I used the IRS free fillable forms this year and it was much easier than I expected, including contractor, investment income, and foreign income declarations.
We don't have one. Are you talking about Direct File? The Trump admin killed it, though it was successfully nerfed from the start anyway by the Intuit and H&R Block lobbyists -- you couldn't even itemize deductions, or have 1099 income.
If your taxes were that simple, you didn't need software, you could do your taxes with the 1040EZ form, a pocket calculator and 10 minutes.
Note: If you're just taking the piss because every other country has a government method to submit your taxes, yup, we're dumb, thanks mostly to that shitty company.
Oh, we do have another 'free' filing method for those with income below a certain level, which the lobbyists made sure would be handled by those same private companies. They are allowed to obfuscate and hide it, so when you search for it, you will probably end up on their main, paid product. Kind of the identical story with how our credit reports work (annualcreditreport dot com being the site the CRAs really don't want you to find)
FreeTaxUSA is pretty close. I live in a no tax state so it is completely free. I think state tax is $15.
Hate to sound like a shill, but they've been great. I have a more complicated return than most, but not everyone, and it handles it all(multi-state, capital gains/losses and rollovers, depreciations, etc).
The only thing I wish they'd change is the name. It sounds scammy.
I actually have started agreeing to their probably mostly BS Deluxe/Audit Defense just because I felt guilty about using it for free so long.
> I have a more complicated return than most, but not everyone, and it handles it all (multi-state, capital gains/losses and rollovers, depreciations, etc)
Most people have W-2/1099 and some real estate deductions. Not hard to beat that in complexity.
Try AMT, controlled foreign corporations, nested K-1s, and 1040X prior year amendments with $100k-$1 million+ pending refunds.
> you could do your taxes with the 1040EZ form, a pocket calculator and 10 minutes.
Shouldn't the correct way to file simple taxes be to just accept (sign) a value? Why is any arithmetic needed at all? Doesn't the tax authority know the numbers (What you earned, how much you paid in taxes) and they could figure out what you owe automatically?
I've just "accepted" or "signed" my tax return (not in the US obviously) for at least the last 15 years so I might underestimate some complexity here. The key idea behind it though is that nearly all deductions are automatically and unambiguously applied, already when the cost is charged in most cases. So they're always already done when I file my taxes. And the key to that is making sure the tax law is written with this in mind.
I suspect a lot of it is to ensure people who are paid in cash have a strong moment where it can be argued that they took significant agency to hide that from the IRS.
“I just clicked yes on the web form.” might not feel as compelling to a jury filling out paper forms and conveniently forgetting my cash-based income. (I suspect the same reason is why you have to carry your luggage a few hundred feet over a line and recheck it when connecting on an international to domestic flight coming into the US: so there is a clear moment when you personally carried your luggage over a line, so if there’s material that wasn’t allowed to come over that line, you’re attached to it when it happened.)
I've actually had this discussion quite a few times (for someone in a field not at all related to taxes)
Where it gets "complicated" (aka no longer a "one click sign and verify") is when you start adding things that are "nonstandard" - "standard" meaning single w2, standardized deduction, etc. According to Intuit[0] as well as other research[1], only ~40% of US taxpayers follow this format.
This is compared to the 87.7% of surveyed tax administrations[2] (which does include the US) that have the infrastructure to pre-populate basic wage and salary data. The difference is that in countries like Denmark or Sweden, that simple data represents near-100% of what is needed for the vast majority of citizens.
So for example, even if the US might know exactly how much you made on a 1099 (which is freelance, independent contractor, etc), they wouldn't know your expenses.
Oftentimes though, even if you do have these more complicated returns your W2 (which is the "simple" part) can at least be auto-filled. It's just the rest of the stuff the government doesn't necessarily know about.
(note: I'm by no means a tax expert and may be misinterpreting this data)
> If you're just taking the piss because every other country has a government method to submit your taxes, yup, we're dumb, thanks mostly to that shitty company.
I feel we’re all complicit in this. Lobbying as they have only works when elected officials disregard their constituents interests. Elected officials whose constituents continue to keep in power.
We as a people need to quit with this attitude and own our part in the stupidity our entire nation has embodied in recent history.
Businesses lobbying for their interests is exactly what they should be doing and exactly what everyone should expect them to do. Elected officials and the democratic process are supposed to be the check and fix. Start by placing blame more appropriately where it’s due.
> Businesses lobbying for their interests is exactly what they should be doing and exactly what everyone should expect them to do. Elected officials and the democratic process are supposed to be the check and fix.
That would be nice. I fear the modern system, with Citizens United, SuperPACs etc. seems to have been the final nail in the coffin of that concept though. Especially with the FPTP system preventing third parties. Someone in one of the two parties will win, they're both in the thrall of lobbyists, and even if there was one not taking that money (I think that's becoming more and more rare) the money firehose makes a substantial difference in elections. Hard to see how "we" can do a lot about this. I hate it, but I don't see it changing. And it seems like astroturfing will be easier in future elections than ever before - Now a few million dollars from a billionaire or even from foreign adversaries will be able to generate 'overwhelming groundswells' of completely synthetic public opinion on platforms like TikTok. To me, the result will be an acceleration of the tilt toward buying elections vs. convincing people of your ideas organically.
most are limited to a simple 1040
Freetaxusa isn't. I've done complicated schedule K, etc forms on it
I used the IRS free fillable forms this year and it was much easier than I expected, including contractor, investment income, and foreign income declarations.
