[HN Gopher] IRS to Begin Trial of Its Own Free Tax-Filing System ___________________________________________________________________ IRS to Begin Trial of Its Own Free Tax-Filing System Author : thelastgallon Score : 350 points Date : 2024-01-06 15:12 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com) | niij wrote: | https://archive.is/qFtw5 | k2enemy wrote: | > 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. | | Wow, I thought that Intuit would have gone for a little more | subtlety. | idiotsecant wrote: | On the plus side, intuit saying something like this is exactly | what I want to hear regarding a program like this. I would have | been deeply suspicious if they were anything other than | enthusiastically opposed to it. | vlovich123 wrote: | Or they're saying this because they know the IRS effort | doesn't have competent people on it (think what happened with | the healthcare website when it launched) and is just prepping | the waters for a "see we were telling you along this was a | bad idea" criticism for congress people to spike it later. | It's really hard to intuit the strategy being employed so | best to just ignore them altogether. And if this turns into a | partisan issue at all (which an unclean launch might because | people are dumb about government tech in the US), then expect | the Trump administration to kill this if they win to prevent | this from becoming entrenched and popular like Obamacare is. | downut wrote: | I've used the US Free File Federal Taxes for the last five | years and it just wasn't a problem, and I have yet to see | anything that looked like programmer incompetence. | | Now, that said, the way you debug your submittal is to | paste an entire page of error gibberish that looks like | very low level database error output into an entry box they | point you to. Sounds gross! Ewwwww! Well actually I've been | debugging c++ templates since forever and hohum it doesn't | bother me. However... every single time it decoded the | problem and told me exactly what I needed to do. It has | taken me 2-4 tries each year to get it debugged and then it | sails right through. The final result I've fed into two | different state forms and that has sailed right through | too. All free, and not that much of my time. | | Now if they can get the UI for normies painless, which I | suspect is the main programming problem (I don't say that | UI programming is trivial), this will take off like a | rocket ship and the US can the join the coterie of | civilized nations that do this for all their citizens. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | If you're referring to Free Fillable Forms, the error | messages are not DB errors, but "business logic rules | errors". They do look like gibberish, but buried inside | them is a code that can generally give a pretty clue as | to the error. | | I agree that it would be much nicer if they said "The | amount of line 29 of Form ABCD does not appear at line 18 | of Form WXYZ". | | Even nicer if you never had to manually transfer amounts | between forms. | downut wrote: | Oh yes I am sorry; I didn't mean to imply that I thought | that the DB was throwing an error. What the filing | process email message body stated looked something like | approximately "Form line xxx violates schema requirement | such and such: <more gibberish>". | | I was thinking when I scanned the message was that I bet | I could reverse engineer the problem from this back end | generated text but why not do what the instructions say | and just feed it into the parser box? And every time the | next email message gave me exactly the thing I needed to | do. It was cool, for a weird sort of nerd. | | So no, I was casting shade where the process was right in | the sunlight: _I made the mistake, and the business logic | caught it, and told me correctly every time what I needed | to do to fix it_. I liked the whole process a lot. | crazydoggers wrote: | This is why we still have the income tax system that we do. | It's a $14 billion a year industry. I've talked to people who | work the lobbying system very hard. There's lots of wining and | dining to make sure no one messes with the complexity of the | system. | | We need more people who are immune to lobbying in government | positions. We'll see how this goes.. depending on the next | election cycle this will either get quashed quickly, or, | fingers crossed, might fight on against a growing backlash. | jlarocco wrote: | > We need more people who are immune to lobbying in | government positions. | | What we need to do is stop pretending people like that exist, | and come up with a system that works despite people's self- | interest, greed and corruption. | | Maybe what we have is the best we can do. | bee_rider wrote: | More transparency would probably be better. Make them wear | NASCAR style jackets and all that. | godelski wrote: | This is always my frustration when people suggest things | for governments. You cannot design a government that relies | on people being good. You have to design a government that | highly discourages bad actors, make it easy to eject them, | and operates while they exist. It's a crazy hard | optimization problem and isn't going to work if people are | just smart or good. And I never understand why people | suggest fixing government by giving government more power | and nothing else. | calamari4065 wrote: | Maybe spending billions