This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
For your simple[r] tax needs: https://directfile.irs.gov
As a non US citizen this is just a Robin Williams in Jumanji moment...
WHAT YEAR IS IT?!?!
Anyways, welcome to the year of the interwebs.
Have you got rid of your cheques and faxes yet? π
interwebs
Itβs called βthe information superhighwayβ, thank you very much. π
The Great Series of Tubes
It's not a big truck you just dump something on
Oh we can file our taxes online, we're just required to pay massive amounts of money to a corporate middleman to do it.
Oh we can ___, we're just required to pay massive amounts of money to a corporate middleman to do it.
Basically America.
I still write 2 cheques a year because my water bill can only be paid via physical mail (or in person I guess), Iβm pretty sure fax is still common in our medical industry.
my wife is disputing a Healthcare charge. Went to a specialist 13 times, they reimbursed us 9 times but not the other 4, at a cost of about $800.
we have to communicate with the appeals center by fax, and wait for their snail mail response.
Just a heads up itβs only available for the following states:
Arizona California Florida Massachusetts Nevada New Hampshire New York South Dakota Tennessee Texas Washington state Wyoming
Yeah, bummer. I'll have to wait I guess.
Which is funny considering this is only for federal and not state taxes. Do they say why itβs limited to specific states?
Most of the listed states do not have state level income taxes. The only exceptions are Arizona and California. The rest of the states have no state level income tax. Alaska is the only state without a state level income tax that isn't included in this IRS scheme.
I imagine there is a reason all but two of the chosen states lack a state level income tax.
It's a trial program, to work out the major kinks, issues, and problems before rolling it out further to other states.
It's also federal-only, meaning you still have to do your state returns. Most of the states in the trial have no state income tax, which makes it an ideal solution for taxpayers in those states.
Expect it to expand to all 50 states in the coming years, presuming Republicans don't somehow manage to legislate it into oblivion like usual.
If you aren't able to use this new system, a good second option is freetaxusa.com. Free for most filings and dirt cheap for more complex stuff. Also, they are easier to use than TurboTax.
It would probably have better adoption if it didn't have such a scammy-sounding name.
A better idea is to go to irs.gov and use their free file wizard to see which service is free for you. I used 1040.com this year. Last year I used freetaxusa.com, but this year that would not have been free for me due to my change in income. Which service is free depends on your state, income, and income complexity.
My problem with IRS.gov is they have a history of sending users to sites owned by Intuit. These sites would claim to be free, but would then trick the user into a paid pathway and guide them to an expensive paid checkout. I haven't been back to IRS.gov since experiencing that.
I learned later that Intuit (who owns Turbotax) had spent millions lobbying to get that to happen. Since the IRS can be lobbied by corporations to trick users like that, I just don't trust IRS.gov to be honest.
Due to lack of public identity infrastructure, filing taxes online in Britain takes a long time. I mean, at least 10 minutes π
Why did this take the IRS so long where other nations have been doing this for decades?
Turbotax, H&R Block, and the other tax companies are massively wealthy companies that actively lobby to push laws to keep them from being simple. There are states that they have managed to bar the same thing from happening in.
To clarify, TurboTax isnβt the company, it is Intuit. They are pretty shitty when it comes to lobbying congress on this.
The other guy linked the answer, but I'm going to explain it anyway:
In the US, companies have the freedom to ~~bribe~~ lobby our congress members by giving them money that's totally unrelated to their vote you guys. The reasoning behind that being ok is that the congress official in question is still technically free to vote however they choose despite the money given to them. The reason lobbying works is the threat that the congress person might not get that money next time if they vote against that company's interests.
Just so you all know, because our congress members make a government salary of about 150k-250k/year, it's surprisingly cheap (from a rich company perspective) to lobby them, with lots of payments being in the low thousands. So for obscenely wealthy companies (like intuit), it's much cheaper to pay just enough guys off to kill a movement than for them to suffer the actual consequences of that movement.
In this case, intuit's entire business model depends on American taxes seeming like this mysterious and unapproachable thing that Americans have to pay a third party for in order to not get thrown in jail by the IRS. And given that intuit (and companies like H&R block) rake in billions each year, it's comparatively pennies to pay off congress officials to keep it that way.
-> 'Merica
Legalized corruption π
Same reason why our Healthcare system is fucked, it being fucked helps the Insurance Companies make money.
I'm 100% for a simple IRS tax return but what the heck is with this?
To use Direct File, you need an IRS account with ID.me.
To get an ID.me account, you need to:
Take a video of your face
If you can't or don't want to take a video of your face, you can have a video call with an ID.me agent who will confirm that your face matches your identification.
Is that really necessary???
It's the same as going to a bank and letting the teller look at your face. It's to prevent someone from stealing your identity using a picture of your ID.
How can they verify the ID is real without physically seeing it? They look up the info but still need to verify that you are the person on the ID.
How have they been verifying mailed in tax forms with no pictures for decades?
Seems like it unnecessarily disenfranchises the poor and the elderly. You have to have access to equipment that can record you and the tech savvy to be able to use it.
Ok but how come H&R Block doesn't need to do this? I just give them my IRS PIN and the AGI from last year's return. The picture shit feels like a poison pill
Good thing Intuit (TurboTax) is fighting so hard to keep the current format super slick and cheaper as a private service rather than a centralized government process. Right up there with disbanding garbage pickup in favor of individually contracted services because [checks notes] 7 overlapping truck routes will be cheaper than 1
Somebody think of the poor corporations!
18F looking for tax filling help
k if u single but looking to file jointly ππ
why is it the US is hellbent on making everything a state by state issue but at the same time saying federal law is above state law in such cases like Texas but states with legal cannabis or states with legal abortion are allowed to be above federal
is the US the United States or not
make it make sense
make it make sense
We're a slightly tighter coupled EU with less history of separation. We're states that are united. Not one big ol unified country.
IDK why people are downvoting you, that's essentially how it works. Everything is super interconnected now, but it wasn't always that way and the constitution hasn't been updated to reflect it.
Good stuff. Keep in mind that Intuit fought this for a very long time. But since they finally got stomped, the IRS can do it's thing now.
If you lived in a state not listed here, the District of Columbia, or a U.S. territory, Direct File won't support your tax filing needs.
lol I guess not for me!
How could they launch this and not support login.gov for the auth...
No Login dot gov
No support in most states
No ACA filers
No app payments
Lots of reason to be frustrated. BUT! This is an absolutely delicious blow to the Intuit lobbyists and if it can handle the simplest of the simple, think of the green light theyβll have towards eventual global parity!
Been so bad (and evil) for so long, Iβm in the mood to celebrate more than nitpick. (No Login dot gov I will say is the funniest thing not to be considered MVP - understandable but funny.)
Thanks Brandon
Honestly I'll hope reservations and congratulations till after we see how it goes, but the fact it's a limited pilot makes me optimistic.
This is great for citizens!
I'm not sure they get bragging rights about a smooth site launch for a tax preparation application when most people don't even have their W2s yet...
We'll see whether this is another healthcare.gov when people actually try to use it, but this is a huge win for people who qualify.
