Eat shit, lobbying to make simple tax returns something you have to pay Turbo Tax, H&R Block, etc for.
I don’t know much about investing, but i wonder if it would it be a good time to short those companies?
it wouldve been earlier, but now this is priced into the stocks already.
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.
Plus, the news of this would already be priced into the stock, so if anything the price is already low and these companies would need to pivot their business (which would increase the value again) or die (which would lower the price marginally, to zero). Either way, shorting is a bad strategy in this case.
Isn’t shorting theoretically able to put you in infinite debt?
I think you would be margin called and just have astronomical but not infinite debt.
Theoretically, yes. A short is sorta a negative stock. When you hold a normal stock, the price can never go below zero. But when you hold a negative stock, there’s no maximum value that stock could rise to.
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.
deleted by creator
Wait really? What’s the catch?
Doubt there is one. The hard truth is that most Americans’ taxes are pretty simple and straightforward. We can stop pretending that copying some boxes from a W2 and a 1099 is difficult.
I mean, personally I wish we’d stop pretending that the IRS isn’t already fully aware of what you owe and could just do the filling for you, like in other countries, but until Grover Norquist fucks off forever we’re stuck where we are.
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.
The argument has been since free filing means only the wealthy will hire accountants, free filing would discriminate against the poor given a few mistakes will be made here and there.
I may not need to mention that disingenuous argument is made by the pirates at Intuit and their lobbyists.
free filing would discriminate against the poor
As opposed to the current system where the richest among us can hire a whole team of accountants to find every deduction possible?
Shhhh!!!
It should also be noted that if the vast majority of people do nothing special on their taxes and just accept the government’s assessment, then that leaves a much smaller group of people to be audited. And a much larger portion of those people will be those who are trying to weasel their way out of paying their share. Right now, with the IRS being criminally underfunded, they only focus on low hanging fruit, the small fries. With those people being boiler plater auto-accepting tax payers, that would mean the IRS has no reason to audit them and can focus on the big boys where the real cheats are. That’s another big reason we do not have that sort of system and why the IRS is currently so underfunded (despite every dollar spent on the IRS generating between 5 and 9 dollars in revenue from tax fraud/evasion). Those kinds of people pay to make sure it doesn’t happen.
Ew
Holy Christ someone using disingenuous appropriately, I’d almost given up on the word. Thanks for saving it!
Oh didn’t know it was misused!
🍻
They know what you owe so long as you didn’t have expenses to apply for that they couldn’t assume or know about
Solo 401ks/IRA also wouldn’t be something they know about until you file if I understand correctly. Guess you could that expenses?
They would go in the sections for 401ks and IRAs just like they do on the paper forms. The online form will have the same way to enter the additional deductions.
They should (and do?) have the same information your employer, bank, or brokerage files. i.e. the same forms you use to fill out your taxes now. They know what you contributed to you 401k and your other retirement accounts.
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
Don’t they just assume that everything is good if you don’t reply? Works that way here
Grover Norquist fucks off forever
This is the world I want to live in.
How is the IRS supposed to know you paid me 5k last year via check??? How do you think people who don’t get w2 from their job have their income reported to the government? How do u think w2 get reported?
You have no clue how any of this actually works… stfu
y u no be nice about it :(
You’re acting like the filing that would come from the government would be the final record and you wouldn’t be allowed to correct it, which is not at all what people are suggesting.
Plus, audits will still be a thing.
All of those things you mentioned are edge cases which you would still be able to handle yourself if they auto filled everything for you.
I use an online tax service which scans my w2 and filles it out. It still gives me the option to edit stuff but I mostly just check to make sure things look good.
How would they know now? It’s the same answer. Stop being a dick.
Unless it’s changed from the pilot, it’s only useful if you file a 1040EZ or take some really basic deductions. Anything beyond the basics, like any kind of investments, means you need to use a different tool.
But freetaxusa is still free for all but the most complex cases.
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.
I’d say it’s still a win, and I’m hoping they expand upon it.
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 expect that you’ll have to pay the money according to the statement
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.