of dollars lobbying should be illegal | ttyprintk wrote: | It's not that lobbying is a major slice of $14B, it's that | they actually spend only $3m and it's effective: | | https://www.opensecrets.org/federal- | lobbying/clients/summary... | kemotep wrote: | Notoriously there is also a large contingent of anti-tax | politicians and citizens that oppose making paying taxes | easier. Their reasoning being the more friction there is | the more likely that you will pay attention to how much | you are being taxed and support their policies that cut | taxes. | recursive wrote: | Not working. I'd pay _more_ for a convenient tax system. | MenhirMike wrote: | Which is really the main issue. Offering a more accessible | free version to file taxes is great, but the real problem is | the need to file taxes at all for a lot of people. The IRS | already knows the relevant info: Your employer sends W-2 | information, your bank and broker are sending the various | 1099 forms for interest, dividends, stock sale gains/losses, | etc. Same for your spouse and kids/dependents. Don't even | need to itemize in a lot of cases, since the standard | deduction is preferable in many years. | | Unless you're dealing with foreign income, are a business, or | do a lot of contract work for cash, I don't see much reason | why the IRS can't just handle all the taxes automatically - | apart from the fact that some company wants to charge me $150 | a year to file my taxes and making sure that my tax situation | (which would fit on a beer coaster otherwise) is as | complicated as possible. | Klinky wrote: | This is a good first step. Ideally it turns into a "verify | this all looks correct & add anything we're missing" kinda | thing. | 0cf8612b2e1e wrote: | Great way to look at it. It is a significantly smaller | jump once the Federal system is in place and already | handling returns for millions/years. | whakim wrote: | The article says that "in one possible scenario included | in the agency's report to Congress, the I.R.S. could fill | out tax returns with information it already has." We can | only hope :) | bmoxb wrote: | That is how it works in many (most?) countries already - | the US is an outlier in requiring every citizen to handle | their own taxes. | toomuchtodo wrote: | A lot of US GDP is Rube Goldberg machines to skim off the | economy. Intuit, Visa/Mastercard, private health | insurance industry, etc. Lots of pushback to be expected | as government fixes this (FedNow for payments, IRS | improvements for taxes, healthcare reform, and so on). | Onward. | graemep wrote: | It is how it works for most people in both the countries | (on different continents ) I have worked in. Only people | with high incomes or investment income or who are self | employed or similar need to file their own taxes. | | There are also cheap systems even for business returns - | mine cost PS12 for the company and I will use the free | HMRC system for my personal return. It might be easier to | use more sophisticated software, especially if your | finances are complex. | usaar333 wrote: | > Unless you're dealing with foreign income, are a | business, or do a lot of contract work for cash, I don't | see much reason why the IRS can't just handle all the taxes | automatically - apart from the fact that some company wants | to charge me $150 a year to file my taxes and making sure | that my tax situation (which would fit on a beer coaster | otherwise) is as complicated as possible. | | I imagine there are heavy software development costs, on | par with what it might take to build Turbotax itself. | | For instance, someone is going to have to figure out wash | sales. Right now your broker does it, but you can wash sale | across accounts, which requires you (or more reasonably tax | software) to both detect this and track the adjusted basis | in perpetuity. More complex events, like straddles, further | exist, and even consumer-grade tax software won't handle it | correctly. | | Even implementing the tax code correctly for regular income | is difficult. Examples of calculating Net investment income | tax correctly due to ambiguous tax code changes (https://ww | w.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=271074&...) | unyttigfjelltol wrote: | Note the proviso, taxes should be automatic "for _a lot_ | of people. " Will taxes be automatic for Warren Buffet? | No. For GE? No. For Suzie Q. Public? Yes. | CrendKing wrote: | I have no idea what "wash sale" is. I only heard that | term when I was reading the help page in TurboTax, which | I'm effectively forced to use. | | Seriously, I doubt there is more than 100k people in US | that have this "wash sale" any year. I'm so tired of | every time someone suggests automatic tax filling, there | is always one guy bring up some tax term that 99.99% | people never heard of. Sure, if auto tax filling doesn't | solve your wash sale calculation, feel free to go back to | TurboTax. Let the other 99% people who have one job and | no other complicated tax situation skip this yearly | nonsense. | geraldwhen wrote: | Literally anyone that owns stock could generate a wash | sale. | sseagull wrote: | Beware the paradox of averages. I bet a lot more than 99% | of people have _some_ wrinkle with their return. | | One person has a wash sale, another has some real estate | stuff, another became disabled, another has child care | stuff, another has education credits, etc