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Taxes

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2024 7:31 pm
by Thad
IRS has launched its free tax filing service, Direct File, in 12 states

You can check whether you qualify to use the system at directfile.irs.gov. Based on the eligibility restrictions in the IRS program, the Treasury Department said it "estimates that one-third of all federal income tax returns filed could be prepared using Direct File."

In the 12 eligible states combined, the department estimates that 18.7 million taxpayers are eligible for Direct File. That includes a high of 5.2 million taxpayers in California and a low of 80,000 in Wyoming. "Thousands of taxpayers across all 12 states have already successfully filed returns during the pilot's testing phase," the Treasury Department said.

The government is calling this year's version of Direct File a pilot program. It will presumably expand to more states and perhaps have fewer restrictions on who can file in future years.

The 12 states in question are

Arizona
California
Florida
Massachusetts
Nevada
New Hampshire
New York
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Washington
Wyoming

I'll have to look into this. As I mentioned in the Microsoft thread, I've been using TurboTax since my grandparents buy a multi-license pack each year, but that "multi-license" part is...probably close enough to a lie that Intuit's lawyers should be bracing for another false-advertising lawsuit. At this point it's more like a "one person can install this on multiple devices" license, since you need to connect to your Intuit account to authenticate, and a license code can't be used on multiple accounts.

Re: Taxes

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2024 8:43 pm
by Silversong
Oh man, I wish they'd done Michigan. I actually file printed paper because screw TurboTax that's why.

Re: Taxes

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2024 11:05 pm
by Mongrel
Holy shit they're doing it. :O

Re: Taxes

Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2024 6:56 am
by sei
Looks like you need an id.me account for some of it, which is unfortunate.

Re: Taxes

Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2024 10:30 am
by Thad
sei wrote:Looks like you need an id.me account for some of it, which is unfortunate.

Oh, that fuckin' thing. The reason I can't log into the MVD website.

Well, I guess I'll try anyway and see how far I get.

Re: Taxes

Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2024 2:42 pm
by beatbandito
It may still require the ID.me, which I had to sign up for a while ago and may have logged through without realizing. But for anyone with little enough going on to do standard instead of itemized filing, there are a few new online free options for 1040 state and federal filing. Not quite as easy as the auto-fill, but fast and actually free.

Re: Taxes

Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2024 3:58 pm
by Silversong
Oh dang, my email recently reminded me I have an ID.me account. Probably for my Nexus card?
Should I be worried about that?

At least in Michigan, I'm well above the income level that allows for free state e-file.

Re: Taxes

Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2024 4:56 pm
by Büge
The finger thing means the taxes

Re: Taxes

Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2024 6:02 pm
by sei
Silversong wrote:Oh dang, my email recently reminded me I have an ID.me account. Probably for my Nexus card?
Should I be worried about that?

At least in Michigan, I'm well above the income level that allows for free state e-file.

Some state DMVs' online renewal and such required ID.me, so some people may already sunk that particular cost.

Re: Taxes

Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2024 6:09 pm
by Thad
Thad wrote:Well, I guess I'll try anyway and see how far I get.

Welp

You can use Direct File if you only want to claim these tax credits:

Child Tax Credit
Earned Income Tax Credit
Credit for Other Dependents

You can't use Direct File to:

Claim any credits other than the ones listed above

I...don't see the adoption credit on that list, sooooo yeaaaaaah that's about seventeen thousand reasons I'm gonna have to stick with TurboTax this year.

Re: Taxes

Posted: Thu Apr 04, 2024 6:57 pm
by Niku
We have bog simple no frills taxes and already had id.me so that unemployment could not pay me anything last year, and this was seemingly easy and painless (I guess we'll see for sure if it's accepted/rejected in a day for some obscure reason) so hey good on the government for a thing