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Congress is About To Ban the Government From Offering Free Online Tax Filing (propublica.org)
Just in time for Tax Day, the for-profit tax preparation industry is about to realize one of its long-sought goals. Congressional Democrats and Republicans are moving to permanently bar the IRS from creating a free electronic tax filing system. ProPublica reports: Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee, led by Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), passed the Taxpayer First Act, a wide-ranging bill making several administrative changes to the IRS that is sponsored by Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Mike Kelly (R-Pa). In one of its provisions, the bill makes it illegal for the IRS to create its own online system of tax filing. Companies like Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, and H&R Block have lobbied for years to block the IRS from creating such a system. If the tax agency created its own program, which would be similar to programs other developed countries have, it would threaten the industry's profits.
"This could be a disaster. It could be the final nail in the coffin of the idea of the IRS ever being able to create its own program," said Mandi Matlock, a tax attorney who does work for the National Consumer Law Center. Experts have long argued that the IRS has failed to make filing taxes as easy and cheap as it could be. In addition to a free system of online tax preparation and filing, the agency could provide people with pre-filled tax forms containing the salary data the agency already has, as ProPublica first reported on in 2013.
"This could be a disaster. It could be the final nail in the coffin of the idea of the IRS ever being able to create its own program," said Mandi Matlock, a tax attorney who does work for the National Consumer Law Center. Experts have long argued that the IRS has failed to make filing taxes as easy and cheap as it could be. In addition to a free system of online tax preparation and filing, the agency could provide people with pre-filled tax forms containing the salary data the agency already has, as ProPublica first reported on in 2013.
Politicians from both sides introducing a bill that's bad for citizens based on the lobbying of an industry. To quote Claude Raines from Casablanca, "I am shocked—shocked—to find that gambling is going on in here!"
This isn't capitalism at work, this is its friend cronyism.
Just like health care, they throw the good of the population under the bus to protect existing industries that profit from the horribly broken status quo. And a large chunk of the population has been tricked into liking it that way.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Are you seriously advocating for people to send their taxes to multiple services (paying a fee for each) to determine which can find your lowest tax bill?
Nobody is saying that they want to outlaw accountants. That's a gross misreading of the law. If you want to having someone look for savings in your tax bill then that's your prerogative. If you don't think those people are worth their fee because your return is simple then a free government service will probably save you money. The only people who lose are the middlemen who take a fee and fail to find any extra savings, which is an extremely common situation.
I read the internet for the articles.
For the past three or four years I've used freefilefillableforms.com, which has no income limit and is linked directly from the IRS website. Yes, you're basically filling in a web form which is laid out exactly like the paper 1040... but so what? It's free, and it's online.
Obviously they're not referring to that program, since it already exists.
#DeleteChrome
IRS should just open-source it.
It doesn't have to be "totally free" to save me money. Currently to e-file costs around $45. It's nearly a guarantee that the government can run the service cheaper than that. Virginia had a service like that nearly a decade ago and it cost them about $40k/year for the entire state. Lobbying from the tax return industry killed it and now every taxpayer in the state pays on the order of $55 each year to e-file. Millions of dollars funneled to H&R Block, Intuit, etc... because they bought off some representatives. Not once has any service saved me a dime off of my state taxes. I can't think of any money they have saved me on federal taxes either. The only reason I use them is because there is no free way to e-file if you have a middle class income.
I read the internet for the articles.
The government service not being free doesn't lead to the conclusion it also has to be more expensive than a private company's equivalent. Of course ultimately it must be paid, but the increased taxes are not necessarily higher than the "free and open market" price.
This is especially true when the "free and open market" actually is dysfunctional, with competitors not competing that hard but actually colluding, legislators not keeping things under checks and balances and the consumers getting milked as hard as possible in the name of profits.
I am unsurprised by the notion of taking away a free service that is really not encroaching on the private sector to many meaningful degree, but what's with the Orwellian langauge? No-one is fooled about who this is putting first.
it is not to late to stop this monstrosity
if just 10% of the people on slashdot actually bothered to contact their congressional delegation (1 rep + 2 sen) this wouldn't
you don't call you loose your right to complain
call email telex wire now
this is something you can do
Software is different though - it has essentially zero cost of duplication and distribution. That's the entire premise behind the open source movement - leveraging that zero cost of duplication and distribution to maximize benefit to society. Essentially you can view what the IRS is doing as hiring a few people to write tax software for them (so, maybe $200k in development costs), then duplicating and distributing it to everyone for free. Even if the IRS charged double their development costs for it, I doubt Intuit and H&R Block could compete with that price (e.g. if they sell 10 million copies, then each copy should be priced at less than 4 cents).
