IRS To Begin Trial of Its Own Free Tax-Filing System (nytimes.com) 96
The Internal Revenue Service is rolling out a free option for filing federal tax returns this year to some residents of a dozen states. From a report: Last month, the agency published details of its plan to test an in-house filing system, in which taxpayers submit their federal tax returns directly to the agency online at no cost. Residents of 12 states are eligible to participate if they meet certain criteria. "This is a critical step forward for this innovative effort that will test the feasibility of providing taxpayers a new option to file their returns for free directly with the I.R.S.," Danny Werfel, the agency's commissioner, said in a recent statement.
While the direct filing system is starting on a limited basis, it has already faced some resistance, particularly from commercial tax-preparation companies. A spokeswoman for Intuit, Tania Mercado, criticized the direct file project as a "half-baked solution" and a waste of taxpayer money. "The direct file scheme is a solution in search of a problem," she said. Intuit makes the TurboTax tax preparation software. Democrats in Congress generally support the idea of free, direct filing, while Republicans contend that the idea, part of President Biden's plan to overhaul the I.R.S., would give the agency even more power over ordinary taxpayers. US lawmakers said earlier this month that federal tax credits that Intuit received could have been better spent to build a free government alternative to Intuit's popular online tax preparation software TurboTax. The IRS estimates it would cost $64 million to $249 million annually for the agency to run a free-filing program. In the fiscal year ending in July 2023, Mountain View, California-based Intuit received $106 million in federal research and experimentation credits, which amounted to about 4% of its total R&D expenses, according to a regulatory filing.
While the direct filing system is starting on a limited basis, it has already faced some resistance, particularly from commercial tax-preparation companies. A spokeswoman for Intuit, Tania Mercado, criticized the direct file project as a "half-baked solution" and a waste of taxpayer money. "The direct file scheme is a solution in search of a problem," she said. Intuit makes the TurboTax tax preparation software. Democrats in Congress generally support the idea of free, direct filing, while Republicans contend that the idea, part of President Biden's plan to overhaul the I.R.S., would give the agency even more power over ordinary taxpayers. US lawmakers said earlier this month that federal tax credits that Intuit received could have been better spent to build a free government alternative to Intuit's popular online tax preparation software TurboTax. The IRS estimates it would cost $64 million to $249 million annually for the agency to run a free-filing program. In the fiscal year ending in July 2023, Mountain View, California-based Intuit received $106 million in federal research and experimentation credits, which amounted to about 4% of its total R&D expenses, according to a regulatory filing.
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Ah yes the taxes=theft crowd. I trust you have waived all emergency services (fire police EMT) and only travel on private toll roads.
Re: IRS System Leaked (Score:2, Insightful)
The US barely has any entitlements at all relative to the modern world
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You can't help someone who doesn't want help. That's rule one in treating addiction. They have to decide they need help and seek it. Many people simply don't believe they have a problem and won't listen to reason. It's sad, but it's true.
Re: IRS System Leaked (Score:1)
Addiction affects the function of your brain, drug addiction doubly so.
Victim blaming is a bad look.
Keep it up so we all can see what you are.
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Victim blaming is a bad look.
Usual "defense" based on emotion and not facts: blame the person pointing out the facts as the one in the wrong because you don't like the way the facts make you feel. We spend billions in the US teaching our kids that drugs are a bad idea and yet the users decide, on their own, to take them anyway. It's unfortunate and nobody outside of the dealer and user community like that fact, but that fact is the fact. When somebody tells you, "Hey, don't cut your arm off," and then you choose to do it anyway, well,
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They need to be made to "drink" in the form of involuntary commitment to an insane asylum, like the good old days before the public space was a complete shithole.
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You're absolutely correct, and proof of that is the 1000's of migrants that come into the country with nothing and are more than happy to get with whatever program will feed, educate, house, and get them a job.
Which means whatever money does trickle down to the homeless is being pissed away too.
Nonprofits vary in C-level pay (Score:1)
Some non-profits want leadership that is "in it for the mission, not the money." These may either have volunteer-only leadership or pay the leadership "a living wage" or even a "middle class lifestyle wage" but refrain from hiring anyone who is "in it for the C-level paycheck."
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Because people like you insist on privatization, rather than the LOWER cost of government-run.
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Look at the homeless industrial complex and tell me there's no entitlements. BILLIONS being pissed away to "non-profits" creating a maze of paperwork the public has to sift through to do any real auditing.
Let's start with the churches. Why in the world should they be tax-exempt?
