from the you-must-enter-all-numbers-in-hex dept.
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, about 70% of all US taxpayers are eligible for free federal income-tax-preparation and electronic-filing software through a program known as Free File. From the article:
Grappling with confusing tax forms and instructions may seem like the textbook definition of cruel and unusual punishment.
But there are a few ways for most taxpayers to make the task less burdensome. For example, about 70% of all taxpayers are eligible for free federal income-tax-preparation and electronic-filing software through a program known as “Free File.”
[...] Free File (IRS.gov/FreeFile) is a partnership between the Internal Revenue Service and a group of 14 tax-software companies, known as the Free File Alliance. The companies are offering products at no charge. But they aren’t available to everyone.
“If you earned $60,000 or less last year, you are eligible to choose from among 14 software products,” the IRS says.
Have you used this program before? What has your experience been? Would you recommend it to your fellow Solylentils?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2015, @02:48PM
...fuck tax.
Don't pay it.
Your a fool if you do.
Stop paying for a industry of war machine making.
You do have a vote.
(Score: 1) by g2 In The Desert on Sunday January 25 2015, @02:52PM
Yes, you do have a vote. The vote it's whether or not to follow the law, the vote is to get rid of the insipid fools who put these laws before us. Exercise your right to vote. Not your perceived right to ignore the laws you don't like.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2015, @03:36PM
Thanks for pointing that out. It's not a right to ignore bad laws, it's an obligation to ignore bad laws.
-- Thomas Jefferson
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday January 25 2015, @09:22PM
Really? When you get to vote between ebola infection or ricin poisoning, what's the fucking point?
And yes, I only vote for third parties and I dearly hope I'm seen as a spoiler some day, because that's the best I can hope for -- that by spoiling someone will start to listen. Having a chance to actually vote for someone who would change the game though? That's a pipe dream -- I know it, you know it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2015, @03:40PM
Yeah, I can think of a few ways to make it less burdensome:
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday January 25 2015, @09:33PM
This should not be modded flamebait. It _is_ a moral issue, but I'm too much of a pussy to go to prison. If I wasn't a hypocrite, I'd stop paying my taxes and donate an equivalent amount to charities, science, research -- anything that actually acts as a force for good in the world rather than give it the US Federal Government, which is for the most part, a flaming source of evil in the world. But I am a hypocrite, and a wimp. So I pay.
(Score: 1) by gnuman on Monday January 26 2015, @04:52AM
So, you don't need roads or medical services or things like courts or law or social security?
You know what, you can already do that just don't make any money. ALL money comes from government anyway, so since you do not want to give money away, just don't earn any. Go volunteer your time to charities. Live "off the land" and such. Schools? Yeah, those no one needs anyway. Who cares about literacy! Work for food, not money, if you want.
Problems?
But I am a hypocrite, and a wimp. So I pay.
Actually, you probably like all the things that are paid for by government.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday January 26 2015, @06:52AM
I live in a donor state. I would be instantly 15% better off if my state handled the same things the Feds do, plus, I wouldn't be supporting random war.
Do not confuse my disgust at the amount of money I send the feds, with this common canard that's trotted out any time somebody complains about roads or whatever. My roads would be gold plated if the minions of Mordor were not involved.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 26 2015, @04:11PM
(Score: 4, Informative) by goody on Sunday January 25 2015, @02:59PM
It's reasonably good and has been bug free in my experience, however I wouldn't call it tax preparation software. It's more like an online form with a bit of smarts in the background that will do calculations. It's not a replacement for a tax accountant if you've got funky stuff with capital gains, dividends, etc. and you still need to read the instructions and know what you're doing. But it's worked flawlessly for me filing electronically and it's free.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2015, @03:11PM
So who are you going to go to when crooks use your Free File info to steal either your refund or your bank account? The IRS? TurboTax?
The only sane move is to file on paper.
(Score: 2) by goody on Sunday January 25 2015, @03:17PM
It's no more insecure than buying stuff on an ecommerce site. You would need a man-in-the-middle attack to redirect a refund to another postal address or change the EFT information. If someone does an EFT out of your account, you go to your bank.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2015, @03:33PM
Not so fast.
