The Trump administration plans to eliminate the IRS’ Direct File program, an electronic system for filing tax returns directly to the agency for free, according to two people familiar with the decision.
The program developed during Joe Biden’s presidency was credited by users with making tax filing easy, fast and economical. But Republican lawmakers and commercial tax preparation companies complained it was a waste of taxpayer money because free filing programs already exist, although they are hard to use.
The program had been in limbo since the start of the Trump administration as Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have slashed their way through the federal government. Musk posted in February on his social media site, X, that he had “deleted” 18F, a government agency that worked on technology projects such as Direct File.
How big of a check did Intuit write to his campaign? Only industrialized nation to have this nonsense. They send you bill in Europe.
Unfortunately distrust of the government permeates American society. Sometimes it’s well founded. Americans love to try to cheat the government from top to bottom, and that includes taxes. And there’s the whole lobby of tax preparers and filers that don’t want the simplicity of government issued prepared tax bills. So to sum up - “I don’t trust the government, I want the ability to avoid telling them about the car I sold for a huge profit, and all the tax preparers want to keep billing me to do my taxes.”
Make America Get Accountants
TurboTax and their lobbyists can go suck a railroad spike.
Or a .45
Why would slightly less than half of a railroad spike be better?
You both need to get a bit more fallout in your fantasy.
https://fallout-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Railway_rifle_(Fallout_3)
Speed and assurance.
They can go glom on some glizzys.
I’m sure we’ll all start seeing the benefits of all of this “cost cutting” any moment now… Direct checks and/or massive tax reductions for everyone making below $250k or something, right? After all that’s the point, right?
Any moment now…
Tbf every working American received a minimum of $2400 during his last term. He’s said he plans to send everyone a check for $5k this time around and if it happens I bet it’s right before the midterm elections.
That one-time $5k check will come in handy when I’m spending an extra $5k per year from tariffs
extra $5k? You wish!
Optimistic to believe it’ll only cost you $5k more
It’ll really come in handy when you’re in a slave labor camp somewhere.
It wasn’t all working Americans. It was
Americans with income below a certain threshold — $75,000 for individuals, $112,500 for heads of household and $150,000 for couples filing jointly
And it was 1200 to start, higher for certain circumnstances, and it was because the fucker fucked up the handling of a global pandemic and everything went to complete shit immediately, threatening to blow up the global economy that way.
Also the toxic narcissist had to put his name on the checks because he’s a goddamned fucking idiot asshole whose father never loved him.
the fucker fucked up the handling of a global pandemic that he helped create by eliminating a response team developed by the past two Presidents
FTFY
All thanks to the dedicated work of the folks in the Office of Obvious Preventable Situations (OOPS for short or OoOPS on their official letterhead).
Lol. Fucking dumb motherfuckers like this is why we are in this position
First, no he won’t give everyone $5k.
But even if he did, you think $5000 is anything close to what has already been taken from us?
A bunch of fucking marks, I swear.
Also, no, he didn’t give everyone $2400, but keep making shit up “to be fair.”
First, no he won’t give everyone $5k.
Why not? It’s not his money, and it would win some votes for Republicans in the midterms.
But even if he did, you think $5000 is anything close to what has already been taken from us?
No
Also, no, he didn’t give everyone $2400, but keep making shit up “to be fair.”
Every single person who filed an income tax return of less than $75,000 the year before or $120,000 jointly. That’s close enough to “everybody”. He printed money to do it, and it was more of a political stunt than anything else, but it absolutely happened.
Of course they are, the evil fucks.
Remember in his first term when he said he’d make taxes fit on a postcard? Hypocrites break promises all the time, it takes a real piece of shit to run as fast as he can in the other direction.
Every time he promises something good it’s a lie, yet somehow he manages to keep all his promises to do horrible things.
And then somehow, these assholes have the fucking nerve to bray out “promises made, promises kept”. They even had it on signs and so on at little events in his first term.
What fucking promises were kept, except to the donor class?
We already paid to have it developed and implemented! They are stealing from us yet again.
Is it open source? Maybe it’s time to fork it.
Wow, thanks, now I can feel the government efficiency every time I go and pay hundreds of dollars to do what I could have done for free! So much winning, I really am sick of it!
But Republican lawmakers and commercial tax preparation companies complained it was a waste of taxpayer money because free filing programs already exist, although they are hard to use.
I’m sure those companies are just looking out for wasteful spending of tax dollars. Not so they can collect and sell your data. Not so they can attempt to upsell you on getting virtual assistance when their own software is to complicated for the some users. Not so they can spring surprise charges on you at the last minute. But so they can charge processor fees for paying due taxes. Not so they can maintain monopolies that allow them to charge higher prices for their filing services. Not so they can continue to lobby the government to make the tax system more unnecessarily complicated and working even more in their favor. No, it’s the congressional budget they’re worried about. Sure.
Bro I didn’t feel like fucking with the free fillable forms (basically an electronic version equivalent to filling out and mailing in paper forms) so I used H&R Block this year. They forced me to pay 60 because I can’t file if something somewhat arbitrary “needs done” and having an HSA meant they forced me to input info about it for determining itemizing vs standard. I knew I was taking the standard, could tell them to ignore that HSA shit and still it wouldn’t let me file for free.
It was so stupid.
Next year I’ll not wait until the last minute and go through the trouble of actually filling out the forms but it’s a pain in the ass.
I wish our taxes were like everywhere else on this planet with a reasonable and effective government. Send me a check or a bill. If I think I’m due more or shouldn’t owe I’ll do my own audit of their math and can say “hey fix this” but 99% of the time it’s just right. So much easier and cheaper and simpler.
This country is a joke sometimes.
That’s okay, they don’t deserve your tax money anyway.
It’s always been free to file your own taxes btw. It’s not new under Biden, they just repackaged it.
I remember when running a successful business required accountants to count the beans. Is this what running government as a business looks like?
Government isn’t supposed to be profitable. You cannot keep cutting to profitability in government. That’s not why it exists. Big difference. However, it should be accountable. That’s what the bean counters should be doing.
