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? 😉
interwebs
It’s called “the information superhighway”, thank you very much. 😄
The Great Series of Tubes
It’s not a big truck you just dump something on
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.
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’m in the USA and we’ve been able to file our federal taxes for free online for like a decade, I’m not sure what these people are talking about. What’s new here is that this is the IRS’s official tool.
Previously we had to use an outside service – but it was – and still is – free for normal people/people with normal taxes (eg I have 3 kids and a mortgage and I use it every year). State taxes are another story – that’s usually about $20. And that probably hasn’t changed; state taxes have nothing to do with our IRS.
Except for the last several years it’s becoming harder to file for free. TurboTax’s free service developed some worse and worse dark patterns every year, where it was very easy to click the wrong thing and end up being charged. Iirc the fact that they provided a free service at all was to keep control of the market and prevent the IRS from stepping in with a service like this. ProPublica did some good investigations on this.
I still write 2 cheques a year because my water bill can only be paid via physical mail (or in person I guess), I’m pretty sure fax is still common in our medical industry.
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Faxes… No, no we have not gotten rid of them. On the other hand, that means shenanigans are still available!
Nottrue - faxes are widely in use in Healthcare due to hipaa rulesOkay, I said we’ve not gotten rid of them? But the good news is you can do shenanigans like fax Dad Jokes to random fax numbers…
Due to lack of public identity infrastructure, filing taxes online in Britain takes a long time. I mean, at least 10 minutes 😄
Just a heads up it’s only available for the following states:
Arizona California Florida Massachusetts Nevada New Hampshire New York South Dakota Tennessee Texas Washington state Wyoming
Which is funny considering this is only for federal and not state taxes. Do they say why it’s 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.
State taxes are probably an additional complication in the calculations that hasn’t been implemented yet for all states. And for those without a state income tax not covered, probably some other state-tax-adjacent thing
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 they have no state level income tax how do the states get money for things? Do they just tax businesses?
Sales tax, property tax, lottery also
Yeah, bummer. I’ll have to wait I guess.
Yeah, what a bummer that free federal tax returns are only offered to a few states.
so the most populous states, and somehow, 2 in the bottom 5.
Testing the outliers?
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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 isn’t the company, it is Intuit. They are pretty shitty when it comes to lobbying congress on this.
They are also the de-facto place for large companies that need automated payroll. So some people (like me) get paid by the same crooks.
They are actually not the de facto for large company when it comes to payroll. I think the majority of their customers at company’s with less than 10 employees. I use to work for Intuit on the Quickbooks payroll product. I left about two years ago but I don’t think it’s changed that much.
TurboTax isn’t the company, it is Intuit.
Technically, it was a company that Intuit acquired in '94.
Legalized corruption 😎
The other guy linked the answer, but I’m going to explain it anyway:
In the US, companies have the freedom to
bribelobby 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
Lobbyists - quite disgusting.
Same reason why our Healthcare system is fucked, it being fucked helps the Insurance Companies make money.
Hmmmm 🤔
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 they’ll have towards eventual global parity!
Been so bad (and evil) for so long, I’m 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.)
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.
For a couple of years CreditKarma was the best free solution. Then Intuit bought them.
Intuit divested the tax product in that sale, which was bought by Block (FKA Square) and is part of their Cash App brand. So it’s still around and still not Intuit.
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 traffic 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 do things like that, I just don’t trust IRS.gov to be honest.
that’s who I use! $15 to file state, free federal; I mean that’s pretty close to ‘free’ compared to Turbo/Inuit pushing you close to $100 after all the BS. And freetaxusa keeps my info for subsequent years, etc.
I experienced true happiness for a moment. Only one moment.
Why is it only available in such a limited number of states?
This is the first launch of the program and they’re still in a pilot phase. It will presumably roll out to more states (maybe all?) Next year
According to their website it could roll out to more states as soon as mid March of this year.
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.
the fact it’s a limited pilot makes me optimistic
:-/
I’ve seen far too many good ideas go through a “limited pilot” program, outperform their intended targets, piss off someone in the DC corporate circuit, and get their budgets vaporized by the next Congress.
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???
In the UK, we typically have to do two forms of identification - usually a passport and a driving licence.
I imagine that for many Americans, they don’t have a government issued id, whereas basically every Brit will have a driver’s licence for id so they can go out drinking.
I don’t know any American adult who doesn’t have a government issued ID. You basically can’t do anything without one.
IDs are super common in America, it would be unusual for someone to not have one.
You’d think a social insurance number would be enough…
Social Security number WAS NOT made to be an ID. It’s not a secure unique number, it’s just serial.
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.
How have they been verifying mailed in tax forms with no pictures for decades?
They haven’t. Of course, the IRS deals with upwards 1 million potentially fraudulent claims per year. So, at some level, they’re trying to avoid exacerbating the problem.
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
They can do that with a drivers license like they have for the last few decades.
And they’re using a face recognition service from a for profit corporation ID.ME. Not ok. I’ll continue to use their freefillable forms option, but if they discontinued that I’ll just go back to paper mailing. This is not a step forward.
https://cyberscoop.com/irs-facial-recognition-identity-privacy/
Stupid fraud prevention ugh!
Listen folks, if you have a driver license, they already have your face, so settle down.
I don’t mind this being done through the government site, but it shouldn’t be done by a third party business.
Somebody think of the poor corporations!
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
It’s 50 states in a trench coat
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A state is just another term for a country. The two words never meant something different until our American Union got some people confused.
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The things that the federal government is responsible for are laid out in the Constitution, everything the Constitution does not place into the responsibilities of the federal government is left to state or local authorities.
Tenth Amendment:
Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.
that old thing desperately needs to be rewritten
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.
Not one big ol unified country.
What’d the frats chant when we killed Bin Laden? ;)
“more poon now!”
Frats are probably not the best go to for people educated on the country lol
The idea of checks and balances on the exercise of government powers extends to even the state/federal relationship.
18F looking for tax filling help
k if u single but looking to file jointly 👉👈
Damn only like 20 years behind the rest of the world.
Couldn’t hear you over the sound of my freedom
…nevermind, that was somebody rolling coal
I guess canada is 21 years behind now…
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.
Today is the last day a company has to file and send w2’s so most folks should actually have them by now or very very soon.
