It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately. Going further, the IRS already knows the details of most people’s taxes before they file, yet everyone is expected to complete what amounts to a complex task for many people. I cannot fathom why it is still done this way.
Listening to Congress “debate” this made me unreasonably upset. If you as a sitting politician have received monetary benefits from a tax filing service you should not be allowed to speak.
I did my Canadian taxes for me and my spouse on a free filing site last night, in less than two hours, for $0. Everything was prefilled; practically the only thing I had to fix was to convert an imported investment statement from USD to CAD, and double check that everything was accurate.<p>I welcome the Americans to the delightful convenience of hassle-free taxes!
I didn't qualify to use the site, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. Everyone agrees that doing taxes should be free and easy, like nearly every other country...
let me copy a comment i had in another article:<p>did you ever try to use any USA federal service? (veteran benefits, free tax filing, ssn, etc). you're required an id.me account.<p>what's that? well some anonymous group saw login.gov, realized the value of the data, and lobbied that it should be open to free capital markets to explore, not the government!<p>so now if you want to even talk to the irs or veteran service, you need to go to that privately owned id.me site, do a video call, scan all the documents they ask for (even ones without visible anti counterfeit mechanics like your typewritter filled ssn card).<p>and the best part? right after you create your account, you land on a coupon clipping page that is a facsimile of the garbage pamphlet the usps is forced to shove daily in yout physical mailbox! and among the links on that page are links to Whitepapers about how advertisers can benefit from buying user data from them because it includes gov affiliation like vetetan, taxpayer, etc and bank information!
There are a lot of things that remind me that the government doesn't work for the people, and tax time is just another one of those times.<p>Getting taxes automated is a solved problem. There is only one reason this status quo persisted for so many years. it's just to bad that we must bend the knee before the real americans, Intuit's lobbyists.<p>I'm glad the IRS is showing signs of wriggling free of such influence, but it is unfortunately to late a fix for yet another unforgiveable position for me.<p>The US government has shown me its priorities again and again throughout my life, and it's not the people. There is no rehabilitating this image in my eyes.<p>Hopefully I can be proven wrong, and the next generation can grow up far less cynical of our elected representatives.
Most Americans don’t do their own taxes. They go to H&R Block or Jackson Hewitt, and if your family makes under $60k you are almost certainly paying no income taxes and are receiving a refund via the EITC, getting a check back. So people think tax preparers are voodoo priests that do their incantations to get free money because the average person can’t understand the jargon, can’t handle forms, and the whole endeavor is purposefully opaque.<p>I support free file for most people. I also support radically simplifying the tax code, which would make the Byzantines blush.
I really hope this does not affect the Free File Fillable Forms.<p>I do not want to be forced to mail in paper forms just so I can do my taxes for real.
Not available in my state but am looking forward to if/when it becomes available. I do my own taxes with the free fillable forms site. I would rather use this direct file service if possible. State of NJ has a free online site but NY does not for non-residents so I end up mailing in a return for them. It’s silly really.
One thing that the article didn't mention, which I think needs to be considered, is the savings if we can get rid of paper tax forms. Right now, the IRS has to have the staff to be able to process those. How much will they save there, and does it offset the ongoing costs of running the website?
"Experts say a nationwide rollout could someday disrupt the multibillion-dollar tax preparation industry; Americans spend more than $200 a year, on average, to file a return using software or a tax preparer."<p>This year it took me five minutes and cost whatever I pay for my bank account, which I used for identification. $30 maybe? I could have waited a bit for papers through the mail and approved with a SMS.<p>Might be an OK goal for US:ian lawmakers.
I used this for taxes this year. It spotted three errors, fairly complex errors actually, and spit it back for me to fix. After the third submission, it was error free and my return was accepted. I found it pretty amazing that it caught all of that and so, so, so, happy I gave no money to the tax industrial complex for a change. The IRS should definitely continue this as a thing.
> The Biden administration announced Friday that its first-of-its-kind free tax filing website...<p>In the rest of the world in many places we have been filling taxes directly online for many years. Sorry Americans, you did not invent free electronic tax filing. You are at least twenty years late to the party.
wait until turbo tax comes in hot with their lobbying efforts - didn't they manage to prevent or diminish a free tax filing service already a few years ago?