The IRS is quicker to answer the phone on this Tax Day https://t.co/JRDIRCKPnt
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 15, 2024
Getting what we (*finally*) pay for, per the Associated Press:
On this Tax Day, the IRS is promoting the customer service improvements the agency rolled out since receiving tens of billions in new funding dollars through Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act.
From cutting phone wait times to digitizing more documents and improving the “Where’s My Refund” tool to show more account details in plain language, agency leadership is trying to bring attention to what’s been done to repair the agency’s image as an outdated and maligned tax collector.
The promotion also in part is meant to quickly normalize a more efficient and effective IRS before congressional Republicans threaten another round of cuts to the agency. So time is of the essence for both taxpayers and the agency this season.
“This filing season, the IRS has built off past successes and reached new milestones,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on a Friday call with reporters. “It’s showing that when it has the resources it needs, it will provide taxpayers the service they deserve.”…
Consumer promo!
I've Direct Filed literally last Monday, got all my refunds yesterday, and still can't quite get over this.
What is this sorcery???? Where is the America I know, where the government gives you a long math test every year, the punishment for failing which is fines and prison?
Wow. https://t.co/sv7wmIeCOZ— Slava Malamud 🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@SlavaMalamud) April 13, 2024
I pay what I owe.
Tomorrow I will wire transfer to the IRS
$288,000,000.00
This country has done so much for me, I’m proud to pay my taxes every single year.
Tag a former president that you know doesn’t https://t.co/jxuICxOIAr
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) April 14, 2024
Are there places where I wish the government was smarter with spending? Sure. I don't use that as an excuse to think paying taxes is bad, even if it's painful at times. It's a civic duty. I'm investing in my fellow Americans.
— Jean-Michel Connard 좆됐어 (@torriangray) April 14, 2024
My dad began life in the deepest depths of poverty. When he was admitted into college, he almost didn't attend, only choosing to go when he got grants and scholarships; a decade later he saved lives in the ER as an MD.
Paying taxes is an act of patriotism. I'm happy to pay mine. https://t.co/faX1Ehm7lR
— God-Emperor Joe Brandon (@Alejandro27Ale) April 15, 2024
NASA releases free e-book on Hubble space mysteries https://t.co/znQNc7gmZE
— The Sojourner Truth (@sotrueradio) April 14, 2024
And a little reward, to see what you’re getting for your money. Per the Washington Post, “NASA releases free e-book on Hubble space mysteries”:
Since 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has offered scientists an incredible view of the universe. It has provided well over 1 million observations.
Now, NASA has released “Hubble Focus: The Dark Universe,” a free e-book that explores what the Hubble mission has taught scientists about dark matter and dark energy — and how those lessons are shaking up long-standing theories…
The free book goes over some of the discoveries enabled by the Hubble mission and breaks down the mysteries it has uncovered in plain English. It is also packed with photos from the mission and quotes from experts, and contains links to videos that dive further into such topics as the Hubble constant, the rate at which the universe is expanding.
“Much remains to be done, but this book will give you a front row seat to what’s been happening in this quest,” Hubble operations project scientist Ken Carpenter said in a news release. The book is the fifth in a series of similar volumes about the Hubble mission and its discoveries.
Ready to learn more about the mysterious forces around you? You can download the book in PDF or EPUB format at bit.ly/hubblebook
lowtechcyclist
Good morning, y’all!
Math Guy
Good morning. Can’t believe I’m posting first!
Math Guy
I stand corrected.
Baud
James Webb at the L2 with a telescope.
TBone
A little tiny mood music starting off my day in the correct fashion. 🎶
https://www.tiktok.com/@monsoon_roastery/video/7130584384582831406
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
@Math Guy:
Good morning.
brantl
I like the guy pestering Cuban, as though Stumpy’s paid his fair share of taxes.
sdhays
This whole sneering about “choosing to pay more taxes” for rich liberal people is just stupid. Everyone should pay what they owe, rich people should owe more and not be able to legally scam their way out of it. How is that hard?
Oh, and stupendously rich people shouldn’t exist. The tax code should make it virtually impossible to be richer than sovereign nations.
ETA: Not saying Cuban is “liberal”, although he does not seem to be Republican.
Baud
@sdhays:
Lots of sovereign nations are dirt poor. Wouldn’t use that as a standard.
Agree with the first part.
lowtechcyclist
@Math Guy:
Wise choice – I don’t believe it either! ;-)
tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)
Thank you, AL. I have been refreshing over and over for your morning post!
As someone residing in a foreign country, I look forward to when the services are made easier for those of us abroad. Two years ago, I used direct file for myself. It was clunky and stressful but I managed. Last year, I tried to help my son who started filing taxes and it was a nightmare. I ended up paying for a private software tax software service that specializes in expats. We used that service again this year. I would like to see the tax threshold rise as well. I pay Japanese taxes, which are higher than in the US. Salaries are also generally lower here. The foreign tax exemption is a little over 100k. If Biden says he is not going to raise taxes on those who make less than 400k, I would be grateful if those of us who work and pay taxes overseas could also be given a break in that area.
Clark Ashton Kutchner
A man condemning the income tax because of the annoyance it gives him or the expense it puts him to is merely a dog baring its teeth, and he forfeits the privileges of civilized discourse. But it is permissible to criticize it on other and impersonal grounds. A government, like an individual, spends money for any or all of three reasons: because it needs to, because it wants to, or simply because it has it to spend. The last is much the shabbiest. It is arguable, if not manifest, that a substantial proportion of this great spring flood of billions pouring into the Treasury will in effect get spent for that last shabby reason.