etc etc. | | Actually now I am curious how many people file the | "simplest" return (wage only, standard deduction, and | absolutely no other adjustments). | ghaff wrote: | It's probably less than 99% but it could be the majority | in a given year. | avrionov wrote: | IRS already audits at least 10% of the returns. They | should have the entire tax system implemented as a | software. It is madness that this part was hidden from | the wide audience. | | As many software projects, the internal system may not be | appropriate for external use, but still they should have | components very long time ago. | freeone3000 wrote: | >IRS already audits at least 10% of the returns. They | should have the entire tax system implemented as a | software | | The audits are accomplished by a human re-doing the | return with the submitted information. (As no surprise, | the low-complexity returns are often chosen) | worik wrote: | > but the real problem is the need to file taxes at all for | a lot of people. | | Yes | | In New Zealand where I live most people do not file at all. | Tax is all "payroll tax" and sales tax | | I have just joined that system myself (after several | unpleasant years of not being on a payroll. Whew! | LargeTomato wrote: | I worked at a government "lab" (MITRE) that maintained the | IRS system. The system was allegedly so complicated that if | the tax code and the software conflicted, the software won. | The stack is legacy and intentionally on minimal life | support. | nerdponx wrote: | > intentionally on minimal life support | | Key word: "intentionally". | protomolecule wrote: | "There's lots of wining and dining" | | You mean the congressmen are bribed by free food and alcohol? | Asking as a non-American. | kirubakaran wrote: | This should shed some light: | | Bill Gurley: "2,851 Miles" | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9cO3-MLHOM | GreedClarifies wrote: | From the article and from a poster below: | | "For the pilot participants will have to enter their own | financial information, the I.R.S. said." | | It is indeed a complete waste of taxpayer money unless they | actually prefill with the IRS' data. | dimal wrote: | Consider it an MVP. | simtel20 wrote: | Why would you say that? If a taxpayer can copy the fields | from their w-2 and have it provide a straightforward and | correct filing without trying to divert them to dark patterns | trying to steal money from them, that is a huge benefit. | SMAAART wrote: | So it's an endorsement from Intuit. | jacobyoder wrote: | ...and Intuit knows a thing or two about "half-baked | solutions". ;) | bitshiftfaced wrote: | Too funny. So it's a solution in search of a problem... that | they also try to solve? | loceng wrote: | Industrial complexes, all of the obvious ones, have gone too | far; it only takes one to push for unfair-unreasonable terms. | | The next step of citizen's countering Intuit's particular | complex is for automatic tax filing to occur. | a_gnostic wrote: | The W2 doesn't count as voluntary, unless you bear witness | against yourself, by filing for a return and identifying | yourself as a taxpayer -waiving your 5A rights. | RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: | What would be awesome is if the IRS software would automatically | prefill all the data and forms sent to it. It would be nice of | your W-2, 1099s etc were all included and all you had to do was | verify the information and enter any income not already reported. | gigel82 wrote: | You mean like they do in ... every other country on earth? | asia92 wrote: | Not canada | mdtusz wrote: | I had high hopes that SimpleTax would have been bought by | the CRA, but sadly now it's been absorbed by Wealthsimple | instead. | | Still worth using though and is pretty straightforward and | easy to use. | mig39 wrote: | For the last couple of years, my T4, pension, RRSP, and | some of my pension forms have all been imported | automatically into CRA, and then into Turbotax. | | So maybe it's an optional thing for some employers? | | Of course, would be great to just skip the Turbotax | portion. | xav0989 wrote: | I think that all employers are now required to input the | T4/remuneration information in a way that CRA can | machine-process it, which allows them to make it | available to third-party systems like TurboTax or | SimpleTax. | | But yeah, for the large majority of us, having the option | to skip TurboTax and just use a pre-filled, government | generated tax return would be great. | worik wrote: | Canada does not exist. | | It is a lie by MSM | wolfgang42 wrote: | _> In one possible scenario included in the agency's report to | Congress, the I.R.S. could fill out tax returns with | information it already has, like data from W-2 wage statements. | For the pilot, however, participants will have to enter their | own financial information, the I.R.S. said._ | chewmieser wrote: | Gift article: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/05/your-money/irs- | tax-filing... | ProcNetDev wrote: | opensource it, please. | ttyprintk wrote: | For reference, Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, | Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, | Washington State and Wyoming are participating. | freedomben wrote: | For those who don't know, of those 12 states, only 4 actually | have income taxes. The other 8 do not. | | This whole system stinks. The overly complicated tax