One other important point - the IRS already needs this software anyway, since they have to know if people are paying the correct amount. And really, as the summary points out, the IRS already receives most of the data that people enter in their tax forms, so forcing people to transcribe all of the data is a waste of time and obvious source of errors.
Isn't it the _basic_ role of the IRS to make it as simple and automated as possible ?!?
A lot of the blame can be put on Grover Norquist, the leader of Americans for Tax Reform, an anti-tax, small government group. One of the things his group advocates for is to make filing taxes as hard as possible. The group fears that if filing taxes is easy, then people won't resist paying them or the growth of government. For those of you who may not be aware, Norquist pushes aggressively for politicians to sign a "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" that basically fights any new taxes. For Republicans, it's almost mandatory less have one of the largest right-wing groups move against you.
The agency in charge of collecting your taxes is not allowed to provide a portal where you can submit them your tax information, and instead you have to pay a company to fulfill your legal obligation to file taxes?
What a dystopian shit hole.
The entire US tax system has been purposely made more and more complicated by industry lobbyists, in order to create work for their entire industry. Any congressman that votes for this is a criminal.
Article 1 section 8 says:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Duties, imposts, an excises are taxes on transactions, on doing things, as opposed to a tax on being (either a tax on a person being alive or a thing existing). A sales tax is an excise tax. The requirement, then, is that the tax is uniform - the feds can't set a different rate in California than Florida. Note there is no mention of census or population. So no Constitutional issue with a national sales tax.
So where DO we find a mention of population?
We find that regarding "direct taxes", which are taxes on being (either a person, being a alive, or a tax on a thing based on what kind of thing it is - a tax being a car or being a house). This as opposed to taxes on transactions, on doing. Direct taxes therefore are:
Real Property taxes
Capitation ($x per person)
Personal property taxes
See
Murphy v. Internal Revenue Service and United States, case no. 05-5139,
For these direct taxes only, the Constitution provides that:
--
Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers.
So the feds can't tax each of the states $1 billion for property, direct taxes (taxes on people or property) have to be apportioned by population.
What does "apportioned" mean? Well, we're talking about taxes here, not spending. Apportioning TAXES means how taxes are levied amongst the states. As mentioned previously, this applies only to direct taxes, so it has no relevance for transaction taxes anyway.
Maybe its better when both sides are at each other's throats. When both sides agree we usually end up invading somewhere or get crap like this.
Not sure if my recollection is 100% on this, but I recall a similar issue with the National Weather Service (NWS). They put up the satellites, staff professional meteorologists, run super computers, etc. But lobbyists were trying to get the NWS's weather forecast website shutdown because it challenged weather.com, and other weather sites for views. And being completely un-American, the NWS site didn't even have ads (!)
Nothing is free. Using tax revenue to undercut an entire industry that creates jobs doesn't really sit well. There is no free, everyone is paying for it. And everyone has a choice to do them for free the old fashioned way, find a 'free' service, or pay for it.
The job of the IRS is to collect taxes, not prepare them. Now if you could show it actually saves the government money I'd likely be all for it as a cost savings.
I'm like Donald Trump: I don't want the government seeing my tax returns.
You are welcome on my lawn.
https://docs.house.gov/meeting... The only thing in the bill that even resembles a ban is a section on how they have to work with 3rd parties. Do yourself a favor and STOP reading the headlines (Sec. 1102. IRS Free File Program): "(4) The IRS Free File Program shall continue,to work cooperatively with the private sector to provide the free individual income tax preparation and the electronic filing services described in paragraphs (2) and (3)."
That "free and open" market also has an added cost called "profit," which the people who want to privatize government services never seem to think about. The IRS could do all of the work for most people with the information they get directly from employers and banks (and such), all this is is forcing people to give money to corporations for no reason other than the corporations wants it.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Given the government's security track record, is there anyone here who thinks pre-filled tax forms being sent to us (or made available online) is a good idea?
Well, several private companies send me pre-filled tax forms (W-2s, 1099s, etc). And private industry's security track record is far worse than the government's.