This announcement is not about the IRS pre-filling income tax returns, a topic that is discussed regularly on HN.
This is about handling all the other activities surrounding tax filing, such as getting copies of 3rd-party information returns (W-2s, 1099-Rs, etc), receiving and responding to notices regarding errors or questions in the previously filed tax return, etc.
California FTB (tax agency) set up an online system for taxpayers starting five or more years ago, with continuing enhancements since then. IRS is just now catching up, by providing the ability for a taxpayer (or tax practitioner with permission) to create a secure login account with access to their personal information.
>Taxpayers will be able to digitally submit all correspondence, non-tax forms, and responses to notices;
Nice! I had to reply to a notice last year, and fortunately, I was able to respond to it "digitally", but only via a workaround: since one accepted medium is fax, I used an e-fax service to send the response.[1] It definitely felt like there had to be a better way.
I think it is intentional that governments, especially bigger ones like state and federal, make on the record communication with them more difficult. I have called government offices many times only to receive a message that says “call back the next business day”..at 10AM. No way to submit an email, or even a simple call back function.
No, you have to spend hours of your time trying to reach them, and the only way this makes sense is if they want to make some people give up.
The only advice for this is to contact a politician and hope they take up your personal cause. Basically, what you would expect in a poor, developing country, except there, at least it is known how much you need to bribe someone to get service.
They currently don't allow individuals to e-file unless they either:
1. Acquire commercial software, or;
2. Hire a paid preparer to file it, or;
3. Use "Free File Fillable Forms" (but this isn't an option if you fall into one of the numerous special cases that it doesn't support)
So, basically, mailing in a paper return is the only free option for some people (myself included).
I genuinely don't understand why paid preparers can e-file directly with the IRS, but individuals can't. There's nothing in the linked article that says this will change, so if they go ahead and ban paper filing in a couple years, I'm not sure what options are left for people like me.
Yes, I can easily afford to shell out for software or a paid preparer if I really have to, but I'm very much against doing this on principle, since the whole tax prep industry in the US is a huge rent-seeking racket.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that paid preparers can only e file if they are using a commercial software package that supports it such as Lacerte.
This would be a godsend! I'm not sure of its applicability to non-resident aliens yet, but having to mail the documents has been a really slow process. They don't open them even after two months of receiving them, and then take another few weeks to process.
Going digital would at least alleviate the fears of having submitted the returns on time, since otherwise IRS doesn't acknowledge them receiving on/before time.
will this allow me to digitally file my amended federal taxes? That's the one thing that I was looking forward to when I started reading this and possible may impact most taxpayers but looks like IRS still needs amended tax returns in a paper form being mailed out to them?
Filing amended returns electronically with the IRS (efile) has been available for several years. The ability to catch up with unfiled prior year returns by efiling has been available for even longer. (IOW, you can efile your unfiled 2021 tax return in 2023).
Readit News
This is about handling all the other activities surrounding tax filing, such as getting copies of 3rd-party information returns (W-2s, 1099-Rs, etc), receiving and responding to notices regarding errors or questions in the previously filed tax return, etc.
California FTB (tax agency) set up an online system for taxpayers starting five or more years ago, with continuing enhancements since then. IRS is just now catching up, by providing the ability for a taxpayer (or tax practitioner with permission) to create a secure login account with access to their personal information.
I hope TurboTax and friends doesn't manage to screw this one up.
Nice! I had to reply to a notice last year, and fortunately, I was able to respond to it "digitally", but only via a workaround: since one accepted medium is fax, I used an e-fax service to send the response.[1] It definitely felt like there had to be a better way.
[1] Shout-out to faxrocket, featured on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15484390
I think it is intentional that governments, especially bigger ones like state and federal, make on the record communication with them more difficult. I have called government offices many times only to receive a message that says “call back the next business day”..at 10AM. No way to submit an email, or even a simple call back function.
No, you have to spend hours of your time trying to reach them, and the only way this makes sense is if they want to make some people give up.
The only advice for this is to contact a politician and hope they take up your personal cause. Basically, what you would expect in a poor, developing country, except there, at least it is known how much you need to bribe someone to get service.
1. Acquire commercial software, or; 2. Hire a paid preparer to file it, or; 3. Use "Free File Fillable Forms" (but this isn't an option if you fall into one of the numerous special cases that it doesn't support)
So, basically, mailing in a paper return is the only free option for some people (myself included).
I genuinely don't understand why paid preparers can e-file directly with the IRS, but individuals can't. There's nothing in the linked article that says this will change, so if they go ahead and ban paper filing in a couple years, I'm not sure what options are left for people like me.
Yes, I can easily afford to shell out for software or a paid preparer if I really have to, but I'm very much against doing this on principle, since the whole tax prep industry in the US is a huge rent-seeking racket.
Going digital would at least alleviate the fears of having submitted the returns on time, since otherwise IRS doesn't acknowledge them receiving on/before time.