That hasn't been my experience. freetaxusa has been pretty great honestly.
We don't have one. Are you talking about Direct File? The Trump admin killed it, though it was successfully nerfed from the start anyway by the Intuit and H&R Block lobbyists -- you couldn't even itemize deductions, or have 1099 income.
If your taxes were that simple, you didn't need software, you could do your taxes with the 1040EZ form, a pocket calculator and 10 minutes.
Note: If you're just taking the piss because every other country has a government method to submit your taxes, yup, we're dumb, thanks mostly to that shitty company.
Oh, we do have another 'free' filing method for those with income below a certain level, which the lobbyists made sure would be handled by those same private companies. They are allowed to obfuscate and hide it, so when you search for it, you will probably end up on their main, paid product. Kind of the identical story with how our credit reports work (annualcreditreport dot com being the site the CRAs really don't want you to find)
FreeTaxUSA is pretty close. I live in a no tax state so it is completely free. I think state tax is $15.
Hate to sound like a shill, but they've been great. I have a more complicated return than most, but not everyone, and it handles it all(multi-state, capital gains/losses and rollovers, depreciations, etc).
The only thing I wish they'd change is the name. It sounds scammy.
I actually have started agreeing to their probably mostly BS Deluxe/Audit Defense just because I felt guilty about using it for free so long.
It's great but they don't handle AMT so I had to use TurboTax this year.
> I have a more complicated return than most, but not everyone, and it handles it all (multi-state, capital gains/losses and rollovers, depreciations, etc)
Most people have W-2/1099 and some real estate deductions. Not hard to beat that in complexity.
Try AMT, controlled foreign corporations, nested K-1s, and 1040X prior year amendments with $100k-$1 million+ pending refunds.
1 reply →
> you could do your taxes with the 1040EZ form, a pocket calculator and 10 minutes.
Shouldn't the correct way to file simple taxes be to just accept (sign) a value? Why is any arithmetic needed at all? Doesn't the tax authority know the numbers (What you earned, how much you paid in taxes) and they could figure out what you owe automatically?
I've just "accepted" or "signed" my tax return (not in the US obviously) for at least the last 15 years so I might underestimate some complexity here. The key idea behind it though is that nearly all deductions are automatically and unambiguously applied, already when the cost is charged in most cases. So they're always already done when I file my taxes. And the key to that is making sure the tax law is written with this in mind.
I suspect a lot of it is to ensure people who are paid in cash have a strong moment where it can be argued that they took significant agency to hide that from the IRS.
“I just clicked yes on the web form.” might not feel as compelling to a jury filling out paper forms and conveniently forgetting my cash-based income. (I suspect the same reason is why you have to carry your luggage a few hundred feet over a line and recheck it when connecting on an international to domestic flight coming into the US: so there is a clear moment when you personally carried your luggage over a line, so if there’s material that wasn’t allowed to come over that line, you’re attached to it when it happened.)
1 reply →
I've actually had this discussion quite a few times (for someone in a field not at all related to taxes)
Where it gets "complicated" (aka no longer a "one click sign and verify") is when you start adding things that are "nonstandard" - "standard" meaning single w2, standardized deduction, etc. According to Intuit[0] as well as other research[1], only ~40% of US taxpayers follow this format. This is compared to the 87.7% of surveyed tax administrations[2] (which does include the US) that have the infrastructure to pre-populate basic wage and salary data. The difference is that in countries like Denmark or Sweden, that simple data represents near-100% of what is needed for the vast majority of citizens.
So for example, even if the US might know exactly how much you made on a 1099 (which is freelance, independent contractor, etc), they wouldn't know your expenses. Oftentimes though, even if you do have these more complicated returns your W2 (which is the "simple" part) can at least be auto-filled. It's just the rest of the stuff the government doesn't necessarily know about.
(note: I'm by no means a tax expert and may be misinterpreting this data)
[0] https://turbotax.intuit.com/personal-taxes/online/free-editi...
[1] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-simple-return-reducin...
[2] https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/tax-administration-2025...
> If you're just taking the piss because every other country has a government method to submit your taxes, yup, we're dumb, thanks mostly to that shitty company.
I feel we’re all complicit in this. Lobbying as they have only works when elected officials disregard their constituents interests. Elected officials whose constituents continue to keep in power.
We as a people need to quit with this attitude and own our part in the stupidity our entire nation has embodied in recent history.
Businesses lobbying for their interests is exactly what they should be doing and exactly what everyone should expect them to do. Elected officials and the democratic process are supposed to be the check and fix. Start by placing blame more appropriately where it’s due.
> Businesses lobbying for their interests is exactly what they should be doing and exactly what everyone should expect them to do. Elected officials and the democratic process are supposed to be the check and fix.
That would be nice. I fear the modern system, with Citizens United, SuperPACs etc. seems to have been the final nail in the coffin of that concept though. Especially with the FPTP system preventing third parties. Someone in one of the two parties will win, they're both in the thrall of lobbyists, and even if there was one not taking that money (I think that's becoming more and more rare) the money firehose makes a substantial difference in elections. Hard to see how "we" can do a lot about this. I hate it, but I don't see it changing. And it seems like astroturfing will be easier in future elections than ever before - Now a few million dollars from a billionaire or even from foreign adversaries will be able to generate 'overwhelming groundswells' of completely synthetic public opinion on platforms like TikTok. To me, the result will be an acceleration of the tilt toward buying elections vs. convincing people of your ideas organically.
1 reply →