code, the | sleazy corporations making tons of money on it, the entrenched | politicians and bureacrats who make a living on it, etc. | hackernewds wrote: | We can still appreciate progress. And this is progress. | | Although if the IRS is gonna audit when I under pay, they | technically already know how much I owe. Why not just tell | me? Reckon it's since people also over pay, and there's no | refunds for doing that. | ghaff wrote: | Not at all clear the IRS won't refund overpayments. I've | gotten a check in the distant past when I double-paid | something. | wolfgang42 wrote: | I have overpaid my taxes several times due to clerical | errors, and each time the IRS sent me a letter explaining | what happened and a check for the overpaid amount, _plus | interest._ One time I forgot to deposit the check, and | after waiting a year they automatically sent me a | replacement along with a reminder of why it was they owed | me money. My general impression is that they're tedious and | bureaucratic, but scrupulously inclined towards accuracy in | both directions. | kelnos wrote: | > _Reckon it 's since people also over pay, and there's no | refunds for doing that._ | | Sure there are. I've gotten refunds from the IRS when I | made a mistake on my tax return and overpaid. | IshKebab wrote: | Yeah I wonder the same question about UK taxes. If you | self-assess they'll still say "actually we calculated your | tax and got this number so you owe us PSX". | | The vast majority of people don't need to file taxes but | even then it somehow still comes out wrong and you | occasionally get a refund. | seanmcdirmid wrote: | So...they know very little actually. We just got a nasty | tax bill from the IRS because when my wife gets an RSU | grant, her company sells some stock to pay income tax for | that grant. Little did I know, that generates a 1040 for | the stock sale (to pay ordinary income taxes) with a cost | basis of zero! Instead, you have to adjust the cost basis | to the entire sale (or even more!) via supplemental | information. Annoying, so I had to learn a bunch of tax | rules over one day on the weekend, and in the end the | amended return said the IRS owed us money. | | It's crazy stuff like this that means the IRS can't really | calculate your taxes for you. | ghaff wrote: | Cost basis stuff has improved over time and I haven't had | problems recently that I know of but I'm sure there are | still issues. | seanmcdirmid wrote: | I'm surprised they can't just the cost basis directly. | ghaff wrote: | In years/decades past figuring out cost basis through | options and acquisitions could be a real nightmare. To be | honest there have been times when I've thrown my hands up | and just come up with a plausible average. | | But as I wrote, I think things are mostly pretty good | these days. But who knows with things like RSUs you have | limited visibility into. | georgeecollins wrote: | True, but 99.5% of Americans don't get RSUs. There are | other cases like business expenses and unusual | deductions, but again most people don't have those. So | the IRS can probably only calculate taxes for 80% of | Americans. (I'm guessing, not an expert) | glasshug wrote: | The program is for federal tax filing, not state tax. I think | you may be misreading this line: | | > Most of those states don't tax income at the state level, | but the four that do...will guide participants to a state- | supported tool that they can use to submit their state | returns. | | Which means it's _more_ incomplete in states with income tax | (federal return through IRS pilot, state return through a | state system) than in states without income tax (just federal | IRS pilot return). | practicemaths wrote: | I just file my taxes by hand and mail it in. Somewhat less | concern with 3rd parties holding my information and losing it to | leaks/hacks. | | It is free. | | A little obnoxious but the forms do have instructions/directions. | fsmv wrote: | I heard that this sometimes takes them much longer to process | the returns that way. Has that been your experience? | | One time I reproduced the forms in a spreadsheet following the | instructions and it wasn't much different from doing the online | wizards. I would have liked to mail it in but I just paid to | e-file anyway. | practicemaths wrote: | My experience has been that it can be relatively faster. | | That is, the last time I filed online it took I think | practically a year before they got to it (I think the year of | the pandemic) | | I figure there's so few people filing by mail these days that | they're able to process them faster than the huge amount of | online filing. | | I'm guessing they're separate teams (online vs mail). However | I have no idea. | | Regardless mailing has worked better for me the last couple | years. | | Additionally I do not have to use the third party ID verify | thing (might just be for accessing information on irs.gov) | that I am just sure is going to have a breach and can not for | the life of me fathom why our government (Federal) needs a | private company to verify the identity of a citizen via | government (State) resources. | bombcar wrote: | The IRS just does some very simple checking and then mails | your refund (or accepts your payment) - the actual | processing/checking of the return can happen months if not | years later. | LamaOfRuin wrote: | My understanding is that it is generally under control