Oh my, where is mah fainting couch?
Image Here it is, RariJack
Comment on IRS will pilot free, direct tax filing in 2024
Arghblarg@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
What? The government will actually collect taxes itself like every other sane country, instead of privatizing it out to middlemen grifters? Oh my, where is mah fainting couch?
uis@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Arghblarg@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
Beautiful :)
sturmblast@lemmy.world 11 months ago
You always had the ability to freely file your taxes.
Goblin_Mode@ttrpg.network 11 months ago
That guy is obviously exaggerating for effect and you are technically correct, but he’s not wrong.
Companies like Inuit and H&R Block have been lobbying for ages to keep the free file forms ridiculously overcomplicated, difficult to navigate/complete, and dangerously generalized to the point where if you mis-interpret a line on one of your several non-intuitively named financial forms you will be committing tax fraud
It is objectively easier, safer, and more convenient to file taxes through one of these private companies and the is by design.
Arghblarg@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
Thank you – the point I was trying to make is that technically USians can file their own taxes, but that it’s overly complicated, and many believe intentionally obfuscated, in order to push citizens to use private corps to do it for them (at a healthy profit for said corps).
Whereas, in Canada (and as I understand it, most other nations) the tax system is not so baroque as to discourage people from doing it themselves.
sturmblast@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’ve been doing my own taxes for 22 years, it’s not hard
hansl@lemmy.world 11 months ago
In Canada, unless you have some weird stuff, the tax filing form is smaller than the census. They just need to confirm things that links your accounts. They already have your pay and taxes amounts from your employer, your bank tax statements from your banks, etc. So unless you’re doing something only like 1% of the population does, it’s a two pager online, 20 minutes in and out, that’s it.
locuester@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
That’s not far from the same for simple filings here. Both my adult kids do their own in about 10-15 min. Maybe less after the first year. This is through TurboTax online.
Also, it’s free as long as you don’t make much or have things like HSA or 401k.
uis@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Isn’t 401k pension payment? Not from USA.
sturmblast@lemmy.world 11 months ago
sure down vote the truth
SilentCal@lemmy.basedcount.com 11 months ago
Oh no they’ve always collected it themselves, you just have to wade through ~4K pages of tax code that has averaged one change a day for the last decade.
But if you get it wrong, they’ll happily mail you a correction if you erred low. Plus penalties and interest of course.
The middle men like Intuit are a symptom of the legislature trying to use taxes to incentivize or disincentivize every little thing and still get pork for their districts. There’s a good 20 pages of code and case law on the depreciably of race horses that I’m sure the Senators from Kentucky had a hand in.