The submission form is essentially a wizard that asks you questions related to your situation and your past year. Depending on your answers, it expands different parts of the form. Other parts, such as tax exempt donations are automatically filled out based on information that the recipients filled out for you.
I visited the UX department of the Norwegian equivalent to the IRS (Skatteetaten), and they had almost every device you could think of (eye-tracking being the most fun). No wonder they made good forms.
I understand that some people object politically to taxes, but as long as it's one of the certainties of life (death being the other), I cannot understand why filling out the submission seems so hard in most countries...
This is true in the US as well, but the tax authority (IRS) gives you nothing but blank forms to fill out yourself.
Holy crap, so if a h4x0r breaks into that website they can see the income and assets of every citizen of your country? That's nuts.
The IRS sucks, but believe it or not they're smart about keeping data secure. The massive mainframe into which all that employer-related data gets loaded is not web-connected.
In fact, not even IRS employees can access the data in there via the web. The only connectivity is through (fairly) dumb terminals with a chip-card slot. The chip-card signs each query before it's sent to the mainframe. Yank out the card and the terminal will cease to respond to your commands. The chip-card is also their employee badge.
The IRS knows everything about your taxes. The filing process is about allowing the citizen to make deductions and providing flexibility by default.
I actually prefer it this way. Note that I’m not saying that the actual filing process is good - that has ways to improve. But, I’d rather take action on my part than government assuming on my behalf. I want to file taxes.
I feel like I might be the only person that likes filing taxes. It’s sort of a Zen mode for me. I love it.
Takes about 20 minutes to do it each year if you have all of your figures to hand... (if you are disorganised and have not been keeping track of any capital gains losses/gains etc throughout the year then it will take longer as you'll need to work those figures out first)
My wife is dual-national US-UK, and she does her UK one herself without much fuss as well, but seems like she has to employ an accountant in the US to do her US return due to complexity and convolutedness.
The bad reason: Lobbying by intuit and parties to prevent easy tax preparation. Their ROI on regulatory capture is very very good.
That’s only a good reason if you’re opposed to the actual programs and/or outcomes. If you favor those programs and outcomes, making people “painfully aware” of their cost almost certainly undermines them. Which...
> The bad reason: Lobbying by intuit and parties to prevent easy tax preparation. Their ROI on regulatory capture is very very good.
Tax prep companies certainly don’t have this kind of power, and only one of the parties has that platform. That’s who’s invested in making taxation feel painful. Not just in terms of awareness but in policy too.
In reality, people are painfully aware of how annoying filing taxes is and hopeful that they will get some money back later. The system is so convoluted, most people pay someone else to take care of it for them. Not to mention, most people barely understand what's happening when they are filing their taxes.
Having the filing process be complicated or tedious doesn't really do much to give people a more accurate perspective on the financial burden of taxation to them. If you could get your tax forms filled out automatically in 10 seconds but the result was "you have to send the IRS a check for $10,000", that would have a far greater awareness-building effect than having to spend 4-6 hours dealing with forms and paperwork only to conclude that "you don't owe any taxes" (because the money was already withheld as you earned it over the course of the year).
Of course, this change would also cause a lot of hardship because quite a lot of people would find it difficult, for various reasons, to save up money to pay taxes if they weren't having someone else do it for them automatically. And I'd expect that this hardship would probably lead more in the direction of political pressure to reinstitute W-2 deductions rather than pressure to reduce or eliminate income taxes.
Having worked on W-2 (salary with automatic deduction from each paycheck) for my whole life until last year, when I switched to 1099 (making quarterly estimated tax payments and sending the tax authorities a check), I really had the "wow, I never quite noticed how much I was paying in taxes before!" experience.
I listened to a couple of episodes of Planet Money a while back that others might find relevant. They address how some state / local governments raise money in regions where opposition to taxes is high.
The Liberty City (https://www.npr.org/2019/10/18/771371881/episode-945-the-lib...)
Fine and Punishment (https://www.npr.org/2021/02/12/967260423/planet-money-fine-a...)
Essentially, the subjects of each episode use the justice system to raise funds from speeding tickets, court / prison fees, etc.
