brbpostingIRS successfully launches their own free Direct File - some of my fellow 'murcans are eligible
Cyrus Draegurcan’t use it if i got my health insurance through obamacare? -_- fucking bullshit
HotDogFingiesI can't use it because I live in the wrong state. Truly some fucking bullshit.
To be specific, this is a pilot program, with the full launch coming later.
Ya last year 50 states worth of all insured and uninsured people dealt with evil tax prep companies :)
Yeah I heard they were working on this but at the time no one expected anything this year. Good for those able to utilize it.
DeceptichumDamn 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…
That is what happens when you let corporations run your country
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.)
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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
Yeah, bummer. I’ll have to wait I guess.
so the most populous states, and somehow, 2 in the bottom 5.
GladiusBTesting the outliers?
☂️-mmm, scientific!
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.
Ricky RigatoniIf 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
Surprised Texas is in that list.
Yeah, what a bummer that free federal tax returns are only offered to a few states.
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? 😉
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.
This is why I like credit unions that offer bill pay. They can print and mail the check. :)
I use a check for Rumpke for the same reason, but my checkbook is still useful for when a co-worker brings in their kid’s fundraiser and i can quickly write ine out
I’d use Bank of America bill pay or something similar, they will print and mail your check.
What is it with water departments being such Luddites?! Having lived in a few different cities in a few different states, they always seem to be the one utility that’s the biggest pain in the ass to work with. Gotta go down to their city office to start service - make sure to bring a voided check if you want to set up an auto draft to pay the bill because they don’t take cards. Online account management? Nah, the closest they have to an online presence is their About page on the city website.
WHY?!
phillaholicDo you want to pay more just to get all that up and running though?
Utility prices keep going up, regardless. I’d rather they use the money for something useful.
interwebs
It’s called “the information superhighway”, thank you very much. 😄
twelve20two 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.
At some point she should just stop jumping through their hoops and file in small claims court.
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.
Faxes… No, no we have not gotten rid of them. On the other hand, that means shenanigans are still available!
Not true - faxes are widely in use in Healthcare due to hipaa rules
I still write checks, mostly to pay contractors and tip my hairdresser. I wrote a tip for a contractor the other day and made it out to cash. He said that was too old-school and he was afraid the bank wouldn’t accept it!
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.
Beat me to it.
Higher tax bracket Lemmings, note that Donate icon in the upper right of their excellent reporting. Reporters probably risking their lives with the stuff they uncover about the most powerful people.
ZoboomafooExcept for the last several years it’s becoming harder to file for free with TurboTax
apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/browse-all-offers/
These just don’t advertise as much
I thought I had gotten rid of cheques, but I had to get a book specifically to get my passport.
18F looking for tax filling help
k if u single but looking to file jointly 👉👈
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to use it, since it doesn’t list capital gains as a supported type of income
Unless that’s also related to it being a pilot
No matter what is planned right now, if this isn’t a PR disaster but the opposite and all the direct filers are gleeful about it, I think it’ll be good enough publicity for them to broaden it to most any use case.
CPAs with a million times more insight may need to correct me there though.
aehardingI can’t wait until this is available in my state!
Due to lack of public identity infrastructure, filing taxes online in Britain takes a long time. I mean, at least 10 minutes 😄
It takes at least that long for me to figure out if I was a Lloyds underwriter on the second Tuesday after the third waxing moon every year.
N-E-NCan someone with more knowledge than me explain how this might differ from Canada’s system
It differs because more of it goes to the defense budget than any other country by a high order of magnitude.
I experienced true happiness for a moment. Only one moment.
Why is it only available in such a limited number of states?