I honest to God can’t imagine how fucking cheap the price for them to make it so that people have to use their paid services… which will make them many, many times more than their bribe ever was.
It would be like if you paid me 1 dollar and I did something that would make you 200 or 300 dollars…
In the trump Reich
Everything is for sale.
Everything
Wait sorry what? Non-USian here, bear with me.
What does “program” mean here? Why is this program necessary to file your taxes for free? Do you guys have PAY to file your taxes if you don’t use/apply/qualify for that program?? Am I misunderstanding what it means to “file” taxes? It’s been a while since I was this confused by a US thing.
Definition: A system of services, opportunities, or projects, usually designed to meet a social need.
In this case, a digital service provided directly by the IRS, hence the name “Direct File.” In contrast, filing by paper is still supported. Tax preparation businesses have been actively preventing the US filing process from being simplified, naturally because that’s the reason they make money.
So this Direct File thing is simply for filing your taxes online? Because we have a thing like that too (doesn’t every “civilised” country?). And that’s what they want to abolish? US lobbyists are something else, man.
They want to be the middleman, so requirements for them to provide a free filing service are hidden and direct competition is in this case buried.
US tax code is (deliberately) complicated and unlike other countries, you need to manually fill out the forms with your financial data even though the government already knows it and what you owe (minus exemptions that the vast majority of citizens won’t claim). This is because there is a major industry around tax preparation, and the big names (such as Intuit) have aggressively lobbied for decades to keep the process as complicated and inconvenient as possible so that people are forced to pay them to fill out their tax forms. This lobbying has also resulted in the legally mandated free filing options being buried and hard to find, with many people not even knowing they exist.
Tax prep is a huge scam with many billions of dollars behind it. Weather providers are probably going to be next in the news, since they’ve been trying to kill the free government-run forecasts and force people onto their paid platforms for just as long.
Okay so the “paying” is for when you use third parties to “help” you file, yes? You don’t pay the government for the privilege of being able to file, yes? So what does/did this Free File thing do?
Taxes aren’t easy in Germany either, I’m glad I have a husband who is level-headed enough to do them for us both because I’d always have a near mental breakdown when I tried. But it’s always been obvious to me where and how to file without involving anyone I’d have to pay. Fuck.
Free file is software that people use to file. As far as I’m aware, it’s always been free to print out the forms and mail it all in.
Personal filing is always free, the “free” in “free filing” refers to the prep part. It just means you fill out and submit your taxes yourself rather than paying a tax firm’s accountants to do it for you. Calling it that makes it seem like the firms are part of the process rather than bloated parasites feeding off taxpayers. I wouldn’t be surprised if the name was also a result of their influence.
Their accountants can claim exemptions and rebates buried in the tax code that laymen wouldn’t know exist - ones that they lobbied for to make their services more attractive. It makes them worthwhile for some households, but only because they’re solving a problem they birthed and grew in the first place.
IRS Direct File was just a free government-run alternative to the tax filing programs like TurboTax.
You can still do your taxes by hand without the help of any software for free, but they’ve killed the website that fills out the forms automatically and the manual process is significantly more complicated.
Free Tax USA is easy to use and free for federal, $15 for state. I used it last time. This time I filed for an extension because the IRS might be so gutted by October I won’t even have to pay. And I owe a lot because I was a contractor for most of 2024.
Normally I have no problem paying taxes but this time it’s different.
The existing paid weather and mapping services are not excited. Right now they just repackage days that’s provided by the government for free, so while their customer base isn’t as big as it would be without NOAA, NWS, and USGS data available to anyone, their expenses are super low.
They’d need 1000x at many customers to cover the expense of gathering their own data.
Instead, what they’ll all end up doing is paying huge money to third party services (e.g.SpaceX), who have existing infrastructure that can be used to launch weather monitoring services and will end up being the only ones to benefit from this.
Why don’t Americans vote for politicians who want to get rid of the “tax preparation industry?”
Why don’t more politicians mention it at all?
Why has the working class been conditioned to squabble over bullshit while the ruling class robs them blind, again?
I’m starting to think consumerism breeds stupidity.
Turns out that when you do make that vote, the fucking Cheeto looking stupid fucker who takes bribes still wins. And I voted as hard as I could!
Culture needs to change.
is there a fact check on this? seems wild to me. wonder what the maga cult defense is on this one.
https://www.newsweek.com/american-businesses-supporting-donating-donald-trump-list-2027957
They are in there and a few days ago Trump announced they were ending the direct file program.
wonder what the maga cult defense is on this one.