They do allow installments the following year, so you can replicate the monthly deductions, but it’s plainly apparent how much you’re paying since you need to pay it separately each month.
The fact that schools do not teach makes it crazy too. I imagine it has something to do with the fact that if you make it easy, mistakes cannot be made therefore you cannot exploit the few bucks here and there out of a large number of people who are not tuned to the tax filling process.
I'm in the US, and I was a high school math teacher for 20 years. I tried teaching everyone how to do taxes, and people hated it because if you make people do fake taxes it's incredibly boring. Then I developed a "financial literacy" unit where students could choose a focus, such as analyzing investments, analyzing credit card policies, analyzing loans, or doing taxes.
About half the class chose taxes each year; making things like this optional significantly increases engagement, because many people end up recognizing they really would like to understand how to do their own taxes. It was also eye-opening for many who were surprised what impact things like "tax brackets" would have on their income. It cut through so much propaganda that's shouted about taxes in the US.
It isn't immediately obvious who is running the site. whois info lists a Canadian privacy company. The site doesn't have an about page. Github has contributor info, which may help. Tax returns need to be private and accurate. If it's hard to verify that the authors are even in the US, it's had to know if this is a scam.
I think the project is still young, and the above is likely something addressable. Partnering with some accountants may be a way to fund further development/maintenance through referrals. Good luck!
The site runs client side only, with no external API calls, so assuming you trust the code in the repo is the code being served to you then no data can leave your computer. If you're curious you could probably verify by clicking around on the site and checking the network calls made to ensure there's no external API calls
I also enjoy filing taxes. It’s one of those things that allow you to reflect on your work, how you did, optimize the deductions, and get a reward at the end. It’s fun.
For most people, it's a case of quickly doublechecking all your income/property numbers and then spending some time on items you might be able to deduct.
All you want would still be possible under a system where the govt pre-fills forms. It’s just the 99.9% of Americans who DON’T find it to be fun would get a leg up.
In theory I'd love a tool that could save me wasting my life on this every year. However, would I trust it? Not from a malicious standpoint but it seems there's been lots of changes over the last few years and I'd need to know the tool had been properly updated. To do that I'd have to go and read all the updates/instructions each year (just like I do now) and then also check the tool was correct. I'm not convinced a (free?) non-accountant DIY method helps when the monetary cost of it being outdated/bugged could be significant.
I guess you could argue that this is no different from any other open-source software and it's my choice to either personally audit it or assume someone else already has - including all the schedules I use. I'm struggling to understand why I have more of a concern with this compared to, for example, my web browser. Perhaps I am just especially (and irrationally??) fearful of the IRS and the consequence of getting taxes wrong.
Expat workers seem so niche and there may be different requirements depending in their specific situation.
Part of the problem is a pervasive sense that if your are an expat, you are somehow guilty of something or not patriotic enough or some other undefined sin. All of US law seems to expect that you are US resident, yet we apply it globally.
My taxes are much more complicated because of this and I think a separate niche tool would be better.
It'd be appealing to try to factor out the underlying translation of the tax code and IRS form layout into some very simple DSL that could be used by multiple kinds of software.
Here is the compiler: https://hal.inria.fr/hal-03002266v3/document
https://github.com/MLanguage/mlang
They’ve also open sourced an official calculator, along with web APIs: https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-france
The only similar thing I could find was https://www.npmjs.com/package/taxee-tax-statistics but that package has some security vulnerabilities and does not seem to be actively maintained.
[Having proper unit tests as specs is a much cooler answer.]
But many do because you have a tiny chance to win a lottery. Yes, they do it even for one coffee (0.70 euro...).
I do not understand why there is still no system to easily transfer that fiscal number. For example with a qrcode or RFID. You pay electronically with card, often only by just touching your card, phone or even watch, but then have to give a memorized 9 digit number which the deskperson has to type correctly.
You can. The VAT number is used to enter you in a lottery where you get a small chance to win some of the taxes you paid back, but that is optional. The goal of the system is to increase compliance with tax laws, by having consumers ask businesses for receipts and pressure them into paying VAT.
It's something that needs to exit!
exist something that needs to exist.