Re:IRS System Leaked (Score:4, Insightful)
You misspelled "the military"
He did not, and is, in fact, correct about what he posted. "The military" was $766B in FY2023 [govinfo.gov] out of a $5.685T budget, or about 13.5% which is rather far from a "majority." Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid were $2.7T, about 47.5% of the budget. If you add in other social spending (e.g. housing assistance, food assistance, etc) then "the majority of spending was on entitlements" is an absolutely true statement.
I am not making a value judgement, simply stating fact.
Re:IRS System Leaked (Score:4, Informative)
You have to subtract social security. It's not in the same class a medicaid, housing assistance, food programs, etc which are systems to bail you out if you fail in life. It's an account you pay into for your own retirement. It is your money, not the governments. Rather than labeling it as an entitlement they can take from us we need to vote out every one of them that stole from our retirements. Only once that is done can we develop a plan to pay us back for that theft. Once we are all made whole we can talk about replacing it with something that can't be stolen from us.
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"It's an account you pay into for your own retirement. It is your money, not the governments."
If that's the way you've been told the program works, no wonder you're bitterly opposed to changes.
https://www.aarp.org/retiremen... [aarp.org]
"Myth #7: Social Security is like a retirement savings account
The facts: The government does not stow your payroll tax contributions in a personal account for you, to be paid out with interest when you retire. Your benefit is based on how much money you earned over your working life, n
Re:IRS System Leaked (Score:4, Informative)
We like to claim the money was spent in previous retirees, but in reality it was mismanaged. Of course you get more out of it than you pay in. I get more out of my 401k than I pay in. As an example Bush "borrowed" $708 billion from social security and spent it on the war and on income tax cuts, but also on the financial bailout of 2008. Further more the Social Security program has accrued close to $2.9 trillion in net cash surpluses since its inception, with nearly all of this amount being generated over the past 35 years. Put another way, the program has collected more money than it's expended every year since 1983.
So where is that money going? Some of us are in our 40s now, our retirement plans are based on the assumption that our social security will be at least X dollars combined with our 401ks, IRAs, and other savings. Any change to negative is literally food out of our mouths. Food we paid for with the promise of a benefit. Any change to this program should only affect those who are too young to have paid into the program, or be retro for amounts paid after the inception date. This is what I mean by stealing. I know there isn't a single account with $x from me in it earning interest. That would be the proper way to do it and the government would never pick that. Instead the picked a way to leverage this money with the promise to pay it back, then as they realize they won't be able to pay it back, they reduce the benefit and tell you that free loaders are living off of it and it's their fault.
My wife and I should get $6300 a month in SSI benefits. That's a fairly large amount of money that has been paid into a system and has major implications in my retirement if it's cut as republicans suggest. It's my #1 issue over all others. I want to retire and I'm not going to support anyone who will take that from me.
Re: IRS System Leaked (Score:2)
The excess money is spent on US Treasury bonds. The bonds are held until they must be sold to finance SSA operations (including benefits) or until they mature, and the proceeds are then either spent on SSA operations or reinvested into T-bonds. Social Security currently holds a bit under $3 trillion in such bonds.
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then as they realize they won't be able to pay it back
That is what kills me. There is more than enough money floating around to pay it back. They just don't want to. The only thing they are willing to give you is a middle finger for being so weak as to allow the money to be taken from you.
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Rather than labeling it as an entitlement they can take from us we need to vote out every one of them that stole from our retirements. Only once that is done can we develop a plan to pay us back for that theft.
Ummm, that is NOT how any of this works. They take your money and rather than pay you back, they kill you. You will NEVER see that money ever again unless you are watching a missile being launched.
This is America. If your money was stolen, you just weren't holding onto it tight enough. Your fault, deal with it.
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It is your money, not the governments.
While I agree with you, it would seem government officials do not. If it were truly mine I could do with it as I please but that is not the case.
Re: IRS System Leaked (Score:2)
Pause.
How did this convo go from not knowing how much of our taxes actually go to fire & EMS, - obviously state and local funding, to federal entitlement spending, and THE two programs that have their own fucking line items on your taxes?
Entitlements like ... (Score:1)
Not living in a society where those that can't work beg on the streets or die (OK, we have some of that, but nothing like a century ago)?
Not living in a society where if I lose my job and drain my assets I still get some basic free medical services ("Medicaid" - not much, but better than nothing)?
Not living in a society where working people are, in effect, forced to contribute something to their own retirement so they are less likely to be begging on the streets in their old age (Social Security)?
There are
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Hmm...defense, ONE of the FEW things the US Federal Govt. is actually charged with responsibility for per the limited, enumerated roles and responsibilities granted by the US Constitution.
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Nice propaganda. UTTERLY UNTRUE.
