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?
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.
I feel like shorting will always be riskier than normal investing. With stocks you have people at the company doing their best to raise that stock. With Shorts you are betting against a company that’s trying to survive.
The chances of the CEO pulling something out of their ass, dubious or not, to maintain their profits is too high.
I deleted the comment because I was afraid of ChatGPT reading it and becoming too intelligent.
Eat shit [insert private company here]
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?
It might have treated them well compared to the competition, but they didn’t get as large as they are without making massive profits off the work of their employees. There’s a difference between treating the well and treating them fairly.
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
Ah fuck it, was going to be cryptic but ill just tell the story.
I worked for Duke university and one of the people in our department had stomach cancer. The head of the department, provost, CEO and president sent out emails asking if anyone would donate their leave for the person in their hospital being treated for cancer. If the person didn’t get the days then they were going to drop them from the company insurance It was bad so the person had to stay in the hospital.
I hope they all get the most the worse form of cancer and slowly die with no family around. If there is a hell, they deserve it.
Honestly, they’re probably thrilled. Legislation forced them to provide a free product for this sort of simple, no frills filing, so they won’t be losimg any paying customers to this and probably won’t have to spend dev and qa time supporting the free tier anymore
Free if you have no other exemptions to file.
1099? Nope Depreciation? Nope Tax credits? Nope
Makes for a great headline though.
Im sure those of us that do have exemptions other than the standard will see our tax prep fees skyrocket
Why is the USA the only country to have those problems, AND complain about getting free stuff?
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?
are you not capable of taking a win? it’s a HUGE step towards disassembling predatory cpas and tax software.
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.
do you think it won’t eventually add that stuff? pretty naive to just “meh” and basically call it a failure. nothing happens overnight.
Maybe not. You will have the same number of tax preparers chasing less work. Through the magic of the Free Market™️, shouldn’t that mean pressure to reduce prices? We can only hope.
Yeah, very limited, but it’s very good for more than half of the population that don’t have enough deductions to exceed the standard and don’t own property (if you properly count houseless “households” that earn income as not owning property and not just renters like most statistics). It’s dumb that they have to file a return anyway just to acres money that never should have been collected. Most just don’t know how to properly file their W-4 to not have taxes withheld in the first place. Mostly because they follow the directions and/or are afraid of paying a fine plus interest.
Anyway, it’s a step in the right direction. And if we can unbury all of the staff out of the pile of paper returns, we can devote some to go after the rich and their frivolous, often fraudulent deductions and have them pay the tax they owe.
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?
There’s a worksheet that usually comes with it where you answer questions about your living situation - single/married, homeowner/renter, how many kids, etc. - and it gives you a number to put in. It’s pretty accurate. I’ve done it at every job and aside from years with tax credits I’ve never gotten back more than a few hundred bucks.
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.
But it hasn’t always been free to file electronically. The government made it required for them to offer free versions for simple returns, but that was recent.
Also, access to the Internet isn’t universal. You’d be surprised how much of the US doesn’t have affordable Internet and a fair number don’t have Internet available at all, or limited to just dialup which is not very useful. And a lot of apps don’t work right on phone browsers, especially older phones, so then you need a desktop or laptop which a lot of people don’t have. Some have access in libraries, but a lot don’t or traveling to a library is a burden. And lots of other reasons that internet isn’t a given for a large portion of households. So paper is still not just necessary, but the easiest way.
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.
Hypothetical question: If you omitted the couple bucks of income from the 1099 on that one savings account and you later got audited- how much money would you be on the hook for? what would the consequences be in worst case and likely case scenarios?
I honestly think the government has next to no resources now to go after tax cheats that aren’t hiding tens to hundreds of thousands of owed taxes… but would love to hear what others have to say. I suspect missing out on less than a dollar of taxes from omitting a single figure 1099 would not be big enough to chase and if found probably less costly than hiring a preparer every year when averaged out over your lifetime of tax returns.
I would suggest you get hired by the IRS and start rewriting all their ancient code to build in and allow every deduction rule and that it’s applied correctly every time so everyone can use it.
The tax laws are so large and so complex and the code running all this stuff is so old and now locked in because they didn’t keep up with updating their software as they went along. I’m amazed they got this far. Oh, and like you, I can’t use it either. But that’s why I have an accountant.
why isn’t this constitutionally protected.
Can we pass an amendment for this shit? It’s actually kind of fucked up.
Kind of? Are you going to tell us that the US healthcare system is “sorta silly” next?
Sorta silly?! It’s fucked beyond belief. Source: me, someone who profits off the healthcare industry as a corpo. Sorry 🤷.
god if i had the arcane knowledge of the entire field of healthcare, i would do some unbelievably fucked up shit.
And by that i mean writing open documentation that is continually maintained and represents most healthcare providers in the US specifically to fuck up their entire existence.
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.
I think that some companies like turbotax are employing lobbyists to make impossible filing for taxes unless you go through a gatekeeper
I have a couple of other constitutional amendments I’d like to advance before this.
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.
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?
I understand why we do out taxes in the current situation, kinda. If the irs just sent you a bill it would be ripe for people thinking they were getting ripped off. People hating taxes and thinking they’re getting robbed is about as American as it gets. The whole boston tea party thing. People on both side doing the math holds people accountable. Also the current tax bracket situation kinda needs some end of the year math. Now, if it was a flat tax, a fixed percent… THAT EVERYONE pays no matter how much you make then it would be easy math. But they gotta make sure the middle class is paying 22% of their income to the feds and the billionaires pay one tenth of a percent… you know… for reasons. Then there are a billion write-offs and loopholes the rich can exploit, so they gotta keep those there.
If it was, say, 5% for everyone, no matter what you make, then it could easily just come out of your check as you get paid with no bs at the end of the year.
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
Don’t they just assume that everything is good if you don’t reply? Works that way here
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
