Comment by Henchman21
5 months ago
How about we just have the gov't do the math based on what our employers already tell them and then send us a bill or refund. Why must we play this game as if the gov't doesn't know all the info already?
5 months ago
How about we just have the gov't do the math based on what our employers already tell them and then send us a bill or refund. Why must we play this game as if the gov't doesn't know all the info already?
There is a bunch of code to import w2s from the SSA in this codebase - this did happen this year for direct file. That being said, big issues remain:
- Employers don't tell the federal government about state tax information and when they do, the government doesn't store that information
- W2s aren't due to the SSA at the opening of tax filing season and penalties aren't commonly enforced for submitting w2s on time.
https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file/blob/main/direct-f...
There are a bunch of us for whom it doesn't have all the info (if any, in fact).
Granted, the ranks of the self-employed are a small fraction of all taxpayers, and there's no reason the latter should be forced to do things as if they were part of the former.
Yep I think the Pareto principle applies: let’s knock out 80% who can just be sent a bill/check.
Because in many cases they don't know. They don't know about your self-employment income and business expenses. They might not know about your marital status and dependents. They won't know about various credits such as education expenses, solar or EV credits, etc.
What percentage of tax filers have a single W-2, maybe a 1099, and take the standard deduction? If I had to guess, 80%.
Probably. And they could do their taxes on paper in 20 minutes if they weren't afraid to. TurboTax would like you to believe otherwise of course.
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