Nero Wolfe in And Be A Villian
By Rex Stout
TBone
My proudest moment here in central PA was when my Rumpy neighbor’s teen organized a Rump/anti-BLM rally in front of our high school, where attendees flew their freak flags decrying Socialism. I got some choice photos to post on FB pointing out the hypocrisy of that choice of location by the son of a public school teacher 😆 who wouldn’t be eating without everyone’s small contributions toward the common good.
gene108
Annoyed that lawyers like Elizabeth Warren want to put accountants and tax preparers out of work over fees to file taxes.
Simplify the legal system so even a person who can’t afford to spend millions in legal fees can still get the same opportunities to file motions, go to trial instead of settling, etc. that wealthy people can afford to do.
The legal system is intentionally inscrutable to non-lawyers, as many politicians were lawyers and probably are looking out for their fellow attorneys.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
rikyrah
Happy Election Interference Case Opening Day 🤗 🤗
TBone
@rikyrah: oh happy day!
Repost 🎶
https://www.tiktok.com/@monsoon_roastery/video/7130584384582831406
lowtechcyclist
@sdhays:
Exactly. The government isn’t a charity that you make voluntary contributions to. If you think rich people should pay more than they do, then you call or write your Congresspersons and tell them that. If you think a particular individual should pay more, that’s not how our system works, nor should it be.
narya
Back when I dealt with federal project officers who were being picky about some regulation or another, or who were planning a site visit with us, I would tell them that I appreciated their oversight of how my tax dollars were being spent (even when it was personally a pain to do what they needed). I think I caught a few of them by surprise.
sdhays
@Baud: I was being glib, but I’m definitely on the side of “every billionaire is a policy failure”. And when I read that people think Elon Musk may be the first trillionaire in a few years, I feel ill.
TBone
@gene108: 👍 the lawyers write the laws, at least they did before ALEC. American Legislative Exchange Council prolly staffed by lawyers also too.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
sdhays
@tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat): What’s the exemption nowadays? When I was working overseas 15 years ago, I recall it was around $98k – which I wasn’t making anywhere near.
TS
My grandfather used to complain about his taxes & his daughter always said to me “I wish we had to pay more taxes”. I pay what I owe with no complaints.
My mind still boggles that anyone out there owes $288,000,000.00 – What he doesn’t pay in taxes is probably more than the GDP of Australia!
lowtechcyclist
@gene108:
I agree with you about our legal system, but why does that make you annoyed that we’re making it simpler and more straightforward to file your taxes, so you don’t need to pay someone just to exercise your civic responsibility?
I can do without the whataboutism, thanks.
tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)
@TBone: There was a headline in today’s WaPo along the lines of students who had left liberal public schools and are now learning to be anti-woke. You would hope that none of them will get near anything that requires more than a decision to switch on and off.
Mousebumples
Good morning!
On the topic of good government, I saw a sign in a nearby downtown area saying something to the effect of, “This project to replace lead pipes is paid for through President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Project”
I specifically remember the term BIPARTISAN and that Biden was name checked. Yay for publicizing our wins!
Also, I seem to be getting mail today from (probably) WisDems to tell me about my “new precinct” for the August and November elections. Yay for new state leg maps!
Jeffro
@rikyrah:
and to you as well!
TBone
@tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat): one can hope! The teen I spoke of went on to Liberty University 😆 and is now a congressional staffer, albeit a functionally illiterate comms “director” – his online resume is literally grammatically incorrect from start to finish.
tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)
@sdhays: It’s now at $120,000. Anything over that will be taxed in the US as well as Japan. Things have really tightened up. If you have more than $10,000 in your foreign bank account at any time in the year, you have to report your account number, bank address, and the amount in the account. I know it is supposed to be about preventing money laundering etc, but it really feels intrusive. We have no choice, though. If you do not report, you could put yourself in legal jeopardy.
Math Guy
We moved from Missouri to Minnesota for a variety of reasons. Minnesota state taxes are much higher and the property taxes we pay now are more than double what we paid before. But Mrs. Math Guy is an elementary schoolteacher and her salary in Minnesota is 50% higher than it was in Missouri. The schools are well-funded and it shows in academic outcomes. In our little town in Minnesota we have an extensive network of bike paths and bike lanes; in Missouri, people actively tried to run me off the road when I rode my bike on the streets because there were no bike paths, let alone sidewalks. The city maintains the streets and keeps them clear of snow – even when we get more than a foot dumped on us.
So yes, the taxes are higher here, but salaries and services are first-rate. You get what you pay for!
TBone
@Math Guy: 💙
NotMax
Hear tell someone is about to have a very taxing day in Manhattan.
//
tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)
@TBone: I had a young woman come to interview for a position. She was a graduate from Liberty University and from Texas. In general, the teachers I hire come from a various English speaking countries. They tend to be pretty liberal. I could not envision her fitting in with the team. At that time, I had a lot of instructors who were blatantly atheist. Fortunately, there were better candidates.
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
I finally did our taxes this weekend, and it made me grumpy, as it does every year. Oh, I think we should pay them, and that we should pay more taxes than people who have less. It’s just that looking at how much it is, sitting there on the screen all at once, grates.
Also, sitting at the computer for several hours answering dumb tax software questions that make no sense, and not being able to get “behind the scenes” to see where they’re going with them is muy frustrating. I always worry, when I send off my tax returns, that either I or the software has made a terrible mistake…
Soprano2
I paid on Friday because the accountant filed an extension. It was a lot because I had to sell that land I owned jointly with my mom. Thanks, Mom.
Tinare
Oh thank goodness you posted this or I would have forgotten to file my state and local taxes. I did my Federal in February, but procrastinated the others and almost forgot about them.
TBone
@tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat): was she literate? The bonking in-your-face illiteracy of some graduates is sickening. Glad you had other options!
Ohio Mom
@KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)): To anyone who complains about their taxes, I always say, “You’re right, taxes forms are too confusing and you are paying too much.” That usually brings a smile.