now, | but a couple years ago their processing of paper forms was | in fact so backed up that the physical space was over | capacity. There was a fair amount of news coverage of this, | including photos of the cafeteria in one of their | processing centers being packed with paper awaiting | processing because there was nowhere else to put it. At one | point they also basically declared paper processing | bankruptcy and just told people if they had mailed | something and were still waiting for a response to just | send it again because the first one was probably a lost | cause. | downut wrote: | Now our family unit is not cash starved and can afford to | wait, so in the past, before I started using the US Free | Filing system I described in another comment, I always mailed | in both US and AZ income tax forms. Sometimes it took a | couple of months. The US form I think was pretty prompt | occasionally. | | Now we're also not talking a lot of money. +- a couple of | thousand, usually less. But you would have to compare apples | to apples which would be the e-file fee vs. the compounded | inflation rate for the time difference in receiving, | presumably, your refund. I suspect it's a wash. | | You need to also factor in the ${turbotax} fee and/or the | accountant, as well, if you don't actually fill out the forms | yourself. | | Fun fact: We moved from AZ to GA last year, and dutifully | filed in each state. I am pretty familiar with AZ due to | filing our own taxes for most of 25 years, but GA is much | more complex, verbose, and quite stupidly, even aggressively, | vague. | | I produced a spreadsheet for my wife to evaluate that | presented my first time interpretation of the GA partial | residency filing. We're both B.S. ChE, she's an MS ChE, I'm a | MS App. Math. So we know our numbers. The tables were low | risk, low refund, medium risk, medium refund, high risk, high | refund. She chose medium risk. Fine with me. | | Both AZ and GA refunded something like 50% higher than what I | filed and expected. | | Some sort of emoji here. | rdiddly wrote: | If you're looking for a fast turnaround I would recommend | filing earlier in the period -- like as far in advance of | April 15th as possible, i.e. as soon as you have all your | supporting materials. As you get closer to April 15th, you | are non-linearly further back in the queue. | | I can't really make an authoritative comparison of filing | methods because I'm mostly a die-hard paper filer and have | only ever e-filed maybe twice in my life at most. And it was | long enough ago that I barely remember, and in fact never | really cared, how fast my refund arrived. I embrace and savor | the luxury of simplicity. When will my refund arrive? Answer: | sound of one hand clapping. It's a reminder I put in the | calendar for like, mid-June, to the effect of "Hey did I get | my tax refund yet?" Usually the answer's, yep, and you | dismiss the reminder. I can't be arsed (as they say in the | UK) to be more interested in it than that. | ghaff wrote: | Honestly, I'm rarely getting enough of a refund to care; I'm | more commonly writing a check. | | In any case, I'm complicated enough I just outsource to an | accountant. Yes it's expensive but I've never had an issue | even with very thick tax filings. | rdiddly wrote: | I'd go further and say it's less obnoxious than the | alternatives thus far. It has always bothered me for example, | having to enter into some weird murky relationship with a | private company as a third party, in my communication with the | government. (That's also true for the categorically similar but | unrelated outrage of a few years back where you could get a | better response from some agencies by engaging them on Twitter | than you could through their actual communication channels.) | And say what you will, the piece of paper doesn't try to | "cleverly" redirect me to some irrelevant paid service. It has | no functionality. I'm the one with all the functionality. And | just to amplify your point about how it's free - Yeah there's | no way I'm ever paying one red goddamn cent for any of this; | I'm already paying the taxes! | saxonww wrote: | Not sure it covers the 3rd party concerns, but | freefilefillableforms has been around for a decade or longer. | It's fillable PDFs of the IRS forms with all the instructions | available, and basic calculation abilities. | | No restrictions on income, etc. but federal returns only. You | get an email from them within 24 hours of whether your return | was accepted or not. It's still obnoxious but for easy returns | it seems better than buying turbotax or whatever people use | instead. | VoodooJuJu wrote: | Will unfortunately probably have to use ID.me because an IRS | decision-maker's cousin owns it. | arbuge wrote: | I have a hard time understanding why the IRS doesn't at least | have a basic web portal for individuals and businesses to do | simple things like update addresses, send secure correspondence, | check on the status of correspondence, file forms electronically, | etc. A lot of paper forms and letters, human resources and time | could be saved with such a system, even if it doesn't actually | provide for any tax computations itself. | nerdponx wrote: | The answer is a combination of industry lobbying (see elsewhere | in this thread) and partisan politics that result in | deliberately under-funding the IRS (for a general notion, see | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast, and for more | directly relevant events see | https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted) | jethro_tell wrote: | Because they are constantly under resourced so rich people can | use the 'IRS sucks' line to get everyone else on board with | their ability to do tax evasion. | eddd-ddde wrote: | As someone from Mexico, it's honestly insane that our system | works as good as it does compared to the US. | | 1. All my incomes are automatically filed. 