The IRS is rolling out its free tax-filing tool to 30M Americans(www.fastcompany.com)
35 pointsby janeerie10 hours ago3 comments
  • beretguy9 hours ago
    I’ll wait for other people to test it.
    • BugsJustFindMe9 hours ago
      Just curious, are you worried about anything in particular?
      • w0m7 hours ago
        'taxes' is a 4... erm, 5 letter word for some; almost taboo.
        • bastawhiz7 hours ago
          Right, but given the choice between the agency that decides whether you did your taxes correctly and a for profit company, why would you choose the latter?
          • Scoundreller7 hours ago
            What i’ve found delusional is the amount of duplicative entry of data by individuals that’s already been submitted to the tax agency electronically by employers and finance firms.

            At least in Canada for the last couple years, our tax software can download all that from the tax agency and plug that into your forms automatically. And for most people, that’s all the info there is.

            There aren’t a lot of “elections” or “decisions” to actually make when filing.

            And there’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t happen automatically because you •could• have the same investments across multiple brokers, but that’s not the majority either.

          • jokethrowaway6 hours ago
            Because the agency which decides whether I did my taxes correctly is likely going to have terrible UX and has an incentive to hide options for me to save on taxes?

            I pay private agents all the time to avoid having to deal with terrible governments interfaces and find shortcuts, wins for me.

            • bastawhiz4 hours ago
              As opposed to the terrible UX of the for profit companies that have been providing the same services for years? For most people, the cost of TurboTax is higher than whatever mystical savings they might "find".
          • AStonesThrow5 hours ago
            Obamacare Website Tips - SNL

            https://youtu.be/_rzQeDOGDxI?si=Op4NDMNL_9hedCPK

            • bastawhiz3 hours ago
              The USDS, which helped build this site, was literally started because of the embarrassing launch of healthcare.gov. And as the article states, the test launch for tax year 2023 went extremely smoothly.
          • neverartful5 hours ago
            What makes you think that a division of the federal government is going to get it right the first time? I'm being serious (not snarky). Have you ever worked with the federal government? I have (as a contractor) and I was constantly amazed (not in a good way).
            • bastawhiz4 hours ago
              It's literally not their first time. It launched for tax year 2023.
              • neverartful3 hours ago
                I still wouldn't use it this early.
      • fragmede3 hours ago
        it getting hacked is probably the top concern. if an attacker can access my information on that site, they can steal my identity and conveniently also know exactly how much that identity is worth stealing. Not that not using the system is any guarantee that I'll be safe either. my data's already been leaked by Equifax so I'm expecting someone will try something eventually. scammers have already tried calling my mom, telling her I'm in the hospital but fortunately she was able to call me and I was able to say that I wasn't.

        which is to say, that worry shouldn't stop anyone from trying their site.

    • jonny_eh4 hours ago
      It was tested last year.
  • ohples7 hours ago
    Good