Then I add, “That’s because the ultra-wealthy are not paying their fair share.” Around my area, that usually brings either a look of confusion or annoyance. Such is life in a red midwestern suburb.
Chris T.
@tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat):
Yes, and/but it’s US$10k, which leaves me confused: what exchange rate(s) do I apply every day to the daily balance to figure out if it has ever crossed the US$10k mark?
My solution to this problem is to keep the amount so small that it never even gets close to US$10k, but if the exchange rate were to mysteriously bobble about for a day or two mid-year, it’s theoretically possible that I’d get in trouble, isn’t it?
If the rule were “on the first and last business days of the year, using the exchange rates in place at the end of those days” it would at least be computationally feasible to do this correctly. They’d still need to specify whether they mean “US business day” or “Japanese business day” for instance but it would not require perhaps 365 (days) times 10000000 (conversion rates during the day) to check every possible value…
Soprano2
@gene108: I don’t want to put them out of business; I want to make people less scared so that they feel they can file a simple tax return themselves. I knew someone who paid a preparer $50 to file the 1040-EZ! This was when you could pull the form up online and literally fill in the blanks so it did the math for you. She was terrified to do it herself because she thought if she made a math error she’d get arrested or something. I told her that I once made a math error, and they just corrected it and sent me the correction. Those are the people who shouldn’t be hiring tax preparers.
Chris T.
@KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)):
I gave up long ago and have a CPA do ours now. They have become much simpler with retirement but there’s still numerous schedules and worksheets (plus the theoretical potential for the foreign account I mentioned, which I might just close if I ever get overseas there again…).
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
@Math Guy: Last night I got a text from my grandniece who moved from NJ to Dallas, TX last month. As you might imagine, it’s a bit of a culture shock. She got her first EZ Pass bill, with only one week of charges, and it was $70! The sign on the highway said the toll is $0.42. The fine print, too small to read at speed, says that’s the price per mile. She’s getting a quick and very dirty lesson in the difference between progressive and regressive taxation.
MattF
Finished my taxes and efiled about two weeks ago, got the MD refund, still waiting on the fed. All my filed numbers are known to the IRS, so it should be automatic. Until then, I’m a Turbo Tax fan, I guess.
TBone
@Soprano2: that’s exactly how I read your comment.
ETA oops, replied to wrong comment
Mousebumples
Also, I almost forgot!
Happy Catch and Kill Criminal Trial Commencement Day to all who celebrate!
I’m intentionally not calling it the hush money thing since I think it minimizes what really happened
Eta – I’d say something like it couldn’t happen to a better former President… But nothing is good/better about him. More deserving, maybe?
TBone
@KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)): 🤬
Soprano2
@Mousebumples: They should call it “election interference”, because that’s what he was doing with the payoff. It’s not about the sex, it’s about the payoff and how he hid it.
tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)
@Chris T.: You are supposed to use the average exchange rate. I’m in Japan. This is a saving country. My oldest son graduated with his masters and my middle son with his bachelors and both started working full time in 2022. This year both of them hit the threshold and had to report balances over 10k. Not by much, but still. And referring to soprano2’s comment at #41, there is that fear factor. You don’t want to get on the bad side of Uncle Sam or draw the attention of the Japanese tax authorities either.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I heard that the weather forecast in NYC is calling for Stormy weather for someone. I see that someone is on the news right now playing his invisible accordion.
I hope he didn’t sleep well.
Ken
@Soprano2: Yes, I’ve twice had the IRS send me a correction, both times in my favor. That was back when I was filing them myself; I now use a tax prep service, and don’t really begrudge them their fees, considering how much I used to agonize over the forms.
My one IRS audit was equally pleasant. “We need to look at your charitable contributions”, I show up with a file folder with photocopies of the documentation, and it was over in less than an hour.
TBone
@Odie Hugh Manatee: he’s low energy today. Sad, weak poop. People are laying odds on how long before he fills his diaper causing the court to have to take a break 😆
Chris T.
@Soprano2: By the way, note that the 1040-EZ has not existed for several years now. Not that I was ever actually allowed to use it other than maybe one or two years when I was in my 20s…
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
Oh, I don’t think I pay too much. It’s just that looking at it all in one place, it looks like a lot. It’s more than we used to earn many years when we were raising kids (inflation, don’t you know. Also the vagaries of living on a salesperson’s income). But that’s what happens when you’ve been fortunate. You owe back. I don’t regret or resent that one bit. We owe back.
Chris T.
@tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat):
OK, but: it changes multiple times per second over the course of the entire year. Which numbers should I average? I don’t even get to see most of them!
(Note: mine are not Japanese, but the same principle would apply anywhere.)
tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)
@Soprano2: That fear factor is real. When I sold my aunt’s house, I had an accountant do the taxes. There was one deduction or something that was questionable. Anyway, the IRS sent a letter to say that I still owed taxes. I live overseas. The letter arrived after the due date. I was in a panic. I immediately paid online expecting to be fined with interest fees. Rule followers do not do well when faced with potentially breaking major rules. It might be a first-born thing (or not).
tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)
@Chris T.: Here in Japan, I use one of the major banks. I believe the IRS also has an average exchange somewhere on their site that you can use. As long as you are consistent and know where you got the exchange rate from, you should be fine. Since last year, I have used an accountant and left it to them. I has been a lot less stressful. My sons do not earn enough to use an accountant. We have found expatfile.com. It takes time but is really easy to use. It cost them $169 because they had to report their bank accounts. But, when I first filed my taxes, oh, so many years ago, on paper, it cost me nothing beyond the stamp to send it in. It seems a bit scammy that people with nothing to declare have to pay to file.
