It's SUCH a win that they managed to roll this out to a small set of tax situations and states to start. Every government project I've been on has required creativity in defining an MVP that doesn't include shipping to everyone. This was cited consistently as one of the great successes of this project, they were able to ship something that successfully filed 150k taxes b/c they were able to scope things down to something doable in 9 months.
IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season
81–90 of 338 posts
Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season
#82My son tried Direct File in New York and had trouble signing up for it I think because he was filing for the first time and has no credit history. They make the process arduous because it’s a common scam to fill out a fake return — I had an uncle who worked for the IRS in the 1990s and he told me they were overwhelmed with this even then.
We were put in line for 40 minutes to talk to someone to validate his id. Maybe it would not have been so bad if we had not procrastinated but we managed to print out the 1040 form and the corresponding New York form and file on paper before we got to the end of the line. I think he would have struggled to fill it out on his own but I have filled out easy and hard 1040s many times and I found it easy.
Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season
#83> Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), an accountant and senior member of the House Financial Services Committee, told Axios in April that he wants to go "way beyond Direct File," calling for a "self-populating form." > > "Why in the heck should you have to fill out your return when the government has all the information. They know what's on your W-2 form before you do. They know what's on your 1099 … Do you know how many m…
This works against the governments interest, as they'll lose revenue from all the fines they give to people who accidentally fuck up their tax return.
Most returns are not audited, and most screw-ups don't result in fines. The kind of thing that (sometimes) gets big fines is sophisticated shenanigans done by rich people, and completely preparing such a complex return is (imho) way out of scope for the 'tax automation' we are speaking about here, where a basic 1040A or 1040EZ (simple forms which a massive plurality of Americans are eligible to use) can be populated entirely from IRS-known data.
Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do get a 20% bonus at this company and I think it is attributed to that. It was my first time getting that bonus. What do I even do here? Talk to HR? I don't think I can do anything and just suck it up and pay it and expect it next year? I dunno.
so you made 25% more than you usually do and are wondering why you have to pay more in tax?
Yep, here we go, the condescension of Hn. The point is they know my exact income and should be able to handle it, not make me figure it out at the end of the year. I have no idea why I got a random $5k bill. It could be something else. And that's the annoyance.
Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How volatile is this to the political winds? Very. Had the GOP won the senate in 2022, this would have probably been cut already. Depending on how this November goes the policy could definitely be reversed. > Something like this, in order to be permanent, needs congressional approval. This program did come from Congress. It was apart of the inflation reduction act.
It's a huge problem that when the opposition comes into power, they immediately try to revert and undermine what the previous party did. Not because of merit, but just because of partisanship. So you end up with a lot of programs that get started and after a while get repealed or maintained badly. This costs the country a lot of money. The ACA is a classical example. Instead of improving it or proposing a real replac…
> ACA is a classical example. Instead of improving it or proposing a real replacement, they campaign for repealing it
The GOP has controlled the government mulitple times since ACA passed. That nothing was done shows it's a talking point.
Legislation is hard to overturn. Executive actions, less so.
Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season
#86I would argue that having to file taxes through a 3rd party accountant or service is not only forced commerce but also broken glass economics. Looks like it helps the economy by creating jobs but the job is redundant and does not create anything of value. Where are crimes more likely to occur, a city with 10,000 or 1 million? Where are financial crimes more likely to occur, people that make $10,000 a year or people t…
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Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a huge problem that when the opposition comes into power, they immediately try to revert and undermine what the previous party did. Not because of merit, but just because of partisanship. So you end up with a lot of programs that get started and after a while get repealed or maintained badly. This costs the country a lot of money. The ACA is a classical example. Instead of improving it or proposing a real replac…
Please provide examples of Democrats undoing good policy/legislation just because it was passed by a prior Republican administration.
"Please provide examples of Democrats undoing good policy/legislation just because it was passed by a prior Republican administration."
It's going to be hard to argue with people on the basis of what was "good". That's subjective, and the very basis for why there are separate parties.
Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season
#88I would argue that having to file taxes through a 3rd party accountant or service is not only forced commerce but also broken glass economics. Looks like it helps the economy by creating jobs but the job is redundant and does not create anything of value. Where are crimes more likely to occur, a city with 10,000 or 1 million? Where are financial crimes more likely to occur, people that make $10,000 a year or people t…
Conventional wisdom is that if one can fund the IRS with one extra dollar, and they use that dollar to collect two dollars more taxes (from evaders), than that was a good way to spend taxpayers money.
Many economists don't agree though. If you care about economic success of the country, the goal isn't 'collect as many taxes as possible'. The goal is to make the citizens wealthier in real terms.
Effort your citizens put into tax collection is 'dead weight', and doesn't contribute to exports etc. However, effort your citizens put into trade that (for various reasons) ends up under-taxed, usually does add to the economic wellbeing of citizens.
Therefore, it's only necessary to collect mostly-correct taxes from most citizens, if doing so let's you redirect labour from tax collection into other work.
Is it unfair? Yes. But it's still good economic policy.
Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season
#89How volatile is this to the political winds? As the article makes clear this was largely done with the support of the current incumbent, but what if the next one is more amenable to TurboTax's ideas? That seems to be an ongoing headache in the US with executive branch created programs, courts can just immediately squish them or political winds can change, then they're suddenly gone. Something like this, in order to b…
> How volatile is this to the political winds? Very. Had the GOP won the senate in 2022, this would have probably been cut already. Depending on how this November goes the policy could definitely be reversed. > Something like this, in order to be permanent, needs congressional approval. This program did come from Congress. It was apart of the inflation reduction act.
> Very
To underscore this, the IRS is not an independent agency [1], but a bureau of the Treasury.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_agencies_of_the_Un...
Re: IRS Direct File to open to all 50 states and D.C. for 2025 tax season
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please provide examples of Democrats undoing good policy/legislation just because it was passed by a prior Republican administration.
"Please provide examples of Democrats undoing good policy/legislation just because it was passed by a prior Republican administration." It's going to be hard to argue with people on the basis of what was "good". That's subjective, and the very basis for why there are separate parties.
> going to be hard to argue with people on the basis of what was "good"
I'd expand this to examples of either party undoing legislation the other championed and passed. It's exceedingly rare, in large part by design.