Here ya go: HRC drinks baby blood.
I’ve always thought the best argument against him being bribed is that the cash he’s pocketing from staying at his own hotels is pretty petty as far as what the president could potentially get in the way of ill-gotten gains.
Trump is incredibly miserly for someone who’s so terrible with money. He straight-up refuses to pay anyone he thinks won’t win a lawsuit against him, stiffing dozens of contractors who worked on his real estate projects over the decades. He even ghosts the venues that host his rallies when it comes time for his campaign to repay them.
There was an experiment where checks were mailed weekly to various random wealthy people with slightly less each week to see at what point they wouldn’t even bother cashing them in. Trump was one of only two people to keep cashing them even when they dropped to pennies per check.
He’s also infamous for lying about his wealth. He is (or was before his presidency gave him endless opportunities to grift) a paper billionaire who in reality was so deep in debt and had such bad credit due to his constant bankruptcies that no bank in America would lend him money. That’s how he got involved with Deutsch Bank, the one with shady connections to the Russian government.
He’s corrupt, incompetent, and willing to do anything for money. And he has so many grifts running that even if they aren’t making much individually, he’s still “earning” a fortune overall.
That’s called bribery in my country. It’s disgusting anr very prevalent here but at least we don’t embellish the idea with polite terminology 😂
your political system is already based on legalized bribery and this is where you draw the line? lmao. Lobbying has destroyed america for a century.
Amen
This is from 1889. Literally nothing has changed. Go back 1000 years and it’s the same fucking shit. Even 3000 years ago in Egypt. It’s always rich vs everybody else just in different outfits.
I want another Teddy Roosevelt in office.
Fuck man even after trust busting, those companies were then and still are stupid big and powerful and maddeningly enriching to the 1%
At least we have shiny toys now built on the backs of global labor exploitation. That’s cool.
We really should be moving to direct voting.
Representative democracies are tool of the ruling class to subvert control from the working class.
The fact <0.00001% of the people you come across mention direct voting in a democracy should be an indicator at how successful the ruling class has been at controlling the narrative.
Karl Marx
The Civil War in France
Written: July 1870 - May 1871Nowhere do “politicians” form a more separate, powerful section of the nation than in North America. There, each of the two great parties which alternately succeed each other in power is itself in turn controlled by people who make a business of politics, who speculate on seats in the legislative assemblies of the Union as well as of the separate states, or who make a living by carrying on agitation for their party and on its victory are rewarded with positions.
Here we find here two great gangs of political speculators, who alternately take possession of the state power and exploit it by the most corrupt means and for the most corrupt ends – and the nation is powerless against these two great cartels of politicians, who are ostensibly its servants, but in reality exploit and plunder it.
I’ve realized why this is the case.
Nations are modern-day fiefdoms. If you’re not a member of the ruling class, then you’re not supposed to have any say in how a nation is run. Modern politics is a song and dance around serving the ruling class as much as possible while convincing workers it’s in their best interests.
Class traitors need to be ostracized more often.
Legalized bribery is only bad when the other team is in office. When your team is bribed, it’s handy so they can run again in 4 years. Just don’t ask them to do any campaign promises that go against their donors.
What other team? A non shit country has like 10 parties that come and go regularly as time moves on.
It was founded on lies and lobbying. Remember “taxation without representation”? Americans were on a 90% tax discount compared to the British. America was founded off the back of the particularly idiotic, greedy and gullible, and they’ve continued on that path to present. And some fool gave them weapons.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
Trump could have held the Saudis up for $50 billion on Inauguration Day 2016. Five minutes with the ambassador and he could have walked away with plenty of loot.
Yosemite Sam could have figured it out.
I don’t you understand who actually controls the petrol-dollar.
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True, but $50 billion wouldn’t break the bank for the Saudis. Moreover, Trump’s recent actions show that he doesn’t really care about anything more than 15 minutes in the future.
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How many private airplanes and yachts do the princes have?
They could cut down to seventeen harems each and still have enough to pay off Trump.
It wouldn’t have to be a lump sum either.
Stock market manipulation or a similar scam would put the same amount in his pocket.
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People keep talking about the American Empire falling.
Be careful what you wish for.
When the USSR fell there was a decade of genocide in Europe, followed by kleptocracy that makes the old KGB look sedate.
The US Navy has about a dozen nuclear aircraft carriers and three times as many nuclear subs.
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Some of this is about accepting bribes. A lot more is simply ideology.