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
@Chris T.:
I’ve wanted to have a CPA do them for YEARS! My husband always says, but you can do them, you’ve always done them so well! The software practically does them for you! (Notice he doesn’t volunteer to use the software to “easily” do them himself.)
My husband made a huge mistake in figuring gift tax for last year, and now I think I’ve finally convinced him this is the way. Hope springs eternal.
Chris T.
@tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat): I’ve had that same kind of dread more than once. 😅
My big mistakes (one of which was mine) were leaving out an item from a Schedule D, which I just forgot entirely, so that the IRS sent me a proposed bill based on a zero cost basis, and—this was just after I moved to WA state and had to find a new accountant as my old California one finally quit doing them anyway—when I used H&R Blockhead and they forgot to include whatever form is used for “sale of a home”. That one was huge because it was a house in the SFBayArea. Again, the IRS was going to use a zero cost basis, as if buying a house in 2014 in the Oakland Hills would have cost zero (it actually was $1.3 million…).
I think they screwed it up because the sale didn’t close until January or February, which made the dates weird compared to our move date. The gain fit entirely within the home ownership exclusion so we actually owed nothing, but without that information, well, yikes.
Chris T.
@KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)): I found my Calif CPA the year I had to do the special forms for qualified and non-qualified incentive stock options and compute an alternative minimum tax.
AMT hit me then, for something relatively trivial like $1000 or something, and followed me for many more years until the stock (which went bust after the dot-com crash) was finally liquidated for $.01/share. I got the AMT back then.
ETA: living in the Bay Area again (in 2014 through 2020) gave me a new way to visualize “a million dollars”: I just had to look out my window, and each house was somewhere between 1 and 2 million. “Let’s see, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 houses visible on that ridge, that’s about $15 million…”
planetjanet
I am so ready for Direct File to expand to more states. H&R Block treated me horribly. I buy software to make it easier to file, let it download my information, add my donations and check everything out. They failed to download my W2. Each time I called customer service they just said to type it in. That is not why I buy the software. It should work. They actually said things like well computers sometimes have trouble talking to each other. It won’t always work. What a pathetic attitude to have about your product! Finally a guy said he would make sure I got a refund and gave me an email address to send the receipts. They denied my claim because it was bought more than 60 days ago. I bought it the first of January, a month before any data was available for download. They just lie. Never again.
Soprano2
@Chris T.: I know, this was in the mid-90’s. I don’t think you could file your taxes online yet, but they provided fill-in-the blank forms on their Web site that literally did the math for you. If all you had was wages from a job it was super easy to do your own taxes and mail them in. I was agog that someone paid $50 to a tax preparer to do a fill-in-the blank form for them. That’s a lot of money for something she could have easily done herself.
Marcopolo
I’m one of those dinosaurs 🦕 who still do their own taxes. Nowadays it takes 2-3 hours. I fill out the forms (yes, 4 in all; two because of the ACA) on my computer then print them off & mail them in. Use to send checks in with the forms now I pay on line. That’s pretty much the only change in my tax paying routine over the past 3 or 4 decades. Never used a CPA or tax software. Works for me. Hope everyone else has filed hassle free so we can all eat our popcorn 🍿 stress free as we watch the entertainment unfolding in NYC today.
RaflW
My tax forms won’t be complete for a while (extension request filed, of course), so I won’t know the details till probably May.
But as a well resourced retiree who donates a significant portion of my income each year to charities (and I mean actual charities, not building a “donor advised fund” to park money for a tax deduction), I can confidently say based on history that I don’t pay enough federal income tax.
To whoever asked Cuban about paying more voluntarily, I’ll jump in and say: I pay a professional to file accurate, complete, and tax-dodge free returns. No gimmicks, no exploiting the tax code. But I pay what the law says, as I don’t see an effective result from one dude with an infinitesimal tax bill compared to Mark’s being a useful donation to the gov’t.
What I want instead is tax law more in line with what Biden says. Though his limit of $400,000 income as not getting taxed more is, imo, too high.
Soprano2
@tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat): I totally understand hiring someone when your taxes are complex – no way can I do my own taxes now. I was shocked someone hired a preparer to do a literal fill-in-the-blank form when all she had for income was the wages of the job we both had.
Jackie
@Odie Hugh Manatee: According to MJ, TIFG spent the night crying on his social media.
So, he didn’t sleep well at all!😁👍🏻
Another Scott
I did our taxes last night via Free File Fillable Forms. The paperwork was pretty painless, as usual. We owed money (5% interest adds up! Which means that taxes on the interest add up!), but that’s Ok.
It took less than an hour to be accepted by the IRS. Given the late date, I think that shows that they’re working pretty well.
The mania some MotUs (and wannabe MotUs, and their hangers-on) have about not paying taxes is a pathology. There are always going to be people who have more money than you. Having enough money is important, but it isn’t a measure of worth. Get over it. Pay your share and move on.
Grr…,
Scott.
Soprano2
@Marcopolo: I used to do ours every year until I inherited money and we bought the bar. Now, no way will I even touch that.
WaterGirl
@Soprano2: They are calling it election interference. At least the judge and the state are. It’s the media that’s the problem.
indycat32
My sister told me that her tax person said that this is the last year she and her husband have to file. Do you age out of paying taxes?
rikyrah
@sdhays:
not hard at all. nothing but truth.
Baud
@indycat32:
No.
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
@Chris T.: GD I hated AMT! I think last year was the first time I didn’t have to use it. That was the worst. I’d be going along, filling out the tax software, looking like I was fine, even might be getting something back, then I’d enter the mortgage & property tax info and… BOOM!! You have to work up alternative minimum tax worksheet. Then all gains would be reversed, and I’d end up owing. Sometimes quite a lot.
twbrandt
Tesla is laying off 10% of its workforce due to slowing demand. People talk about Elon becoming the world’s first trillionaire, but given how much $TSLA has declined in share price and how much less twitter is worth now, I don’t think so.
rikyrah
@Math Guy:
50%????