Social security is funded BY IT'S OWN TAX, that you and your employers pay into (since they don't pay pensions any more).
And you're all for American business being at a disadvantage, having to pay massive premiums on every employee, rather than the US having a national FAR cheaper healthcare system.
Prove it? Sure: before I retired in '19, my company was spending over $12k/yr on my benefits, mostly medical, and I was putting in another several thou.
Meanwhile, the last time I l
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EMT services are not free. Around here, a "free" ride to the emergency room on the fire department's ambulance will run you $900. Unless you are a derelict or illegal alien, of course, in which case there is no charge.
Just send a receipt and offer a voluntary re-file (Score:1)
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Whoosh
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The Tea Party was formed during the Bush 2 administration in response to the bailouts.
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You talk like there's no repercussion for not paying taxes any more and obviously that isn't true. Plus, I can see you're a conservative but do you really have a problem with the current system over a person showing up at your door demanding money? I know change is hard for you but sometimes change is for the better.
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So the above poster (you?) references the tea party movement as a means of change and bitches in absurd manner about how things were better once upon a time and I'm the bad guy for assuming "conservative". Give me a break with your tantrum.
Also, I think you're the one that needs glasses. I said you were a conservative not a Republican.
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Oops, that was you. I thought I saw an AC post as the parent. I guess we both need glasses then.
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Hahahaha. I'm getting shit talked by someone who can't get their head around how talking about how much better things were once upon a time and tea party references make them sound like a conservative. Thanks for the laugh.
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I'm glad you can find amusement in your own ignorance. Kudos. Most people don't have that ability.
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No, I just enjoy laughing at people who can't admit they've had their head up their ass and all the lame excuses they'll make to avoid doing so. It's an endless thing with people like you so might as well just give up and laugh at them instead. I don't need to be "right" like you do.
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Huh?
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It was fine til some gay ass governement decided to take away the native land from its rightful owners, genocide them all, buy slaves to work the stolen land and then convince its citizens that everything is good.
Invasion -> displacement -> enslavement/genocide has been happening since antiquity. It's even in the Bible, where God commanded the Hebrews to "take possession of" the "promised land" and in some cases expel or obliterate the inhabitants. Granted, in the same Bible, God promised the "promised land" to the descendants of Abraham centuries earlier, and it's not clear who, if anyone, was occupying the land when the promise was made.
I'm sure similar things happened throughout the world in antiquity, in
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All governments are jerks. Anarchy 4 life.
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Remember when there was a guy wearing a fedora would come to your business and collect taxes?
Nope, I'm not that old. But if anyone out there is old enough to remember, they are officially entitled to say "Get off my lawn!"
Back to geeky topics: I DO remember when a Linux distribution wearing a red fedora wasn't owned by a large corporate enterprise and you could buy a boxed set of floppies with a dead-tree-form book in your local computer store.
Re:slight conflict of interest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Free filers have to be taking the standard deduction, so there's not typically much else to find.
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We've had something like this *online* in the UK for years, a dead-tree "self assessment" form for decades and even before the modern "self assessment" anybody could still file their own tax return for free as long as they were capable of presenting it clearly. Plus, if you're a simple wage slave with savings interest and other income below the threshold, everything is taxed at source and you don't need to fill in a return at all.
Here's the thing, though: we are still all perfectly at liberty to pay an acc
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We've had something like this *online* in the UK for years, a dead-tree "self assessment" form for decades and even before the modern "self assessment" anybody could still file their own tax return for free as long as they were capable of presenting it clearly. ...
The US has this as well. Form 1040-EZ (EZ as in "easy"). This is just a digital way of submitting that and, last year at least, they only offered it online for those making less than about $73k/year.
Here's the thing; All the stories about this would make you think the US never had a form 1040-EZ, cause their written like a free tax filing is some miracle new thing. It's not. We're just so lazy that doing it online makes the news.
Real news would be if this was offered automatically if you didn't otherwise fi
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My real question is: will it be pre-filled out, and you're just editing it looking for errors, or do you still have to manually put in the info the IRS already has?
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If it's anything like the software that tax companies use, and if your company digitally submitted your W2, then it should fill out most of it for you. I haven't been able to find the new IRS tool to look at it though.
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OK, where does any incentive come from? What purpose would the IRS have in spending resources to make a filing system that cheats the taxpayers using this system? They are under no mandate to maximize tax collections and have no mandated profit motive. They only care about the legality of your tax filings.
But aside from this, I highly doubt that anyone not using the standard deduction would be using this free filing system. If have enough money to make use of tax deductions you most likely are hiring so
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I do think it's good that the government is building this system, but I have to wonder if there isn't an incentive for the IRS solution to find fewer deductions...
