Maybe once they tackle this they can figure out a way to just send me a fucking bill every year instead of forcing me to do their work to then send them money.
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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They’ve actually been trying to do this for years. There were actually a couple years of tests out in California I think. However, there are two big lobbies that always put a halt to it, tax preparation services (H&R Block, Intuit, etc.) and groups that want taxes to be a pain in the ass so we’ll all bitch about them.
Check out this episode of Planet Money if you want to learn more:
TLDR: Our government is for sale and two corporations apparently give instructions to the entire IRS and tax system because they pay a "subscription fee" to our politicians.
All as designed by the supreme court.
John Roberts: "But I didn't SEE them hand over a bag full of cash, so it doesn't count. For realsies."
Clarence Thomas: "The first amendment protects the freedom of mon--speech. I meant speech."
Samuel Alito: "TAKE BRIBES is actually an anagram of BEK EAT RIBS".
Brett Kavanaugh: "I drink beer."
Pro tip: use Taxslayer
I love them. Much better than Turbohax
I've been using the Cash App one and it's totally free. It was formerly Credit Karma's before TurboTax bought them and they were forced to divest the free tax program. I usually will run the same numbers through TurboTax and the results end up being the same.
Anything but the big guys
Protip: just fill out the paperwork! It walks you through it and takes no more time than making a pathfinder character. Tbh the whole act of doing it reminds me of making a ttrpg character: you get a template sheet and a booklet that walks you through it.
if the free ones would automatically populate for free I would totally use them just to not do the data input. But since they are all bs and don't actually do it for free I do the free fillable forms. Real pro tip is use a spreadsheet to add things up for wierd forms that don't do stuff for you. I put my 1099's in a spreadsheet and copied and pasted from it and it just made the whole thing easier to look over and verify. will do the same anytime I have multiples of the same form and then also for things like ira nonfillable pdf.
So you’re the kind of person who enjoys filling out the paper registration for a product warranty, I suspect.
Nope, but I do enjoy a good character sheet.
nah no ty, ill have them auto-input for me with an upload. Im already doing their job theyd have to do in modern countries
The stakes are a bit higher compared to D&D.
I should be able to just stuff what I think is the right amount of gold coins in an envelope and label it "to IRS" and they can figure out if I need another coin or two.
Yes, but all you have to do is follow the guide? It literally took 15 min to do my taxes this year.
And then I get one thing wrong and get a bill years later that I can't fight with interest payments or they cut out the middleman and just email my employer and demand they take it out of my pay.
Damn the TurboTax propaganda goes strong here.
That wasn't my point at all. I want the IRS to do my taxes for me.
Well the first step is removing Big Tax Collectors from the equation, which was my goal with the original post.
They already know how, it's been blocked as far as i'm aware by Tax return companies.
I think they already do in a sense; that's the standard deduction. If you want to maximize your returns you might be better off itemizing though, and that option is what makes everything complicated (I suspect they'd have a hard time sending you a bill for everything you itemize... I don't know that they really know everything you could itemize; I think that really only comes up when it's suspicious/you get audited).
i.e., if they did that, you'd basically get fewer options, and maybe less money back(?)
87% of people take the standard deduction. Just give people a bill (or I dunno, take out the correct amount to begin with) and allow people to contest or do an itemized deduction if they disagree.
Several countries have already figured this out, ot isn't rocket surgery. The government has a pretty good idea what you owe, and send you a bill. If you want to take another route, you're free to submit your own taxes, but the vast majority don't need to do anything like that. There's no reason we couldn't use the same system, if it assumes standard deduction that would cover the vast majority of people. Anyone who wants to itemize would be free to, it just wouldn't be automatic, so essentially, nothing would change for them. Well, almost nothing, the difference is if they take too long they have a safety net standard deduction already filed and done I guess.
Even when you take the standard deduction, only had one job in one state for the tax year, and have no investments or other income (ie. the only way your taxes could be simpler is if you don't have any income and someone else pays all your bills), it's still complicated to file taxes manually. Many other developed countries will automatically calculate the most common scenarios for most taxpayers, and only people with unusual situations have to do any manual calculations (or pay a tax preparer).
I don't think sending you a bill would work for most people, since they don't know how much you owe until you tell them whether you're married, have dependent kids, have a mortgage, etc. These are things they need to verify every year, so you will always need to send them something every year.
That said, they could certainly make the process simpler.
The government already knows all that information about you. You give your family information to your employer which passes it on to the government. Your mortgage company (and any other financial institution for that matter) sends the government information about your loans/accounts. That's how they know you filled out your taxes correctly to begin with.
You give your family information to your employer so they can estimate your taxes. But you're not required to keep them up to date.
So for instance if you tell your employer that you're single and then get married, you are not required to update your employer. Same is true of having a child, etc. Hence the need for an official annual update, which goes directly to the IRS.
Insane they're still on paper now. Seems like a great way to loose things and create tones of extra work.
Welcome to (let's be honest, Republican) policies that cut "in-house" staffing for decades at various federal institutions, instead outsourcing important work to contractors, under funding of important projects, and general "backwards" operation.
And they do. My family member still insists on only submitting thier taxes by snail mail. For 2021, the IRS lost the original, required a second submission (of original documents, lol), and then lost that one. In the end, they had to get an advocate to help them submit a third, and final return.
At least they didn't owe, or I'm sure they would have been in big trouble. But of course the IRS sending the refund check over a year late, has no repercussions...
H&R Block and all tax prep companies should not exist.
Is there a way to make digitalization more difficult? Does that green ink thing still work? What about using a No. 3 pencil?