Matt McIrvin
As is often the case, we have a little extra grace period here in Massachusetts because Tax Day coincides with Patriots’ Day/Boston Marathon Day (or the weekend thereof). And as is often the case, yes, I’m taking advantage of it, though I’ve gotten our returns about half done.
It’s interesting how the complicated part of it for us has shifted over time from the deductions to the income accounting. Usually, it’s not even worth itemizing deductions because of the combination of our mortgage getting paid off and the Trump-era changes to tax law. But I keep calculating it to make sure. Meanwhile, we have more non-wage income stuff going on.
Spanky
@indycat32: No, but if their combined incomes are below a threshold they won’t need to file.
Xavier
There are things we can do better collectively than we can do individually (if we could do them individually at all). National defense and road building are examples. Sharing risks is another, which is why the Federal Government has been described as an insurance company with an army.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I had to file as international student making a stipend that (barely) covered my living expenses.
geg6
@sdhays:
He has become more liberal while coming from a more libertarian youth.
Spanky
I see the IRS has already hoovered our owed taxes out of our bank.
rikyrah
@KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)):
that’s ridiculous.
$70 for tolls?
H.E.Wolf
Good news – prosecutor Alvin Bragg has been doing just that. From today’s Electoral-Vote.com blog post (first item):
“Alvin Bragg is about to become the most famous prosecutor in America. He hasn’t given interviews about the case or done anything that could have the verdict reversed on appeal. He understands what he is up against and the massive spotlight he will be under. Bragg said: ‘I’ve been an officer of the court going on more than 20 years, and the way we comport ourselves is important.’ He did tell radio station WNYC: ‘The core is not money for sex. We would say it’s about conspiring to corrupt a presidential election and then lying in New York business records to cover it up.’ Other than that, it’s mum’s the word. In this respect, he is like Jack Smith, who is also all business.”
[Bold is mine. – H.E.W.]
rikyrah
@Mousebumples:
ICAM.
It’s ELECTION INTERFERENCE.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
There’s an income threshold for filing. Although if you’ve had taxes withheld, you want to file to get a refund.
snoey
@Another Scott: Another vote for Free Fillable Forms. Just follow directions and type in the numbers. I used to read IBM mainframe manuals for a living though, so I understand that others may find “just follow directions” more challenging.
Matt McIrvin
@sdhays: “Why don’t you just donate money to the government if you love it so much?” is the kind of thing people say when they’ve been propagandized for 50 years straight to not understand collective-action problems.
Chris T.
@Matt McIrvin: The SALT-related change expire in a few more years, so unless there’s another set of tax changes, we’ll all go back to computing our state and local tax and comparing it to the Standard Deduction.
(WA has no state income tax though, and the tax we pay on the WA house is minuscule compared to what we were paying on the CA house. CA state income tax plus mortgage interest plus property tax added up to a huge deduction. When the Trump changes killed that off, that hurt a lot…)
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yes I had taxes withheld. And it was above the threshold. Isn’t the treshold $500 or something absurdly little
I won some award a couple of years ago which had a cash prize of $2500 and I had to report it.
prostratedragon
“On the Run,” Pink Floyd
Soprano2
@WaterGirl: I know, but unfortunately everyone listens to the media rather than the judge, and the media is calling it the “hush money” trial.
Xavier
@H.E.Wolf: ABC News last night called the trial a business records case.
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
@rikyrah:
They charge 42 cents PER MILE! The fact that the 42 cent toll is per mile is in print too small to read at highway speed, so obviously meant to snag out-of-towners.
Mousebumples
@Soprano2: yeah, that might be even better. Thanks.
Re filing taxes – my husband started using FreeFileUSA last year, and it works pretty well. We even have “complicated” taxes – own a home, have investment income, had a household employee (nanny) last year, and my husband gets some $ from Google for apps he has on the playstore.
Happy to pay my fair share of taxes and glad that funding is helping the IRS find the tax cheats.
Chris T.
@rikyrah: $70 for 1 week of tolls.
This is what happens when there’s no state tax to pay for roads. WA has the same issue; you can use the toll lanes on the 405, but it’s ten bucks each time. (WA does have a fairly steep gasoline tax, and they recently stuck in an extra-steep EV yearly fee, so I pay for more than my share of roads even though I don’t drive the 405 toll lanes or take the floating bridge.)
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/consumer-tools/guide-to-filing-your-taxes/
Matt McIrvin
@Chris T.: I don’t think I’ve ever had to pay AMT, but there was a while there when it was close.
The place where I recall it really getting people was if they hung onto stock they got through incentive stock options, and it lost money. The normal income tax wouldn’t tax the theoretical income from the option exercise that they never actually saw, but the AMT would, and they often wouldn’t even have the money to pay it. I don’t know if that’s still the case.
tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)
@Soprano2: I hear you on that. The inheritance I received and the sale of the house means that my husband the retired asset manager gets to exercise his little gray cells. I just don’t want to deal with all those boxes on the tax form. But, I worry for my sons who at this point have never lived in the US. They are doing the right thing and declaring their taxes, but they really have no deep understanding of it. Japan does not allow dual nationality. At some point, they may have to choose which country they want to belong to.
Chris T.
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, this hit a lot of Sun (now Oracle) employees; I knew a few, though wasn’t personally familiar with anyone who got hit badly.
A lot of them also had margin call issues. I never use margin myself. I haven’t actually bothered, but if I wanted to build a similar position I’d use put and call options to hedge the risk on this sort of thing.
Eyeroller
@indycat32: I cannot believe a “tax person” would say that. Astonishing.
