Update: IRS successfully launches their own free Direct File - now ALL of my fellow 'murcans are eligible for 2025

If you don't know much about investing then you shouldn't short anything ever. People who know about investing will tell you that even when your logic is 100 percent sound, the market isn't that predictable and in general the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

it wouldve been earlier, but now this is priced into the stocks already.

If you get investing returns (like from shorting those companies)… you’re ironically not eligible to use the IRS direct file pilot (or at least for this year).

Edit: this isn’t to knock direct file… which is good and cool (and should be expanded to have more features)

It is already priced in. Our human speed reactions are far too slow when the news has this obvious of a consequence.

Those companies actually helped develop this, see "free file alliance membership" for details. It includes 17 private companies such as Intuit, H&R Block, TaxSlayer, Tax$simple, etc.

Also, the worst hemmeroids ever and a special CEO diet consisting of nothing but exlax and habanero peppers.

😂

My chaotic soul appreciates the garbage bin trash level of discourse

Even the founder of Costco (only stepped down as CEO a few years ago), a company famous both for how well it treats its customers, and its workforce?

Eh, cancer is no joke. It doesn't discriminate on who it hits. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, even though I would snicker if these CEOs get hit by lightning lol

Some people in the USA want a solution that immediately fixes every possible problem, and don't quite get the concept of starting small and fixing other stuff over time.

It's the same with gun control. Some states want to tighten gun laws, and some people are like "that won't solve all the problems! We need nationwide laws!". Sure, but why not accept the win that more and more states are starting to do something, rather than complaining that some problems still exist?

it’s a HUGE step towards disassembling predatory cpas and tax software.

Its a regular sized step, as its targeted primarily at simple filers. But the cutoff is incredibly low. You can't use it if you've got retirement savings through an IRA, if you've got deductions for college expenses, or if you're claiming the child care deduction. I'd wager that's at least half the people who bother to file returns.

Definitely good news for folks that H&R Block likes to fleece - anyone collecting EITC or Child Tax Credits and not much else. But hardly universal.

Most just don’t know how to properly file their W-4 to not have taxes withheld in the first place.

How do you do this? How do you calculate what to personally withhold and pay? Is it simply calculating through the income tax?

I've had 1099s and tax credits and I've never sent in a paper return. I keep the records in case of an audit but it's not like e-file hasn't existed forever.

I already saw it reflected this year. My tax prep went up $150

Well, the point was that it isn't competition in his scenario. I hope the exclusion of 1099 is temporary, because I had a 1099 for like a few dollars because I had a savings account that technically accrued interest, so as it stands that makes me ineligible. So his concern would be that because the tax prep services are competing against 'free' for that tier, that they'll ramp up prices for the rest to compensate for loss of income.

Sorta silly?! It's fucked beyond belief. Source: me, someone who profits off the healthcare industry as a corpo. Sorry 🤷.

From a certain point of view? Yes.

i mean, it is sorta silly. Not full sillyness, full sillyness would be forcing people in immediate life threatening injury to recite the ABC's backwards before operation as protocol.

yep, which is why its weird that we don't have a legally protected avenue of direct filing.

idk man i think i disagree honestly.

Tax is one of the very few constants that we all have to legally deal with, aside from like, auto insurance.

Right. Filing taxes should only be necessary if you have itemized writeoffs or wish to contest the IRS's statement of your tax liability. They already know what you earned their your employer, what's been paid in taxes, what basic credits your qualify for, etc. They know what you owe so long as you didn't have expenses to apply for that they couldn't assume or know about. The only reason they don't already do that or, at least until now, have a free public system for filing, it's because tax companies have lobbied for decades to be able to milk the public for cash to help them file and navigate their tax liability.

I've been in the US for a few years now. All my colleagues told me that doing taxes is hard. So I used to reluctantly pay money to do it through Sprintax. This year, I decided to do it by hand. It took almost the same amount of time as it would've taken to do it through Sprintax, which is around 30 minutes.

In italy the data is pre-filled, you just have to check if there's something missing and you're good to go, but you still have to send the module manually, like going into the website and doing the stuff.

It should be all automatic, wtf

Grover Norquist fucks off forever

This is the world I want to live in.

most Americans’ taxes are pretty simple and straightforward

Once the reporting for income over $600 from shit like eBay sales, Venmo, etc kicks in, the 1099 they issue would make free filing ineligible

step one for me is get out last year's so i have a point of reference. just do the same thing again. numbers are a bit different, but the general 'what-goes-where' is usually the same--unless they split a form into multiple pages, or add an extra page to one.

once i get the new blank forms printed, it's about 15 minutes for me to fill-out, copy, and stuff inside an envelope. this year's added yet another sheet, i had to use a flat instead of the usual #10. cost more to mail, too, but i will not ever 'e-file'.

one of the few perks of being poor---easy taxes.

