Three years using FreeTaxUSA, it’s excellent. First year had some learning curves coming from TurboTax but it’s as good, if not better and not a scam with dark patterns.
FreeTaxUSA is excellent, but we shouldn’t have to use it.
Taxes having third party companies being just about the only way to file electronically would be like if you could only vote at selected partner businesses like Walmart or Target and you had to pay to vote for state level candidates unless you went through a process that took twice as long and involved leaving the store and going somewhere else to do it all over again.
Yep, FreeTaxUSA is what I've been using for the last 5 years. Reasonably priced & their forms are good for my fairly uncomplicated setup (W-2, 1099, a few other miscellaneous forms). Bounced off TurboTax & TaxACT years ago because they were too pricey & pushy about upgrades.
are there any Free Software tax programs that are kept up to date with tax codes? I would so prefer not to have a for-profit company handling my taxes.
I used cashapp's free tax software and it was pretty good. Similar quality to TurboTax but free. I had regular W-2 income, a whole lot of 1040 forms, and an S-1 form from some ETFs.
That would require the US government to prioritize the interests of the American people over the interests of a few corporations and the wealthy individuals with a significant financial interest in those corporations.
They need to end the IRS. Normal working people shouldn't be held hostage by having to comply with a federal agency. Companies shouldn't be forced to act as tax collectors when paying salaries.
How, if at all, would you fund the federal government?
Are you suggesting you don't think the current way taxpayers interact with the IRS is very functional, or you'd like to actually get rid of having any agency responsible for federal tax collection?
One could imagine a world in which taxes are paid only to the states, which then must all pay to fund the federal government. Not saying it's a good idea, but it would certainly be different from what we have now.
In Australia we only pay federal taxes, and get distribute to the various states.
The tax is wonderfully simple for us, and I THE MAIN seems to work ok for states. Every now and then one state gets a bit tetchy about it, but it appears to work out OK.
This is like saying, "there shouldn't be food". Don't waste our time, of course there has to be food, or else tell us your brilliant vision for how else the world should work instead.
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
This is the same rationale I hear from the people who are saying "Abolish ICE" - someone must enforce the rules, if we dont like the rules we should change them.
No I can’t because ICE took on some of the roles of US customs and the immigration and naturalization service. The same thing that spun them out formed the DHS, which once again existed as splinters of other organizations cooperating.
It’s not entirely unusual to see an agency break out of something like this to help prevent role sharing.
Check those notes again. Should we complain about the Department of Energy too?
Yes and those roles can be easily taken up by organizations that are not secret police, as they were in the past when rule of law and law & order weren't just memories.
Calling ICE the secret police is factually incorrect and intellectually dishonest.
First, ICE has no authority over US we citizens. So on that note alone they are not a police force. Second, they still operate under the law, specially INA 236-287. Their budget is reviewed and authorized by Congress and they are beholden to the laws of the land.
What is new in their scope are 287(G) agreements which are currently being contested (as they should) in courts. It’s unclear whether local police can or should enforce immigration law under current statutes. Only in this case would I agree with your statement, in that the enhanced local police forces would constitute a “secret police” by the literal Gestapo-/Stasi-era definition.
Funny enough Trump has made quite a show of ICE but has yet to top Obama’s numbers. I’m old enough to remember ICE forming in 2003 and Obama’s (ab)use of DHS. I don’t remember people complaining and protesting about door kickers back then. Maybe because the other team was doing it and their quarterback won a Nobel peace prize?
They've detained quite a number of them, which would be impossible if they had no authority over them. (Also, while a lot of the time “ICE” is used as shorthand, the objections are generally to the actions the administration characterizes as immigration enforcement as a whole—to which a sizable portion of most US federal law enforcement agencies have been redirected from their usual duties, with ICE and Border Patrol taking the most highly-visible roles, not to ICE specifically.)
> So on that note alone they are not a police force.
A police force whose nominal focus is a particular subset of the population (including, e.g., noncitizens) is still a police force.