Marcopolo
Song for today in case no one else has posted it up above (T-bone walker “they call it stormy Monday”):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=23&v=PhBzF4h5VkI&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo
Also Truth Social is tanking after announcing they plan to issue another 21.5 million shares in a secondary offering!
Melancholy Jaques
We need to continue to push the IRS to make filing free and easy for the vast majority of people. It’s a winning issue for Democrats, the party for ordinary Americans.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: This was in the 90s and early aughts so the threshold was probably lower than this and if you are not a citizen you have to file even if you don’t have any income IIRC.
stacib
@rikyrah: A few years ago while driving from Chicago to NJ, I paid over $60 in tolls within a five mile stretch of toll road. It was $36 leaving Ohio and another immediately following in PA for almost $29. The Chicago Skyway, which covers maybe 10 miles of roadway is now really close to $8 before you hit another toll in IN one mile outside of the IL state line. Tolls can be monstrous!!!
Kay
We pay estimated taxes and we overpaid last year so we don’t owe this year. We put it aside so that’s a nice kind of windfall for us. I have to choose a national park for a trip immediately and allocate it :)
Matt McIrvin
@Chris T.: The lesson I learned from it is that if you get ISOs, you should just always dump them immediately on exercise–don’t even bother holding onto that stock! It could actually end up being worse than nothing, just because of the AMT.
But the only bit of company stock I ever held onto was from when my employer was acquired by a certain software gigacorp, and they decided after all the Enron/Sarbanes-Oxley drama to just convert the ISOs I had to shares in gigacorp instead of options. And I’ve still got ’em, though it’s getting to be enough money that I think I ought to diversify that little portfolio, or move it to index funds or something.
Math Guy
@rikyrah: Yes. She had 10 years experience, Master’s in her specialty (speech therapy), PhD in unrelated field. This is a combination of really low teacher’s salaries in MO and strong teacher’s unions in MN. (Plus, we live in a relatively wealthy community.) Okay, maybe 45.6% higher and I rounded up, but the higher salary more than compensates for the higher taxes.
narya
Another vote for Free Fillable Forms–I’ve used it for years. Even with lots of additional forms this year, it was fine.
Kay
I used free file to file my taxes for my youngest – he had tow different states and a local tax so that was a PIA. I would love to use Direct File but it isn’t available in Ohio yet.
In other news, the FAFSA system is still all screwed up. I got a series of (identical) texts yesterday telling me someone had changed my sign in. I changed my sign in. In February. Two of the ladies at work were talking about it and they think it’s “AI”. That someone snuck AI in and that’s why it’s nonsensical.
Old Man Shadow
It’s almost like when you properly fund a service, it gets better results than trying to strangle it in a bathtub.
Brachiator
@tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat):
This is the first year of the IRS Direct File pilot program.
You must have used something different in prior years.
There are some tax breaks for people who work in foreign countries, including the foreign tax credit.
Marcopolo
@rikyrah: As a resident of Misery I can believe that. Average starting teacher pay in the state is something around $35K/year. And that is with a special state funding program that will expire next year.
Belafon
@gene108:
And take off from work and still earn enough money to pursue those lawsuits.
evodevo
@TBone: Yes…this. The biggest hypocrite right wingers in my life ALL work either for the govt. (teachers, military, postal workers WITH A UNION !!, etc.) or for corporations like Exxon that depend HEAVILY on govt. subsidies, or farm and depend on Ag production loans/corn subsidies/etc. It’s just amazing how blinkered they are. And not to mention all the Srs dependent on SS and Medicare. I bring it up at every opportunity how they all would be working for pennies and starving if they were in the “free markit” just to yank their chains LOL
frosty
@MattF: Our taxes aren’t very complex, but there’s enough there that neither Direct File or the links to commercial companies for free filing work. So it’s Turbo Tax, which I’ve been using for probably 20+ years now.
WeimarGerman
@tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat) I also ran into an insurmountable issue with direct file, not a foreign resident but for someone without a US phone to complete two-factor authentication.
I helped one child do TurboTax free (its own hassle of staying in the free lane), but couldn’t figure out how to direct file with my son stationed overseas. The two-factor didn’t have an email option for setting up his account only a SMS for a US phone.
I’m fine with security but why would direct file implement something more restricted than any of the commercial/free options?
Also why make active duty members pay taxes at all? Yes the answer depends on investments and capital gains, but jeez the banks report all that already. Just make it simpler.
Chris T.
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, unfortunately mine were a company that was not publicly traded and couldn’t be turned into cash. This is one of the perils of doing a startup.
It worked out pretty well in other ways though: although the company as an entity died (very slowly), the engineers all got bought by a different company and our salaries went way up, this being the late 1990s when even a fresh-out-of-college programmer would get at least $70k/yr at Sun.
(The company that ate ours got eaten in turn and eventually I went to another startup, but that’s another story entirely.)
Kay
@frosty:
Worth every penny, IMO. Our taxes are complicated so we pay a local CPA. I have no intention of learning how to do it – I’m happy to pay him. I feel like things might work better GENERALLY if everyone stayed in their lane :)
tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)
@Brachiator: It was the fee services offered on the IRS so maybe it wasn’t called direct file. There were various restrictions depending on which service you wanted to use. The one I chose was awful and I gave up
@WeimarGerman: A lot of these services are geared towards people in the US, which I get because that is where most everyone is. But, if you are going to demand that all US citizens no matter where they are have to report their income, it would be nice if they gave a thought to us when they built these systems. I get the side eye from my UK, Aussie, Canadian colleagues about it. They are not required to file taxes, although in Canada, I believe you can do so if you want to maintain your residency there. I have one colleague who did that while two others chose not to. The bottom line is that I am all for a simpler system. Off to bed. Thanks for the discussion.
arrieve
@Soprano2: I’ve known a lot of people who were astonished when I told them I did my own taxes (with the H&R Block software.) It’s a pain in the ass to collect all of the numbers, but actually filling in the forms and filing takes two hours maximum–including paying for and downloading the software.
