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Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

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Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#91

Post by complianceowl »

Alupis wrote: post #15
droptablemain wrote: post #2

If an entire industry can be killed by a public service, it probably didn't deserve to exist in the first place.

I disagree. If anything, this will compel the tax preparation software companies to get even better than before, and offer an increased value proposition. Competition benefits the consumer, and for a long while there's been limited, mostly fixed competition (via Brand awareness mostly). FreeTaxUSA is amazing, and cheap, but it does not yet have the brand power the incumbents do. It's unlikely the IRS offering will be…

> nor does it make for a more fair tax system (one where having means to access professionals reduces your perceived tax liability)

It's not that deep, man. Not everything in life has to be an all-or-nothing scenario. This is a big win for a solid percentage of Americans who have a relatively straight forward tax situation.

Tax fairness, IRS tyranny, bought-out politicians, corporatism -- let's leave that for another day.

Let's learn to celebrate wins no matter how small.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#92

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

droptablemain wrote: post #2

If an entire industry can be killed by a public service, it probably didn't deserve to exist in the first place.

I would not go that far, but it is hard not to notice how bad the main competitors in that space have gotten. They are using just about every single dark pattern they can possibly get away with. Some competition from a public service may be warranted in this case.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#93

Post by ssalka »

> eligibility to participate in the pilot...will be limited to taxpayers with certain types of income, credits and deductions – taxpayers with relatively simple returns. The IRS today announced it anticipates specific income types, such as wages on a Form W-2, and important tax credits, like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, will be covered by the Direct File pilot.

This is what I was mostly curious about. So, I'm guessing things like ISOs, AMT, capital gains from investments etc would not be supported by this service yet.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#94

Post by r00fus »

Alupis wrote: post #15
droptablemain wrote: post #2

If an entire industry can be killed by a public service, it probably didn't deserve to exist in the first place.

I disagree. If anything, this will compel the tax preparation software companies to get even better than before, and offer an increased value proposition. Competition benefits the consumer, and for a long while there's been limited, mostly fixed competition (via Brand awareness mostly). FreeTaxUSA is amazing, and cheap, but it does not yet have the brand power the incumbents do. It's unlikely the IRS offering will be…

Clearly @droptablemain was joking as a response to the hyperbolic reaction from the likes of Intuit et. al.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#95

Post by TylerE »

parhamn wrote: post #51

One thing I really want to see is an official form where if you answer all the questions, to the best of your knowledge correctly, protects you from liability for incorrectly filing your taxes. End of the day with TurboTax and co, you, as expected, get a "not our system, not our problem" type response when dealing with the post-filing ramifications. There seems to generally be a lot of "I'm not sure if I did it right…

It could be so much easier. In most of Europe "filing" your taxes involves getting a short letter essentially saying you made $x, and $y, with short return forms to either agree, or file an appeal.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#96

Post by dang »

greymalik wrote: post #73

Misleading title here that differs from the title in the linked article - it’s a pilot in 13 states, not generally available.

I've changed it now. Submitted title was "IRS will officially launch free online tax filing service for 2024 tax season".

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#97

Post by enahs-sf »

jjulius wrote: post #78

To clarify: This is not a full launch, it's just a "limited pilot" that will only be available in 13 states in 2024. Arizona California Florida Massachussetts Nevada New Hampshire New York South Dakota Tennessee Texas Washington Wyoming Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

AZ, CA, FL, TX, NY alone gets you to about 120m people. This is a pretty big first test.

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#98

Post by [deleted] »

dpifke wrote: post #80
nlh wrote: post #14

This is only tangentially-related, but I know I'm asking the right audience: I switched, blissfully, away from Quicken/Quickbook/Xero/all that heavy crap to very simple and elegant textfile-based accounting (ledger/hledger) and it's been the best and most flexible accounting experience I've ever had. I finally feel completely in control of my companies' books. Is there an equivalently-blissful tax-filing software/ser…

With Beancount, I use metadata tags in my chart of accounts for the tax form and line number, e.g. 2017-01-01 open Expenses:GA:Insurance USD tax_form: "1040 Schedule C" tax_line: "15" tax_description: "Insurance (other than health)" I can then report my transactions based on the tax_form and tax_line attribute, which gets me much of the way there. I still have to do the math on derived lines on the forms, but this at…

[deleted]

Re: Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states

#100

Post by dang »

vichle wrote: post #79

For real? Sweden has had this for like 15 years. Perhaps if you paid a bit more taxes your government wouldn't be so useless (:

Nationalistic flamebait is not allowed on HN, regardless of country, so please don't post like this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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