> Second, they still operate under the law, specially INA 236-287. T
Having law which nominally governs their behavior is not contrary to being a police force, regular or secret. In fact, I think you will not find any example of such a force for which this is not true.
> Funny enough Trump has made quite a show of ICE but has yet to top Obama’s numbers.
The objection is not the numbers (by which i assume you mean the aggregate count of deportations), but primarily to the changes in methodology and focus.
> I’m old enough to remember ICE forming and Obama.
ICE was a product of the reorganization of federal national security and law enforcement bureaucracy under George W. Bush, not Obama.
> I don’t remember people complaining and protesting about door kickers back then. Maybe because the other team was doing it?
ICE specifically and the entire Department of Homeland Security has been a target of protests, objection, and vilification since it was formed.
That way poor/middle class people face the biggest overall tax burden and rich people that save, invest, and spend money overseas get to massively lower their tax burden. Great!
So what the local school district is going to collect my federal income taxes from my out of state employer? The DMV collects it when I register my car? What if I don't own a car?
It also means there would probably 50 or hundreds (maybe even thousands?) of different processes to report your taxes, with each of these different tax authorities wanting to do it their own way.
Discussion (337 points, 2 days ago, 242 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45818319
> To file returns for free through private companies
Anyone else thinks that sounds hopelessly optimistic?
FreeTaxUSA provides free federal tax filing and a nominal fee for state filing. DirectFile would be better but the reality is there are free options.
Three years using FreeTaxUSA, it’s excellent. First year had some learning curves coming from TurboTax but it’s as good, if not better and not a scam with dark patterns.
FreeTaxUSA is excellent, but we shouldn’t have to use it.
Taxes having third party companies being just about the only way to file electronically would be like if you could only vote at selected partner businesses like Walmart or Target and you had to pay to vote for state level candidates unless you went through a process that took twice as long and involved leaving the store and going somewhere else to do it all over again.
Oh, god. Don't give them any ideas.
Yep, FreeTaxUSA is what I've been using for the last 5 years. Reasonably priced & their forms are good for my fairly uncomplicated setup (W-2, 1099, a few other miscellaneous forms). Bounced off TurboTax & TaxACT years ago because they were too pricey & pushy about upgrades.
I have had perfectly fine luck with CashApp taxes, which is free for both federal and state.
I've also been fine with the Jackson Hewitt online tax thing, which I believe was $25 total for both state and federal.
Is it free as in beer or is it free as in handing freely handing over your PII to a private corporation so they can profit off it and not you?
are there any Free Software tax programs that are kept up to date with tax codes? I would so prefer not to have a for-profit company handling my taxes.
I sort of do, except an open source / free software package isn’t allowed to efile. Only a closed vendor can.
I'm not wholly opposed to mailing off my returns; which software package are you referring to?
Sure free with constant reminders to upbuy - tack on some audit protection just in case as well. Only 49.99!
I used cashapp's free tax software and it was pretty good. Similar quality to TurboTax but free. I had regular W-2 income, a whole lot of 1040 forms, and an S-1 form from some ETFs.
What a tragedy. I hope it can be revived
That would require the US government to prioritize the interests of the American people over the interests of a few corporations and the wealthy individuals with a significant financial interest in those corporations.
They need to end the IRS. Normal working people shouldn't be held hostage by having to comply with a federal agency. Companies shouldn't be forced to act as tax collectors when paying salaries.
How, if at all, would you fund the federal government?
Are you suggesting you don't think the current way taxpayers interact with the IRS is very functional, or you'd like to actually get rid of having any agency responsible for federal tax collection?
One could imagine a world in which taxes are paid only to the states, which then must all pay to fund the federal government. Not saying it's a good idea, but it would certainly be different from what we have now.
In Australia we only pay federal taxes, and get distribute to the various states.
The tax is wonderfully simple for us, and I THE MAIN seems to work ok for states. Every now and then one state gets a bit tetchy about it, but it appears to work out OK.