And I have never minding paying taxes. Isn’t that part of the civic contract to live in this society?
prostratedragon
@Marcopolo:
“Truth Social is tanking after announcing they plan to issue another 21.5 million shares in a secondary offering!”
L.O.L.!!
Brachiator
@Chris T.:
There’s got to be something in the instructions about this. You could ask your tax preparers about it.
I don’t think that I ever had to prepare this form when I prepared taxes.
Matt McIrvin
@gene108: I’m not.
Tax-preparation companies want to keep the tax code confusing and complicated to support their business, but in this they are allied with Republicans who want to keep tax filing unpleasant so that people will have negative emotional associations with paying income tax (to a greater extent than with any other, usually more regressive kind of tax).
Look at all the anger you can stoke among people by saying that 40% or whatever of the population “doesn’t pay income tax”. Usually, people hear that and they kind of imagine that none of those lucky duckies at the low end of the income distribution even have to worry about filing, that they just live in tax-free bliss. But most of them do have to file even though they’re not paying anything in the end. Some of the people who pay nothing are probably even among the people getting mad that some people pay nothing.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
No state income tax in Texas. Still have to pay for some services.
Eric S.
I e-filed on 3/5 using a well known software program. A week later I had my federal refund (direct deposit). I think that’s a great turn around. If Illinois has been in the states a me to pilot the IRS e-filed system I would’ve done that.
Still waiting for the IL refund. Come on, JBP! Get it sent. (I’m not hurting for it. It’ll get here when it gets here.)
evodevo
@rikyrah: Welcome to TX LOL – We took that toll road once when coming back from San Antonio one year – there are NO toll booths and NO way to know how much you owe, until it comes in the mail. Absolutely regressive taxation – but that’s what happens in a state where “taxes are low!!11!!!”. Stealth taxation and not providing any normal services is the MAGA way…
Matt McIrvin
@Ken: In the 1970s and 80s, there was a lot of Sturm und Drang stoked up about the totalitarian terror of the IRS, which fed into Reaganist anti-tax sentiment.
I’ve tangled with them a couple of times. Once, before I switched to using TurboTax, it was because there was a form I neglected to file about stock option exercises and they were trying to tax me twice on something. I cleared it up by writing them an explanatory letter, no problem.
The other time, it was because somebody else (the CEO of a former employer) had, um, neglected to pay the taxes he’d withheld on the back pay we’d had to wheedle out of him, and they thought I might be somehow involved or have relevant information. They came on very scary in the initial letter, but after I called them up and had a chat, everything was hunky dory.
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
Agree that Republicans want to keep tax filing unpleasant. The GOP opposes the IRS Direct File program.
Tax prep companies would like to stay in business, but they have never lobbied to keep the tax code confusing. Congress and the states do this without the help of the tax prep industry.
Ironically, computers are part of the problem. There are a couple of federal and California state forms that require idiotic worksheet calculations that would be absurd to complete manually.
Taken4Granite
@rikyrah: At $0.42 per mile that would be 167 miles. Which, if she is commuting to work five days a week, would be 17 miles of toll lanes each way. Not at all implausible in a place like DFW.
I’ll grant that $0.42 per mile is pretty high, especially when disguised in fine print as they apparently do in Texas. (Comparison points: New Hampshire charges $2 for 12 miles between Seabrook and Portsmouth; Maine charges $9 for 102 miles from York to Augusta.)
Kelly
My taxes are simple. A few 1099s. Obamacare. I’ve used FreetaxUSA for several years. Federal is free State is $15. The current IRS app doesn’t do 1099s but I suspect it will when rolled out nationwide.
In the 1970s taxes let me graduate from the University of Oregon debt free. After Oregon’s Labor Day 2020 fires taxes paid for cleanup and rebuilding. Thursday I turned in paperwork that will (hopefully) pay for my elderly Mom’s dementia care facility.
gvg
I used the government direct file this year and liked it better than the “free” tax preparer versions I had used the last few years. Absolutely astonished that Florida was one of the test states.
It was easy, with a few quirks. It seems made to be done with a smartphone or tablet, not a desk top or laptop unless the laptop has a camera. that was to set up a government ID, not the actual tax return. They want a video not a picture, to check for liveness (I guess fake ID’s and scams are getting more sophisticated)
Survey afterwards asked if we wanted to use the ID process for other government programs in the future.
It had some quirks. You can’t use abbreviation or periods for anything except money. I was trying to do Ave. on my address, but it insisted on Avenue. It was helpful in pointing to what I was doing wrong right away but it did not say before I started.
I am owed a $1. Apparently my with-holding was right on, the last few years I have owed less than $2. It did not give me an option to say don’t bother, I had to give my bank account # or designate it for next year. It’s a pilot program but seemed pretty good.
Brachiator
This is the first year in a very long time where I was not preparing tax returns or helping tax preparers get through the filing season. But here I am reading about tax issues.
Good to see that most people have filed with few problems or are filing extensions.
This was the first year for the IRS Direct File program and it wasn’t up and rolling at the beginning of tax season. It seems to have been successful. The IRS will try to expand it next year. The GOP will try to kill it.
Another, if minor reason to hope for big Democratic Party victory in November.
TBone
@evodevo: good job, keep it up!
Mousebumples
@gvg: thanks for the report!
Brachiator
@gvg:
Florida doesn’t have individual state income taxes, so it is easy to include it in the federal pilot program.
Interesting. I didn’t know about the video thing.
Good to see that you can easily use a smartphone or tablet. For many lower income people, their smartphones are the only computer that they have.
