this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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I'm American and yesterday I realized I made a mistake on my taxes less than an hour after I filed them. Some googling told me it's not a huge deal, just have to file an amended tax return after my initial one is accepted but I can't ignore it because the IRS will know I did it wrong because they will have received a form from another party with the numbers I forgot to put in. It's baffling to me why it's a weird negotiation to pay taxes instead of them just telling me what I owe since they do know what I owe.
While I have my W-2 and a bunch of 1099s and 1098s from various banks, I'm still waiting on a few more things. But yeah, definitely silly that I have to gather these forms, tabulate them in the 1040, and technically send them off to the IRS, when these banks have also filed these with the government already. Electronic filing or not, it's annoying. It doesn't take me long to do my taxes, maybe like 1-2hrs (and admittedly I use H&R Block via the IRS' Free File program), but still. So stupid.
The IRS is trialing a "Direct File" system this year, but it's not open to everyone. Hopefully that turns out alright. I know that still requires people to file in the first place, but I still think it'll eventually get us to a point where the government "files for us" and we simply confirm the amounts. Anything that removes the influence of the proprietary tax software companies is a plus in my book.