This is like saying, "there shouldn't be food". Don't waste our time, of course there has to be food, or else tell us your brilliant vision for how else the world should work instead.
Wut
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
Who collects taxes then?
This is the same rationale I hear from the people who are saying "Abolish ICE" - someone must enforce the rules, if we dont like the rules we should change them.
Yeah, true, can you even imagine a world before ICE checks notes, which was formed in 2003?
No I can’t because ICE took on some of the roles of US customs and the immigration and naturalization service. The same thing that spun them out formed the DHS, which once again existed as splinters of other organizations cooperating.
It’s not entirely unusual to see an agency break out of something like this to help prevent role sharing.
Check those notes again. Should we complain about the Department of Energy too?
Yes and those roles can be easily taken up by organizations that are not secret police, as they were in the past when rule of law and law & order weren't just memories.
Calling ICE the secret police is factually incorrect and intellectually dishonest.
First, ICE has no authority over US we citizens. So on that note alone they are not a police force. Second, they still operate under the law, specially INA 236-287. Their budget is reviewed and authorized by Congress and they are beholden to the laws of the land.
What is new in their scope are 287(G) agreements which are currently being contested (as they should) in courts. It’s unclear whether local police can or should enforce immigration law under current statutes. Only in this case would I agree with your statement, in that the enhanced local police forces would constitute a “secret police” by the literal Gestapo-/Stasi-era definition.
Funny enough Trump has made quite a show of ICE but has yet to top Obama’s numbers. I’m old enough to remember ICE forming in 2003 and Obama’s (ab)use of DHS. I don’t remember people complaining and protesting about door kickers back then. Maybe because the other team was doing it and their quarterback won a Nobel peace prize?
> First, ICE has no authority over US citizens.
They've detained quite a number of them, which would be impossible if they had no authority over them. (Also, while a lot of the time “ICE” is used as shorthand, the objections are generally to the actions the administration characterizes as immigration enforcement as a whole—to which a sizable portion of most US federal law enforcement agencies have been redirected from their usual duties, with ICE and Border Patrol taking the most highly-visible roles, not to ICE specifically.)
> So on that note alone they are not a police force.
A police force whose nominal focus is a particular subset of the population (including, e.g., noncitizens) is still a police force.
> Second, they still operate under the law, specially INA 236-287. T
Having law which nominally governs their behavior is not contrary to being a police force, regular or secret. In fact, I think you will not find any example of such a force for which this is not true.
> Funny enough Trump has made quite a show of ICE but has yet to top Obama’s numbers.
The objection is not the numbers (by which i assume you mean the aggregate count of deportations), but primarily to the changes in methodology and focus.
> I’m old enough to remember ICE forming and Obama.
ICE was a product of the reorganization of federal national security and law enforcement bureaucracy under George W. Bush, not Obama.
> I don’t remember people complaining and protesting about door kickers back then. Maybe because the other team was doing it?
ICE specifically and the entire Department of Homeland Security has been a target of protests, objection, and vilification since it was formed.
The point is that what ICE does could already be handled by other agencies. Whereas the IRS is the only agency that can do what the IRS does.
I think the answer would be to fund everything via sales tax. This way your income stimulates the economy and the govt gets a cut of the action.
Why would you want a regressive tax?
That way poor/middle class people face the biggest overall tax burden and rich people that save, invest, and spend money overseas get to massively lower their tax burden. Great!
Collect them from the states which have their own taxing agencies.
Not every state collects income tax. This would also violate anti-commandeering constitutional principles embodied in federalism.
So what the local school district is going to collect my federal income taxes from my out of state employer? The DMV collects it when I register my car? What if I don't own a car?
It also means there would probably 50 or hundreds (maybe even thousands?) of different processes to report your taxes, with each of these different tax authorities wanting to do it their own way.
I don't see how that makes it any better.
Immigration and Naturalization Service like it was pre-9/11, before we militarized the organization?