Crooks took over 5 billion dollars via refund fraud last year. [time.com]
Even if they can't use this year's filing info to scam you (which is not something I would count on) they can harvest this year's data and beat you to filing next year.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2015, @08:36PM
If you don't want to use a fly-by-night outfit, the big three companies also provide a free version through the program.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 26 2015, @01:29AM
Why does that make any difference at all?
Do you think the big juicy targets are less likely to be hacked than the smaller target that's barely worth the effort of trying to compromise?
(Score: 2) by goody on Monday January 26 2015, @03:33AM
It's kind of ironic the article you link to recommends you file electronically to prevent refund fraud. File with paper if you like, but you probably have more of a chance of getting hit by a bus than experiencing this sort of fraud.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2015, @08:44PM
Sure it is. My liability to the credit card company is infinitessimal compared to my IRS exposure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2015, @04:54PM
more than $60k, so the "free filing alliance" offerings won't help. The federal filing system is mired in corruption, where the established tax filing corps have colluded with the government to prevent saner tax processing.
So every year US taxpayers are required to shuffle random bits of paper, containing data also sent to the IRS, then run through a series of ~20 forms and subforms acting as a human BASIC interpreter bouncing back and forth through them, just to show the government what they already know.
If we didn't have these leeches buy off the federal government, we could have mechanisms like in New York and California, where the tax office sends a pre-figured bill.
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2015, @05:52PM
I'd say most employed people reading this earn more than $60k
You would be wrong http://www.irs.gov/file_source/pub/irs-soi/12in11si.xls [irs.gov]
Your point is however correct. In fact my point even makes it stand out more. As we overburden the least who are able to afford it. Our tax system is a byzantine labyrinth of kickbacks and social engineering gone bad.
Take the whole thing throw it out and start with 0 deductions. At a minimum they should send us a postcard saying 'is this right' or 'go to the website and check' like you say. If it is wrong then file. I am still waiting on president Obama to make good on his promise to do just that.
The gov is literally leaving money on the table and letting people game the system because they are overburdened. Make the burden simpler seems like a good plan?...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2015, @06:27PM
It should be simpler than that, a flat tax percent for everyone, no deductions, no loopholes, no excuse.
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Monday January 26 2015, @04:06AM
Flat tax advocates are naive. The biggest personal income tax deductions are retirement savings, mortgage interest and child credits.
The constituencies that created these deductions will either reinstate them or build new bureaucracies to house them. Subsidizing these activities is an idea that is too popular to kill.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Monday January 26 2015, @03:36PM
We could make the system easier to do without going to flat tax. Nobody (sane) is saying we should not subsidize these big ticket items.
But the sheer volume of paperwork and forms is maddening even for an individual. I am glad I do not own a small business.
The IRS bureaucracy exists to feed itself, like every bureaucracy. The amount of money we would save by cutting it down to the bare minimum could save a ton of money.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Tuesday January 27 2015, @12:03AM
I think I'm just more idealistic and jaded than you. I'm idealistic in that I tend to think that an ugly status quo reflects hard compromises on implicit subjective judgments embedded in the problem. I'm jaded in that I think that efforts to slay monsters tend to spawn larger monsters.
From that perspective, I prefer politics driven by iterative improvements and horse-trading compromises over large sweeping "solutions".
In this specific case, if you cut down one bureaucracy but spawn one or two new ones to tackle some things that were tacked on to the old bureaucracy and still need to be addressed,even if the new bureaucracies are smaller than the old one, are you really sure they're going to stay that way?
From another perspective, framing these subsidies as tax deductions makes them more politically stable and currently there are insane elements looking for new battlegrounds.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2015, @08:24PM
Don't think I'm wrong about the income. At least the IRS statistic doesn't disprove it. People who read this site are for the most part in the computer industry, which pays more than what most peons can get elsewhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 26 2015, @07:35AM
Wait 10 years, when you can't get an IT job unless you're a H-B1 worker.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 26 2015, @03:27AM
Read the site again. Below $60K you can do the free file software. Any income level can do the free fillable forms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2015, @06:52PM
Yes, give all your tax information to a third party. They are corporations, whats the worst they could do?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 26 2015, @07:36AM
Australians can submit their tax form for free online. Thanks ATO.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 26 2015, @09:20AM
only if you use windows :(
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Monday January 26 2015, @03:31PM
I am sure Intuit will sue to stop this from happening again. They spend millions lobbying to make tax laws more complex, making sure people depend on them.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh