!

And I've passed on the thanks!

Re: FreeTaxUSA

#77

Post by vidanay »

dkokelley wrote: post #50

Honest question: Why don't more people (especially high earners) go with a CPA firm to take care of their taxes? With the amount of money involved, and the potential legal trouble for getting it wrong, the cost/benefit calculation seems to strongly favor hiring a professional to guide you.

I went to a tax preparer once in my life. All she did was read the questions from the "Turbo Tax for Professional Tax Preparers" software on her computer. Whenever there was a subject that I wasn't clear about, her "help" was to simply tell me option A and option B and ask me what I wanted to do.

Worst $500 spent in my life.

Re: FreeTaxUSA

#78

Post by sircastor »

I will probably try to go this route this year. Previous years I was using CreditKarma/Cash, and then before that TurboTax of course. I should probably get an actual accountant.

Does anyone else find this process a little fun? Finding all the opportunities for deductions?

Re: FreeTaxUSA

#79

Post by jmharvey »

dkokelley wrote: post #50

Honest question: Why don't more people (especially high earners) go with a CPA firm to take care of their taxes? With the amount of money involved, and the potential legal trouble for getting it wrong, the cost/benefit calculation seems to strongly favor hiring a professional to guide you.

CPAs aren't cheap, and most people's tax situations really aren't that complicated. Even for high earners with lots of investments, it mostly comes down to collecting a bunch of forms and either doing manual data entry or sending the forms to the CPA to do a bunch of data entry. It's not particularly clear that the CPA's work will be more accurate.

In a situation where there's some complex tax issue, absolutely, go with the professional, but for most people, the CPA is mainly there to provide peace of mind.

Also, if you make a good faith effort to pay your taxes correctly, the potential legal trouble for getting it wrong is pretty minimal. You'll need to pay the correct amount plus interest and penalties, but "interest and penalties" are pretty light (effectively 14% simple interest on the amount of the underpayment). And since the IRS doesn't usually take more than a couple of months to say, "hey, you screwed up," interest and penalties usually add up to like 3% of your underpayment.

Re: FreeTaxUSA

#80

Post by gavinhoward »

herpdyderp wrote: post #69
gavinhoward wrote: post #55

I am a (fairly) close relative of an employee and a happy user. Feel free to ask me questions, and I'll pass them onto her! Also, FreeTaxUSA is not only great for users, but they are fantastic to employees. My relative got to go on a cruise this summer, and she claims their pay has more than kept up with inflation.

I barely know anything about taxes but I've heard restructuring an LLC into an S corp can help specific tax situations but you have to have a firm handle it so you can pay out taxes every month instead of only once a year. Is that something FTU can do?

She says they don't handle paying out taxes, just the taxes from receiving contributions. Sorry.

You can see more detail here: https://www.freetaxusa.com/self-employed .

For my part, I have an LLC that is not an S Corp. The reason is that you have to pay yourself a wage, and programmer wages are R&D. I think the rules were changed recently such that R&D can't be fully expensed.

But talk to a professional.

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