US moving closer to letting Americans file taxes free online

How about instead of allowing Americans file free online, we don't have anyone file but rather send out a pre-filled form that just needs sign off by citizens (the government already knows most of the stuff the average person fills in on their tax forms).

Getting money earmarked to &quot;study a free federal tax-filing website&quot; doesn&#x27;t seem like &quot;moving closer to...free online&quot; filing.<p>Intuit spends millions every year &quot;lobbying&quot; congress to make sure our tax system sucks and people feel the need to pay for their (arguably deceptive) product offering.<p>&gt; Intuit has spent more than $41 million on lobbying since 1998 with nearly $3.3 million in 2021 and about $3.4 million in 2020, OpenSecrets’ analysis of lobbying data shows.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.opensecrets.org&#x2F;news&#x2F;2022&#x2F;03&#x2F;intuit-spends-millions-lobbying-amid-accusations-of-deceptive-turbotax-advertising&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.opensecrets.org&#x2F;news&#x2F;2022&#x2F;03&#x2F;intuit-spends-milli...</a><p>&gt; Using lobbying, the revolving door and “dark pattern” customer tricks, Intuit fended off the government’s attempts to make tax filing free and easy, and created its multi-billion-dollar franchise.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.propublica.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.propublica.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;inside-turbotax-20-year-f...</a>

Is there any meat to this ? These types of headlines make their way into the press all the time. From the article, &quot;$15 million was set aside for the Treasury Department to study a free federal tax-filing website&quot;. This just studies the situation. No concrete steps are mentioned, nor is any actual money set aside. Considering government inefficiency of 10x, the actual money needed for the IRS to implement this would be to the tune of tens to hundreds of millions, optimistically. And that&#x27;s without considering the pushback from the tax lobby. I am not optimistic that Congress will approve massive funding for the IRS.

Come on people, we need this!!

QQ: how much information does the IRS need from the average American?<p>Brits like me mostly don&#x27;t need to do a tax return. But that&#x27;s because taxes are quite simple for most people here. You earned money? You pay &lt;rate&gt; on &lt;amount&gt;.<p>It does not matter how many kids I have or what my mortgage payments are.<p>I get the impression American taxes require 1001 answers and sums and receipts...

&gt; Filing your taxes could soon be free and relatively painless.<p>Is the alternative cost a stamp and a paper form? Or is there actually a fee to pay tax in the US?<p>&gt; &quot;Tax filing should be simple: I recently came across a statistic it takes an average American 13 hours to file a tax return&quot;<p>... oh dear. I am sorry. I feel your pain but I can&#x27;t stop laughing.

How about we remove the federal payroll tax entirely? It&#x27;s a pretty sensible solution, especially with the gross ineptitude Congress has shown with the purse strings of the country.

It is already the case in France. Tax declaration is costlezz

I find it mind boggling that it is not the case already.