From the article:

The pilot program targeted people with simple tax returns based on W-2 forms. In her remarks today Yellen said that over the next few years they will expand Direct File to support more situations.

But even that would cover a large percentage of the American workforce, and I imagine over a few years, it will grow to cover all users that don't need personal accountants. Progress is progress.

Personally, I hope this transitions into a system where they email you a proposed return and you do nothing to accept it (only needing to take action if there's an issue).

I’d say it’s still a win, and I’m hoping they expand upon it.

Does Arizona not have an online free system? Illinois has a very hand-holding guided set of questions and has for years, it's always been our federal taxes that make my head hurt to fill out via the IRS's FreeFillableForms site.

It will eventually be supported, and in the interim they have stated that they won't keep biometric data obtained through ID.me once a verification is completed, or you can opt for an online interview where no biometrics are collected in the first place.

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-statement-new-features-put-in-place-for-irs-online-account-registration-process-strengthened-to-ensure-privacy-and-security

Who knows if ID.me will actually delete the data on their end though, or if the online interview is recorded by the provider.

I even had to make a login.gov account to apply to some federal jobs (ironically enough one was with the IRS even!)

On a related note, it appears based on their job listings that the IRS will not hire anyone who owes them money

I looked it up, and there is an article from the end of last year that says they are about to be required or are already required.

I can't recall ever putting my license on one of these tax preppers, but I am also older and more privacy concerned in my older age, so I would definitely not do it now.

Right, my government also gave me a number at my birth. They know where I live, they know how much I make and where I work. The third party, ID.me, definitely does NOT need any of my information, since the entity that is taxing me, already does.

It would not surprise me in the least, but more importantly, if they get breached and they have sloppy mechanisms in place, my license could be fully out there in the wild. May be whatever to some, but I think it’s too risky to trust some company with it that also has contracts with the government itself.

ID.me offers numerous identity verification products,[9] supplied by third parties. For "high-assurance" identity verification, the company verifies personal data, including drivers' licenses, passports, and social security numbers.[21] Users must also take a video selfie with their phones, using the ID.me photo app.[1] If ID.me fails to verify users through this information, users are directed to talk to a "Trusted Referee" video call.[22] ID.me users have expressed frustration due to long delays on its video call line

😂😂

Yep, kinda surprised me to be honest.

Feels like a ruse

$300? Just use Free Tax USA. It's free for federal and $15 for each state. No, you don't need extra stuff, unless you think you'll be audited.

If you spend a little time figuring out your tax situation, you don't need to pay someone else to do it. Here's a secret: the people they have doing your taxes don't necessarily have a master's degree in tax. Those people are helping corporations or wealthy people with trusts.

He gets it

Mutual disdain was the catalyst. I did it for eight years and probably lost fifteen years of life expectancy from it. Ungodly toxic environment. Fuck big firm accounting. Fuck them all in the most demeaning, painful way imaginable.

I make roughly one third the money today, and I'm much happier for it. I still make a comfortable living where I don't particularly worry about money, so what would the additional two thirds do for me outside paying medical bills it causes?

No matter how much I try to remove my name from searches, I still get recruited by ambitious young people on a regular basis. I generally make them stop with a response that goes something like this:

I would rather have my eyes gouged out by the white hot barbed penis of Satan himself while he spits in my mouth than return to public accounting for any amount of money.

I keep bringing up how awesome the new SAVE federal student loan repayment program is. Income based repayments that go as low as $0 with the federal government covering any interest that you payment would have gone towards, plus after 10 years of payments balances of $12k and less are forgiven (11 years for $13k, 12 years for $14k, etc.)

So if you got a low paying degree from a community college, like say an early childhood education degree, you get pretty close to free education since you can make your $0 payments every month and get your entire student debt forgiven after a decade. Or if you have a career that doesn't pay much at first but ratchets up you only make payments when you have the income to make them, and still get forgiven after 10 years, and there's no real penalty to paying the $0 payments earlier since the balance hasn't grown and is still forgiven on the same date. Or like many people who attend community college, if you end up dropping out and getting no degree, you're not penalized like earlier plans would have penalized you.