cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25117460
Summary
Elon Musk claimed on X that he eliminated the IRS team responsible for the “Direct File” program, which allows Americans to file taxes online for free.
His statement came in response to a right-wing influencer criticizing the program as government overreach.
However, the Treasury Department confirms that the Direct File system remains active, offering free tax filing with customer support.
The program, available in English and Spanish, is optional, allowing taxpayers to choose between using it or filing their taxes manually.
In Denmark We’ve had easy tax filing on the Internet for more than a decade, and before that it was also extremely easy, as we got a form with all the usual data filled out, and we only had to send in if we had changes. I haven’t done my taxes for 30 years!!!
Except when we bought a house we’ve had a few tax deductions on energy saving changes, which took 2 minutes to enter.
Every piece of standard information is collected automatically, like wages, bank info, stock profits, real estate taxes, and the rest if you have anything additional is super easy to fill out. The old paper tax return form is AFAIK completely abandoned since more than a decade ago.
USA under Trump with Elron Musk making it even worse is what we would call working like monkeys in a cage. If they really end this program, it makes it more difficult to do your taxes, AND cost tax payers MORE!!
Even this easy file was ineligible for anyone who did any IRA which americans have to do to have retirment funds and is super common. Of course the idea was the thing was supposed to be expanded not sunk.
Sorry as a non American IDK what IRA is in this context, usually it’s Irish Republican Army, but that doesn’t fit the context. Obviously pension funds are automatic too here, I just forgot to mention those.
sorry I thought mentioning it had to do with retirement would be enough. if you put money into a special account you can’t touch till you retire then they will not tax it right away but only when you withdraw it once your retired. Alternatively you can pay the tax and put it into an account where they will not tax any investment growth of it or tax what you withdraw. Yeah I even feel stupid typing it out. I hope this helps anyone in a country with politicians trying to sell privatizing shit.
I prefer to know what an acronym stands for, before claiming I know what is meant, and looking up 3 letter acronyms for another country is not as easy as I suspect most Americans think it is.
But from your explanation I now figure the RA is retirement account, so now I only lack the meaning of the I? Which with my new knowledge I could look up, and find out means Individual.
So now I know in this context, IRA is Individual Retirement Account.
ah. I see. I thought you want meaning and did not realize it was more just the name thing.
Thanks, it was good enough to figure it out. 😀
Individual Retirement Account
👍
They’re still developing it. This was a test rollout to see if they could do it. IRS software was still running on cobol mainframes. Upgrading from these things take time and a lot of development. And they’re doing it from scratch.
I mean its sorta funny though because if someone does not put in their taxes the irs will send them a filled out one and ask for a signature to go forward. They also have this great form 1040x that would be perfect to send a prefilled tax return out and leave room for modifications.
This real only works for W2 workers, and a few 1099ers.
They know when you leave some things (banks, brokerages, employers) that also report to them off. They don’t know everything.
So yes, they could prefill it a majority, but the filing companies didn’t want that to happen
Thanks, we know the rest of the modern world has it better in literally every way literally everywhere else. Can someone just like invade and save us please?
Sorry, you’ve spent 75 years arming your own government to the point of making this impossible. In the name of “security”. Do you feel secure yet?
Imagine calling it a “Defense” budget and going to invade the Middle East, on the near opposite side of the world, twice in 3 years.
Unfortunately USA is extremely good at violence, probably the best in the world, so I guess you’ll just have to fight it out amongst yourselves. But I wish all the best to all the reasonable Americans, that still believe in decency and democracy.
This is most accurate and depressing assessment of the United States I have ever read.
Being a child of the 60’s in Europe, the first President I remember is Jimmy Carter. It is really disappointing that we have seen no other president of USA come even close to caliber of Jimmy Carter.
Nobody since can even “Nå ham til sokkerholderne.” Sorry but I can’t find a fitting translation, the literal translation is “reach his sock holders” the closest AFAIK is “head and shoulders above”, but it doesn’t really illustrate the huge distance between Jimmy Carter and every US president since.
Back then we dreamed of peace, tolerance and progress of society. Since then it’s been all about money, and at the most scraping a few benefits for the worst off.
So when you say it’s depressing, you are goddam right it’s depressing. USA threw away their future, mostly to just benefit big oil and the 1%. But more than that, almost all of the developed world is following in the footsteps of USA!? So although it’s not nearly as bad, we are going the wrong way too. 😥
Once they have control of all the people and property used to commit that violence… I mean, it’s not going to stay within US borders, is it?
No probably not, I hope MAGA will be thrown out when the stupid people rooting for them realize what it really is.
But as things are going, it doesn’t look good.