The IRS has an incentive to provide people the ability to file their taxes. No one is "finding" anything for you. Either the system is capable for filing taxes as legally mandated or it is not. It has always been both in the USA and everywhere else on the planet up to you the citizen to apply deductions. No country provides deductions for you, much less puts effort into finding you some.
Welcome to the 21st century! (Score:2)
For the majority of tax payers with a simple filing, this cuts down massively on adm costs.
Also, what do you get if you concatenate the irs?
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Also, what do you get if you concatenate the irs?
InternalRevenueService
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What took you so long?
Regards,
The rest of the world
Re:Welcome to the 21st century! (Score:5, Insightful)
The public opinion of Intuit had to get low enough to reduce their lobbyist influence.
Here are the states and limitations (Score:5, Informative)
States: Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming
And then from the article:
The direct file pilot will be open to low- and moderate-income taxpayers with simple returns. To be eligible, for instance, filers must take the standard deduction and have income limited to wages reported on Form W-2, Social Security or unemployment as well as interest income of $1,500 or less. Gig workers aren’t eligible. [...]
In online summaries, the agency has said that to make sure the pilot works well, it will initially be opened to “a small group of taxpayers” during the 2024 filing season. As the season progresses, “more and more” eligible taxpayers will be able to use the service.
Additionally, it sounds like some states that have their own income tax will have (in time for this tax season) the ability to pull data from the federal filing to pre-fill your state forms after answering a few questions, saving you even more time.
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America can be counted on to do the right thing, only after exhausting all other options.
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You don't have to pay, no. You can file them yourself, use a free service, or pay someone. All three options have their benefits/drawbacks. (I'm not saying it's a good system, just setting the record straight.)
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free ? (Score:1)
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Free File Fillable Forms (Score:3)
This has existed for many years, it's called Free File Fillable Forms [irs.gov]. The IRS makes it available, you fill in your information, you e-file. How is this different?
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Came to say, I've used Free File Fillable Forms for years and years now. But then again, I sorta find doing my own taxes fun (not enough to want to make a living of it for others though!). At least two years where I've discovered some edge case they weren't handling and whoever was responding to their e-mail was appreciative and got fixed within days. But, oh yeah, it's for the nerds! When you get a 'rejected' and the help is an XPath address to an XML validation error... well, it helps to have been a
death and taxes (Score:2)
Deciding how to spend taxpayer money is a complex question. This is why we need responsible leadership.
America gets there eventually... (Score:3, Informative)
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Fuck Intuit (Score:2)
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AMEN and Hallelujah
Good (Score:2)
Fuck Intuit, those bait n' switching mutherfuckers!
This could be done to make it really fast. (Score:2)
The IRS already has all of your W2s and all transactions for the past year of over $10,000.
They could ask for the social security numbers of your dependents and then fill everything out for you to review.
In this early version, your options could be either clicking the file button or rejecting and filing the traditional way.
Millions could file their taxes in under a minute
Slashdot...comedy gold (Score:3)
A spokeswoman for Intuit, Tania Mercado, criticized the direct file project as a "half-baked solution" and a waste of taxpayer money.
Sorry, what? The company that deliberately hid its online offering whole being paid to offer it? The company known for the insanely convoluted and confusing way you had to get to said free offering?
I think the waste of money is in having tax code needlessly complex so you can stick in a bunch of carve outs for your friends. It could be simple, but given we have the ultra- wealthy writing our laws I'm pretty sure it's only is those "unsolvable mysteries " like providing competitive broadband internet.
#RecycleCongress
cloud based (Score:2)
Presumably, this service occurs over the internet using a browser, creating a plethora of pitfalls. Unless they give me a program I can run locally that once finished files the return securely through its own socket, no thanks.
already done in the UK (Score:2)
Intuit=Theft crowd (Score:2)
I'm part of the Intuit=Theft crowd. Anything that takes money away from Intuit gets my vote.
Can it pre-fill data they already have? (Score:2)
THAT would make it fantastic for the vast majority of simple e-filers. The IRS already has the data. Why can't they fill in the form for you and let you just confirm and pay (or apply for a refund)?
Intuit/TurboTax has revealed the truth (Score:2)
Yes, it's far better that corporations hold that power over tax-payers: Intuit/TurboTax has shown us how that ends. While the US government must be fascist because it's 'not allowed' to own anything, history and current practice shows the US government is the servant, not the master, in these business deals.
four percent?!? (Score:2)
Coming from TurboTax, that's precious. (Score:2)