Wapiti
@Soprano2: In high school we had some class (maybe in civics) where we spent some time with things like how does the stock market work. Which I think was inane; I’ve never bought a stock in my life; that’s what mutual funds are for.
It would have frankly been much, much more useful to spend those few hours on learning how to fill out a basic tax form.
Brachiator
@Wapiti:
Mutual Funds are stocks. But I know what you mean.
Why not both? Way back in high school, we learned to read the business section of the paper. The teacher was good about pointing out what was fairly accurate from BS and opinion.
Schools seem to think that parents are supposed to explain the birds and the bees and the IRS.
Eric S.
@Wapiti: In some civics class we discussed the stock market too but I also remember filling out a 1040EZ and a 1040A form in a class. We also balanced a checkbook. I never did take to the latter.
wjca
Totally awesome! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
JaneE
I too agree with Mark Cuban.
If I have more money than other people, then I also have an obligation for more taxes than other people. That seems pretty obvious to me. I benefit from the things the government does, some directly and some more indirectly, but part of my responsibility as a citizen is to help pay for the running of the country. What I owe.
I said that out loud once. You should have seen the looks I got. Most of them implied “she’s crazy”.
Betty
@tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat): That $10,000 limit on bank accounts is really annoying when you live overseas. Funny thing is the money launderers go merrily about their business while ordinary folks do their duty and file their reports.
Facebones
I will say the IRS is lightning fast this year. I filed my taxes last month and my refund was in my accoun tin 48 hours. I didn’t even have time to check on the Where’s My Refund tracker!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Weird that Cuban’s tax bill is such a nice round number. Are you allowed to round your line items to the nearest $million if you’re rich?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Eric S.: It got a lot easier when I started using Quicken to track my checking account.
It’s still a little painful because I tend to postpone balancing till a once a year marathon in mid April. And always find there’s a month I didn’t download and have to enter manually.
But in theory…
Timill
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Probably just what his accountants told him. It’s social media – it doesn’t have to be too accurate.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Facebones: You may think the money went into faster processing and people to answer the phones, but I’ll bet all the new IT people and phone answerers wear jackboots and kick down doors in their spare time, just for funsies.
JGreen
At the risk of setting off a firestorm, I once heard a story on NPR about a Stanford professor who had come up with an idea to simplify federal tax filing by using information the IRS would have already had. It was fought by lobbyists and never made it into use. That professor was….Joe Bankman.
Full disclosure, I work at Stanford Law School (I do accounting–I don’t know nothin’ about the law) and I always found Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried to be quite nice people. I had never heard of their son until the shit hit the fan and I hated the way every story about Sam Bankman-Fried mentioned that his parents were law professors at Stanford. I was sure his parents had nothing to do with it; why should they be responsible for what a 30-year old son did? Now that more has come out, I feel sorry about the whole thing. I can’t bring myself to vilify the parents as so many here do, but I can understand the sentiment. There’s no denying it’s pretty bad and I thought bitcoin was a scam right from the start.
Here is a link to the NPR story: https://www.npr.org/2017/03/29/521954033/stanford-professor-loses-political-battle-to-simplify-tax-filing-process. I remember recognizing Joe Bankman’s voice as soon as I heard it. I don’t think it will change anyone’s mind about him, but I found the story pretty interesting.
And, to join in the general topic, I did my own taxes until I got income from a partnership. I did my own forms once and turned it over to tax preparer after that.
Brachiator
@JGreen:
Didn’t connect the dots on Bankman. He was one of the best advocates for free IRS tax filing that I have ever run across.
He wrote a great piece about the issue for Politico back in 2018.
Yutsano
The Direct File pilot is going like gangbusters. It wouldn’t surprise me if it gets expanded to more states next year, then all 50 by the 2025 filing season in 2026.
Kayla Rudbek
I would prefer the option of being able to use free filing. As it is, Mr. Rudbek’s bike ride this afternoon will be to the post office to mail in our filing,because H&R Block’s website was practically DDOS yesterday and this morning.
Wapiti
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Late to the thread – but my wild guess is that $288M is his estimated taxes just for 1st quarter 2024, not his entire tax bill for 2023 (which would be roughly 4x the quarterly estimated taxes).
Nettoyeur
@TS:
@TS: The GDP of Australia is 1.693 trillion USD (2022), which is a lot bigger than the 288M in taxes paid by Mark Cuban.
Sheila in nc
I used to do our taxes every year, using commercial tax software. Easy peasy because we were both salaried workers with simple savings instruments. Then we moved. Sold house, bought house, new state so two state returns, yadda yadda. I did ’em that year, it took me HOURS. And the stress of trying to make sure I was interpreting things correctly! I guess I did it mostly right — the only feedback I ever had was a note from the state of Maryland telling me I had underpaid by $19, please remit, thank you very much. But the experience convinced me I ought to get professional help — I promised myself I would never do my own taxes again!
(Narrator: “And she never did.”)
Ruckus
@Math Guy:
You get what you pay for!
Yes sometimes you actually do.
In the case of taxes, if one takes a long, hard look at this country, and how livable it generally is, especially compared to all the other countries, we find that it is pretty damned good. It may or may not be in first place but overall it’s pretty damned good. Can it be improved? I’m sure it can.
Can it be made worse?
Absofuckinglutely.
There is a reason we HAD a rather progressive income tax system. And that is that people who have more – pay more. Those people that pay more do so because they have more and even if they pay more, they still have more. Even the wealthiest would have significantly more than the average if they paid a higher percentage. But no, it’s all about having the most and being smug and condescending about it. Things like owning 11 houses, and all of them worth far more than a smallish 3 bedroom home in a large neighborhood of small 3 bedroom homes, like where I live in SoCal, and NEVER getting one’s hands dirty doing anything.