The IRS Has an Answer to TurboTax
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
(Don't come to me with paper forms or FreeTaxUsa or whatever. FREE IRS software should be able to handle taxes of any complexity and situation. If they can't handle a scenario in their software, they shouldn't be allowed to collect any taxes resulting from the law that created the scenario)
https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...
> Service Providers: We may share information with service providers, as permitted by law, in order to have them perform on our behalf activities we are permitted to conduct under this Privacy Notice and our Terms of Service. This includes things like helping us design or operate our Services, process and administer your financial transactions, preventing fraud and complying with state and federal law. These service providers are authorized to use Personal Information only as necessary to provide these services to us.
> With advertising partners who help us run our advertising campaigns, analyze our site, run contests, special offers, or other events or activities, and track metrics on our behalf or in connection with our Services.
> Affiliates: We may share certain information with our affiliated companies, such as Block, Inc., formerly known as Square, Inc. (the "Company") to help us provide our Services and manage your account.
> As Part of a Corporate Change: We may disclose and transfer information we've collected to a third party as part of, or in preparation for, a change of control, restructuring, corporate change, or sale or transfer of assets
The affiliates clause is incredibly broad and would let them sell your tax returns to anyone, as long as it helps them provide the service. If the service isn't profitable without selling your tax returns, then that is all the reason they need.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_(...
It's called the Federal Register.
The only complaint I have is that last year and the year before the IRS did not have enough representatives to staff the phone lines to have short queue times, so each call to the IRS took several hours to complete. So I was really excited to see the IRS get more funding this year. I believe they are trying to do the right thing but are often hampered by funding and by politics.
that probably has more to do with having to pay them "their" hard earned money than anything to do with how pleasant it is to interact with their customer service department.
Plus congress wants the poor idiots who vote republican to feel like taxes are a punishment otherwise how will they whip up their base.
Heres the best bit, people working under the table are going to be making less than 100k generally so it doesn't really matter, anyone making real money will be making big enough waves in the financial system to be detected, small movements of cash doesn't matter at this scale. The highly taxed routes (capital gains) are also already highly policed for tax purposes so no transition is needed there.
Surveys show as much as half of workers make money outside normal employment so this is not some obscure side effect but the common case.
[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/side-gigs-2023-50-americans-1...
IRS might not know about those activities, but that income is supposed to be reported.
Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 8z, or on Schedule C (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.
And then there's crypto...
Intuit practices the classic rent-seeking behaviors endemic to late stage capitalism. Who is this helping? They also actively lobby against tax reform because it's an existential threat to their cash cow.
The IRS service is only available in a few states, to people with very simple returns. I don’t see anything about an income limit (which may be a misunderstanding/conflation with the “free file partner” program). Even though my own tax situation is pretty simple, I’m specced out of the pilot system because mine is slightly more complex than dead simple.
(For the record, I don’t use TurboTax. I think Intuit is a bad actor, and I am very pleased that the IRS will now finally offer this basic, no-brainer service. However, the new system just isn’t there yet, so people aren’t crazy for continuing to use TurboTax even if they live in one of the pilot states.)
[1]: https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-f...
> Direct File isn’t perfect—the program is available in only 12 states, and it isn’t able to handle anything beyond the simplest tax situations—but it’s a glimpse of a world where government tech benefits millions of Americans. In turn, it is also an agonizing realization of how far we are from that reality.
According to directfile.gov, those states are: Arizona, California, Massachusetts, New York, Washington, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Texas, Tennessee, and Wyoming.
I have no great love of Intuit, but this is not ready for prime time.
You might as well just file your taxes on physical paper and mail it by snail mail.
One way I've found to mitigate this is citing specific quotes and sources (that they should be aware of already if commenting), which often mitigates this effect, but commenting is nevertheless fraught. It basically amounts to defensive writing a lot of the time.
I keep coming back because I do think there are a bunch of us who do read, have expertise, and are here because we're curious and want to learn from others. But wading through the noise comes with that, sadly.