2. Each month I say | "yes this is correct" on the website, and pay immediately via | any bank. 3. At the end of the tax year, the system calculates | if they own me money automatically, I give it my bank account | and in some days I have my return. | | It even handles tax deductibles and everything. | gameshot911 wrote: | Mexico system is crazy complex and confusing. | | An archaic, windows-only Java app to generate pairs of | password-protected keys, which then have to be fed back into | the system to declare your tax status. And they expire every | so often, so you have to track down your old keys from years | ago and remember the password. Confused? Just set up a SAT | appointment, they'll be with you in... weeks. | | Having to declare your tax categorization multiple times per | year. | | Facturas that companies will only generate for you for a | limited amount of time, and complicated questionnaires to | fill out if you DO want one so you get the right type. | Assuming they'll even give you a factura at all. | | I fully admit that I have an incomplete understanding of the | system, this is just what I've seen my wife try to deal with. | And she's the equivalent of a 1099 so her situation may be | more complicated. | PopAlongKid wrote: | >I have a hard time understanding why the IRS doesn't at least | have a basic web portal for individuals and businesses to do | simple things | | They do have such a portal which does some of the things you | list and several other things too. | | https://www.irs.gov/payments/your-online-account | arbuge wrote: | Yes, I know about that. It has a limited subset of the | functionality I mention - for individuals. Does not exist for | businesses. | arealaccount wrote: | Would be interested to see how the $60-250M annual price tag | breaks down. | barbariangrunge wrote: | I jest, but imagine them auditing you for entering numbers in one | session and changing them later before submitting | olliej wrote: | H&R Block and Intuit to begin their trial of "even bigger bribes | to politicians" | raybb wrote: | Shoutout to Code for America for getting the state filing system | going in New York. That's a lot of potential. | toomuchtodo wrote: | Are there current or future opportunities to assist with | remaining state integrations? | unethical_ban wrote: | If free e-file is so wrong then why is the IRS allowed to | distribute forms to citizens with easy instructions? | | How do people against free e-file justify their anger, unless | they are employees of a company leeching off taxpayers' money | like Intuit? | themadturk wrote: | I think those are the most vocal opponents. | _ihaque wrote: | For anyone interested in why the system looks the way it does, I | recommend patio11's insightful recent blog post, which is | nominally about payroll systems but ends up discussing the | history of taxation in the US because that's the origination of | many of these systems: | https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/payroll-providers-pow... | | A relevant quotation for much of the discussion here: | | > And, relevant to the question of whether Intuit controls U.S. | tax policy: it can't, because that would imply they have wrested | control from Norquist. Norquist considers a public filing option | a tax increase by stealth and opposes it automatically. | nvr219 wrote: | Norquist is so flipping ridiculous. | leereeves wrote: | When phrased that way, it sounds ridiculous. More accurately, | however, what Norquist and ATR want is for people to be aware | of taxes. In their words (from the article): "More than any | other public policy, the way the government raises revenue--how | much, at what rates, under what circumstances, from whom, and | for whom--has the greatest impact on our economy's | performance." | | And even the article admits that making taxes easier to file | has the side effect of "decoupling public sentiment and policy | changes" (that is, making "tax increases by stealth" easier): | | > ATR [Norquist runs Americans for Tax Reform] is | institutionally skeptical of withholding, because they believe | that withholding allows one to increase taxes by stealth. I | don't think it is excessively partisan to say that, if one | phrases that claim a bit more neutrally as "withholding | increases tax compliance by decoupling public sentiment and | policy changes," the people who designed the withholding system | would say "I'm glad the National Archives makes our design | documents so accessible. We wrote them to be read!" | koolba wrote: | > "More than any other public policy, the way the government | raises revenue--how much, at what rates, under what | circumstances, from whom, and for whom--has the greatest | impact on our economy's performance." | | A perfect world would have people writing a check for their | entire annual tax just before stepping into the voting booth. | consp wrote: | > A perfect world would have people writing a check for | their entire annual tax just before stepping into the | voting booth. | | That would definitely be a horrible idea. No, I won't vote | for drivable roads because I just payed my taxes, potholes | be damned. And afterwards complain about the potholes | anyway. | koolba wrote: | I never said you don't get to vote if you don't pay your | taxes. Nor that you have to pay taxes to vote. | | I'm saying those that do pay taxes should have the | totality of the amount of their income that is going to | the government in mind when they head to the polls. | OfficialTurkey wrote: | What in the libertarian nonsense is this? Why not make | people ride public transportation or use a public restroom | or sit in a park or read about the history of the | interstate system or visit a national park just before | voting? | consp wrote: | > And even the article admits that making taxes easier to | file has the side effect of "decoupling public sentiment and | policy changes" (that is, making "tax increases by stealth" | easier) | | How on earth is this possible? Instead of not having any | clue, you actually get to see everything. My taxes have been | automatic for years and I still have to approve every step of | them along the way and I get to see and approve everything | which had been filled in. The big difference is I now not | have to spend hours researching everything if it remains the | same as it was last year and only check if it changes. | tpmoney wrote: | Two psychological mechanisms I can think of for this: | | It's one of the reasons why every company in the world | wants you on auto pay. It's a lot easier to keep you as a | customer through the price hikes if it's only a line item | on your bank statement rather than an explicit payment | you're making every month. If most people are the same | every year, then a small increase from one year to the next | barely gets noticed because people are going to be looking | for changes to their records, not changes on the bottom | line, so the fact that the bottom line is 0.5% more this | year will be more likely missed in the face of answering | "are the records the IRS claims they have about me the | right ones". | | The other is related to the concept of "price anchoring". | Approving pre-filled numbers becomes more about validating | that your information is correct, rather than determining | (and looking at) the tax value for the year. It pre-assumes | the amount owed is correct (in both the calculated and the | policy sense) and sets the expectation that you probably | owe whatever the pre-calculated amount is. | | Whether it actually plays out in reality and tax payer | behavior is up for debate. but certainly there's a reason | why so much of sales and financing tactics throughout | commercial world tries very very hard to steer you away | from the actual math when you pay for something. | proc0 wrote: | They should also work with companies and have an opt-in for | automatic filing since a lot of people just have one job. Not | only do you have pay them a chunk of your salary but you have to | also do the work to report it accurately according to a | complicated system. | ghaff wrote: | If all you have is a modest W-2 and are taking standard | deduction (most people in the US) it would be nice if the IRS | pre-filled out a form. It's also pretty simple to just fill out | a 1040 in those circumstances. | bubbleRefuge wrote: | The whole thing needs to be thrown out. All of it. Federal income | taxes are unfair and unnecessary. Since it had been demonstrated | (via MMT) that taxes do not fund the Federal government, -they | back stop and support the currency- then a better solution is a | Federal real estate tax . Simple to administrate. IRS and Turbo | Tax are gonzo. Put these folks to work on real rather than | contrived problems. | terminous wrote: | Flagged as irrelevant to topic of discussion. | worik wrote: | It is wrong, not irrelevant | | The right of, and purpose for, the state to tax is very | relevant to the methods used | kelnos wrote: | At the risk of doing what I'm about to ask you not to do: | please don't comment just to talk about moderation decisions. | It's boring and doesn't add to the discussion. If you want to | flag or downvote, simply do it and move on. | | > _If you flag, please don 't also comment that you did._[0] | | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | worik wrote: | > Federal income taxes are unfair and unnecessary. Since it had | been demonstrated (via MMT) that taxes do not fund the Federal | government, | | That is incorrect | | MMT does not propose that the state can fund itself without | tax, except for some seriously deluded proponents who have lost | their grip on reality | | The use of resources by the state requires those resources are | unavailable to other actors | | Money is a slippery and an abstract concept. But it must always | connect to physical reality | cpursley wrote: | Can we just have non-file tax system like other civilized | countries? You know, like the ones that are able to provide for | good roads and healthcare and housing? Often at even lower tax | rates than America? | gumballindie wrote: | Can you name those countries? In the uk we work for the | government and health care, education and roads are bust. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2024-01-06 23:00 UTC)