Not sure why I can't edit the original comment.
@dang if you happen to see this, I wonder if you may want to fix the typo and delete my followup comments?
And like, if you're even halfway competent you know how to run the program without Internet access.
OpenTaxSolver (http://opentaxsolver.sourceforge.net/):
OpenTaxSolver (OTS) is a free, safe + secure program for calculating Tax Form entries for Federal and State personal income taxes. It automatically fills-out and prints your forms.
I've used OTS for the last three or four years now to do my taxes, it does work for the task.
It was disimproved by hauling it into a web app, which breaks with all the usual connections you built with the paper equivalent and is the most UX unfriendly monstrosity one could create. From this year on you HAVE TO USE IT. I deeply disrespect this regression, which forces many people into paying a tax office for their private tax submission.
I wish for a swedish/norwegian system, where the state courts you for YOUR money. I don't know a single person in Germany which states: "I love doing my tax submissions!"
EDIT: Typos plus last paragraph
The web app is absolutely awful to use and offers easily the worst user experience I've ever seen. I gave up and decided to seek help by a Lohnsteuerhilfeverein, which is really comfortable but still way cheaper than a tax office. The only annoyance is, that they'll just help you with your tax submission if you're employed or on state benefits. They can't help you if you're self-employed or a freelancer which is somewhat annoying
Noticed this comment.
https://github.com/thegrims/UsTaxes/blob/master/src/irsForms...
I wrote some python a few years ago for this purpose
But it would not be feasible to use this for most of the people. Tax is often vastly complex and it ignores all those parts. I don't have any capital gain, any properties or any uncommon income such as from rent but even for me this would not work because I get 1099-INT forms from bank (for 1.25$) and there is only W2 option under income.
I am also a nonresident so I need to use 1040NR another block there but I am not even talking about that.
The title in the HTML is still "React App"
There is very little information about this. Why should I trust this? I see the option to print, is that my only option?
The readme and website appear to be kinda thin on details. Cool nonetheless.
Looks like you are using typescript React here. Any driver for that choice?
The reason I chose React is I wanted the site to be client side only, fitting with SPA, to avoid having a database of social security numbers that could be breached.
Typescript is being used to help make sure the right types are being used when the form is submitted. Income should be in number format & names should be in string etc. I've also just found it pleasant to use
For example:
this.totalDeductions = this.computed(() => {
return this.isItemizing() ? this.itemizedDeductionsAdjusted() : this.standardDeduction();
}).form("f1040-131"); // 131 is reference to a field on the tax form
this.afterDeductions = this.computed(() => {
return this.adjustedGrossIncome() - this.totalDeductions();
}).form("f1040-133")
I like that it's all browser-based, but the problem is that I, the user, have no way of actually guaranteeing it's not POSTing somewhere else. It's the same problem with browser JS crypto. So I would suggest that in addition to a note explaining how no personal data leaves their browser, also link to a guide on how to download and run it on a local computer. (Is it possible to export a single .html or .js file that a user can open with their browser? And a SHA512 checksum to verify the file?)
At any rate, I'm grateful, and I will consider using this. I may just have to find a way to doublecheck the work done.
It doesn't fill tax forms, but it's a set of simulations and a framework to write more models and generate UIs automatically.
If milestones and a growth path can be clearly planned and communicated, I think many people would happily chip in to help fund a project like this.
Something like this page would be nice: https://k9mail.app/2021/02/14/K-9-Mail-is-looking-for-fundin...
I actually do not understand why this is not automatic. If you have a special case you would need to act, otherwise it accepts by default.
I read a few times about the lobby of tax software companies in the US, it is really weird that they can get away with such practices.
I have a technology that will be really useful for disrupting tax filing in USA.
Basic pitch is here: https://github.com/breck7/copypastetaxes
I'd be interesting in talking about some type of collaboration if you're interested in chatting! Email is in profile.
True to form, it still has the title "React app." I personally have shipped things to production without changing the CRA boilerplate title :).
I'm wondering if this can be improved. Especially for cryptocurrency processing. The cryptocurrency tax solutions are woefully inadequate. I was surprised considering how much marketing and polish they have.
I remember.