The catch is that Turbo Tax and H&R Block are gonna lose a ton of revenue
You have to register an account with the 3rd party service ID.me that uses biometrics like facial recognition. Their privacy policy is horrendous.
The only reason I haven’t used it this year.
Only catch is Republicans probably launching some type of legal action to try and stop it.
No lawsuit launched yet to my knowledge, just sternly worded letters saying please stop helping taxpayers instead of letting predatory companies like Intuit fleece money off of them.
I would expect them to try something soon though with this announced.
I was in a pilot state (Arizona), and I looked into it. It’s only for federal taxes. You need to file state taxes separately.
There are already several online tax solutions that offer free federal and charge for state.
You get to pick which oligarch or corporation gets your tax money this year!
Welcome to 2005, America!
Huh, I went to check - we did it in 2003 (for vat and income tax iirc, ofc they expended it since, nowdays only courtroom stuff doesn’t have online admin systems).
Prior to that you just got the (already filled out) income tax form in the mail - if everything was ok that was usually it. In case you still owed, it included the bill, it they owed you they wired the money to your bank.
If the tax forms were incomplete for some reason (or just not optimised between the members of the same family) you could fill in what they missed (like literally with a pen) & send it back (for them to verify & return it to youb revised).
(This system still works so folk who prefer to do it via paper can do that.)
Thank fuck. Finally
The catch is that it requires ID.me, and there is no way in hell I’m giving some third party a picture of my fucking drivers license.
I hope more scrutiny is given to ID.me. I’ll only be using Direct File if they remove it as a dependency.
Seems odd. They’ve been pushing login.gov like everywhere.
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.
Who knows if ID.me will actually delete the data on their end though, or if the online interview is recorded by the provider.
Interesting that third parties like TurboTax aren’t required to obtain copies of your photo ID.
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.
At that point, might be better to hand-file your return. In many of these programs they offer you the ability to print and mail your return.
Your refund takes longer of course.
…to print my ID in the first place?
(But yes clearly worse to allow personal data to be stored in an additional system.)
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.
Depressing thought: there’s a remote possibility the government is inept enough trying to roll around verification system that a third party has a safer solution.
Positive thinking: maybe the government is just using a third party until they’ve had time to make their own service entirely bombproof. Let’s go with that for our sake.
The problem is that given all of the data breaches, anyone can use your social security number, address, etc. and file a return on your behalf.
In theory, that’s what ID.me is preventing.
But if your wallet gets stolen, good luck.
Huh, I already signed up for it because they started requiring it a while back to access historical tax return documents through the IRS website.
Eat shit [insert private company here]
I hope every CEO gets the worse form of cancer and dies slowly.
😂
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?
A few bad apple spoil the bunch.
Even without access to Direct File since I wasn’t in a pilot state, I’ve been using the IRS’ “Free Fillable Forms” for the last few years and they’ve worked great! They don’t hold your hand as much as the paid software but for my returns they’ve been more than adequate and free!
Does anyone know how “Direct File” differs from the “Free Fillable Forms”? Does it hold your hand a little more and help you find credits/deductions? Free Fillable Forms worked well, but only so long as I knew what I needed to file. New circumstances, like adding a dependent, lead to a lot of research.
how much longer til they just do it for me and leave me the fuck alone?
🤞
He gets it
spoiler
asdfasfasfasfas
Fuck TurboTax, fuck H$R Block
But is it compatible with the tax filing dating sim?
They have all the info, so this shouldn’t even be necessary. They should be able to just send me a tax bill/refund with the break down automatically. If I want to dispute it, then I’d have to pay the big bucks to get fancy accountants to dispute. Otherwise it should just be one less thing vast majority of the people would ever have to worry about.
Well, yeah, but seriously the first reaction to an improvement that never seemed possible before is to discard it as not enough?
Wow congrats USA for doing something that makes sense before Canada.
I still wish we got a bill at the end of the year like some European countries. Maybe a deadline to send in special forums in case of some edge cases but they know what’s up .
I guess the donations weren’t big enough this year.
I tried to use it and it wouldn’t work for me. Got halfway through the process and asked some question about me that seemed basic, but resulted in me not being able to use it.
