this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
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Wait, do US citizens have to pay to file taxes? Or is this a service to help navigate the complexities?
Not American, bit my understanding is that filling taxes in the US is complicated and confusing to the point where most people use paid software to do it. There is an obvious lobby of tax filing software companies keeping it that way.
nailed it.
It isn't even that complex if you are doing basic forms. Literally plug in numbers from a document that gets mailed to you January 15.
These are just private companies that typically fleece you out of a percentage of your income tax return.
My ex made us file taxes using "experts" for 17 years, even though I proved to her I could do it myself, and came up with the same numbers the "experts" did, because "they insure you if something goes wrong"
It's a scam. TurboTax, Jackson Hewitt, it's a scam
The government charges no fee to file.
However, until this year, lobbying has prevented the IRS from providing online services to help taxpayers fill out the forms or file directly, instead being required to outsource that and only expose a (wildly insecure btw) API for electronic filing.
Because the US tax code is also complicated as fuck and changes all the time, services like TurboTax exist and charge you to fill out the forms.
Repeat the above for each state you work / have income / own property in.
US citizen here. Used to file my own for free. At one point I bought a house and qualified for some tax credit so I paid an accountant to do my taxes that year to ensure I got everything right, bascially never went back becuase it was worth the $175 to litterally do nothing except mail my tax documents to an accountant.
You have a pretty basic tax situation so you might reconsider paying that $175. I'm in roughly the same boat as you and pay $10 for FreeTaxUSA (and previously $0 for CreditKarma Tax) to file my state return and $0 for the federal return.
It's the latter.
You can download forms from the IRS website or use free software like TaxHawk. Many people prefer to use similar software that you have to pay for or pay an accountant to do their taxes for them.