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This is awesome! Now the IRS just needs to send me my already completed taxes that I just verify, sign, and return, like they do in Sweden.
But... why doesn't anyone think of the millionaires :(
If they are missing something, is it easy to ammend what they send, or do you gotta start from scratch and you can only use that as a reference?
There is no 'scratch', you login and practically everything is filled out. If you want to change or add something, you can do so.
Sounds awesome. Wish we had that.
This is nearly how it works in Canada. I grant access from my accounting software to my Canada revenue agency account and pretty much just verify it's correct and fill in some of the non registered investment stuff which happens to be mostly with the institution whose software I use anyways.
The software is free. It even checks my wifes to optimize the returns.
Yep, it's all a bunch of forms and you can edit the info that is prefilled.
There's a rare few forms which still need to be sent in on paper, but most can be sent in digital form.
How does that work for businesses and investments? In the UK I don’t have to do anything for taxes with my job, but if the investments in a rental property, or something like that, are over £4000 I have to do the forms.
They give you something to sign. For the majority of people, they just say "Yeah, sounds about right" and they confirm it.
For people with added complexities, they'll do what they already currently do and add in the details you're talking about. It's literally win-win all around except for the tax soft company CEOs.
There's tax preparation software companies here in Sweden too but almost only businesses use them because most individuals don't need it.
Intuit seems to be worried. Shortly after this story was published, Rick Heineman, the company’s communications VP, emailed The Verge with an aggressive statement calling the IRS’s pilot “redundant” and “half-baked.”
“The Direct File scheme is a solution in search of a problem,” he wrote, adding that it could end up “costing billions of dollars in taxpayer money.”
"Yeah you morons! Don't use the free tools that the govt provides you! Pay us to do it!"
hes literally pointing out the problem with their own product..."redundant","solution in search of problem", "costs taxpayers stupid money".
... dude theres 4 fingers point back at you.
And the last one is flipping him off.
Very good news. Tired of giving money to the tax prep vampires. But initial roll out is for simple tax situations (W-2 and deducting student loan interest).
Why can’t this program also apply to selling of stocks/options as well? This information is already furnished to the IRS
This information is already furnished to the IRS
The fact that you sold it is already furnished to the IRS, yes. But not what your cost basis was, therefore not what you actually owe. You have to either calculate that yourself or have someone who knows what they're doing do it for you.
Some fancy trades perhaps not, but I have yet to have a line item not have this on it: (basis reported to the IRS)
In some European countries, paying income tax means that the government sends you a form that is already completely filled out except for your deductions, and you simply verify that it looks good, then you add in whatever deductions you have, and file it.
Because 99% of the work in filing our taxes in America is completely worthless. The government already receives information directly from the same companies who send you all those tax forms. The IRS already knows all the information. Making you input it again is just a way to ensure the maximum number of mistakes.
So the IRS is taking a good first step, but we still have a long way to go to catch up to what people in other countries already have. Instead of making me fill out the forms, and the IRS checks for errors, have the IRS automatically fill out the forms, and I'll check for errors. In a civilized country, this is something that we should already have.
It’s because the tax filing software companies lobby lawmakers to prevent exactly what you described. They want to keep the tax code complicated, so people feel the need to continue buying tax software every year. Seriously, tax software lobbies are some of the largest lobby groups in the country.
And the other half of that is that Republicans want to make paying taxes as difficult as possible so people will support tax cuts
And to take it one step further, republicans want to see governmental agencies seem incompetent and fail, thus set the course for their regulatory capture.
And seemingly right out of a super villain movie to further the above, is Project 2025:
Established in 2022, the project seeks to recruit thousands to come to Washington, D.C., to replace existing employees to restructure the Executive Branch of the federal government as to further the agenda and policies of Donald Trump. The plan would perform a quick takeover of the entire U.S. federal government under a maximalist version of the unitary executive theory – a theory proposing the president of the United States have absolute power of the executive branch – upon inauguration.
Scary times. To quote David Frum:
If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.
Intuit must be pissed.
There was a massive bipartisan (well POTUS and Dems in Congress) push for this in the second half of the Bush Administration. It lost GOP support after the Republican House Caucus turned on Bush for his path to citizenship immigration reform policy. Intuit and its peers have so much money in this and in lobbying.
"According to the IRS, these are the states joining the pilot:
States with state income tax: Arizona, California, Massachusetts, and New York
States without state income tax: Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming"
Nice! I just moved out of NY State (NYC) and down to Florida, free filing and no state income tax for me!
Ugh, another example of government overreach. This is just going to make it harder for me to pretend to do taxes for 6 hours. What, do I have to keep the terms of service open to “read” for 6 hours? Who’s going to believe that?
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this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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