Trump’s people do not believe the IRS should exist and they are trying to dismantle it. DirectFile is just low hanging fruit, intended to make people more frustrated with tax filing and more easy to radicalized in an attempt dismantle and replace with tariffs.
Like, this is a real decades long project that goes way beyond Trump. Abolishing the income tax was Goldwater’s wet dream.
Add to that that Grover Norquist runs an organization called Americans for Tax Reform. GOP politicians all have to sign a pledge with them that they will never vote for a tax increase or for anything to make filing taxes easier.
Supposedly, this is because if taxes are easy to file, Americans won’t hate them enough and it makes it easier for the government to raise taxes. But, it’s awfully convenient that this is exactly what Intuit, H&R Block, etc. all want too.
I agree with you that the Project 2025 folks are important, but I’m talking about Trump in particular.
The shoes, the NFTs, and the crypto schemes are all about fleecing his own people.
There was a lottery where the top prize was dinner at the white House with POTUS. They ran it for months and there was never a single winner.
I think he really likes stealing from poor people. Either that or he’s too chicken to go toe to toe with someone who might hit back.
Is he just doing all this through executive orders?
Put every manager of TurboTax in prison as a traitor.
Or just put a cap on donations and block corporate donations?
that would have been reasonable 20 years ago.
I think people have to understand that we’ve entered a different era. The rich have gotten richer and become insanely powerful and “the game” has gone on for so long all the rules have been slightly bend to allow them to become more rich and powerful. If you continue to “be sensible” and ask if you may nibble around the edges, all you get is fascism. It’s inevitable. So first you have to destroy them and their power, then you can reform the system. Reforming the system now, even if you could, won’t do anything.
Crowdfund the airfare to El Salvador?
1 million to make filing taxes annoying af, well I’m not filing anything again
Thankfully genocide joe opened up free taxes to everybody and put those leeches out of business!
\s
It is funny that it’s only an issue in Lemmy that Trump is doing it. Meanwhile the IRS has been stuck doing this for decades because of corporate lobbying from Intuit.
This as much of a regression to about 2023. When America was already behind on tax filing since the 1980s compared to every other country. Even the “shithole” nations Trump hates have had better tax systems for their citizens.
They literally bribe to Democrats more than Republicans, fucking hilarious. Helps explain why Congress won’t do anything.
If you know someone who works for one of these companies, you should ostracize them.
Stop giving free passes to people making our society worse.
I mean I feel like it depends on their role in the company. Not everyone has the luxury of choosing the work they do. I know at least a few people who work in billing for a healthcare company that don’t want to do that work and understand it’s bad but don’t really have another choice as they couldn’t get any other jobs. I’m not gonna blame someone for working at a bad company unless they’re like an executive or other high up person who could take their skills to a different industry.
Anyone who advocates for ostracizing fellow workers indiscriminately is doing it in order to keep the working class bogged down in endless internal feuds instead of organizing. Solidarity is the only solution.
Solidarity should also involve being united on what work is acceptable and what is not.
This doesn’t seem indiscriminate to me. I think we 100% should judge people who work for evil corporations, regardless of what their position is.
Wait, so I wasn’t supposed to punch that guy in the janitors uniform in the dick just because he said Intuit (turns out he was saying “into it”)?
Then they should do their job exactly as half-assedly as it’s possible to do without actually being fired. Steal coffee and creamer from the kitchen. Steal toilet paper. Accidentally deleted System32 on the office computer. Open all file attachments and links in emails. Crop-dust the bosses office. Start office rumours to sow discord and erode company loyalty. Slip and fall on a stair, go on extended paid medical leave. When fired, sue for wrongful termination, crowdfund the legal fees
That’s a fair strategy if you actually can organize with other people at your work to do things like that. But it still does rely on having enough stability to get fired and not end up homeless while getting a new job or trying to sue. Crowdfunding can work if you happen to get lucky and your story gets picked up by lots of people, but it can also reach no one and leave you with nothing. So at the end of the day it’s gonna come down to organizing, if only there was some kind of organized body of workers you could form to fight policies that are bad for people in general along with being bad for the workers.
Funniest part is how they’re bribing the government with the money they took from customers. Now they can take more money from customers, which is more money for bribes.
It also means they didn’t need to charge customers the prices they charged, since they have enough money to operate their business and bribe politicians.
It’s like, you’re paying them to work against you.
So backwards, but that’s by design. Don’t be a useful idiot.
If you believe everything should come with a price, you should vote for those who will give you the most money for voting for them, which is probably the democrats.
