The IRS Free Direct File System and its real goal
Daenin
A May, 16, 2023 article at APNews.com discussed the IRS’s intention to start a free e-filing income tax system in 2024.
The article makes the following points:
- The IRS published a feasibility report concluding that the majority of surveyed taxpayers would be interested in using an IRS-provided tool to prepare and file their taxes electronically.
- The new, direct e-file program being tested could potentially save taxpayers billions of dollars annually because an individual taxpayer pays an average of $140 preparing their tax returns each year.
- Depending on the program’s usage and scope, the study estimates that annual costs of direct file may range from $64 million for 5 million users to $249 million for 25 million users.
- Amanda Renteria, CEO of civic tech nonprofit Code for America, said in a statement, “We believe today’s announcement is a significant step toward revolutionizing access to the tax system so that it is easier and more equitable. A free and simple direct file service will ensure that more families in America receive the tax benefits they are eligible for,”.
- Steve Ryan, general counsel of the American Coalition for Taxpayer Rights, an advocacy group for tax companies said “a direct e-file system is unnecessary, costly and will divert attention and resources from more pressing priorities at IRS.”
- Big tax preparation companies also have millions of dollars to lose if the program comes to fruition. Between them, Intuit, the parent company behind Turbo Tax and H&R Block serviced more than 60 million taxpayers.
- An Associated Press analysis shows that Intuit, H&R Block, and other private companies and advocacy groups for large tax preparation businesses, as well as proponents in favor of electronic free file, have reported spending $39.3 million since 2006 to lobby on “free-file” and other matters. Federal law doesn’t require domestic lobbyists to itemize expenses by specific issue, so the sums are not limited to free-file.
CONCLUSION
While there is an understandable lack of trust in a tax filing system designed and run by the IRS, does anyone think that H&R Block and Intuit are spending millions of lobbying dollars opposing the IRS free file system because of their concern for taxpayers?
No, they are concerned about their own bottom lines, and they’re outraged because the politicians they thought they bought with their lobbying dollars didn’t stay bought!
RIGHT!
Of course, the big tax preparation companies are adamantly opposed to the FAIRtax because the FAIRtax would render them obsolete. Eliminating the economic reason for these tax preparation companies to lobby against the FAIRtax means that one less opponent is neutralized.
The D.C. Elite and their minions were benefiting from the lobbying money paid by these tax preparation companies. Why would they “throw their allies under the bus?”
A National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) paper published in April of 2022 contained the following statement, Our baseline results indicate that between 66 and 75 million returns (42 to 48 percent of all returns) could be accurately pre-populated using only current-year information returns and the prior-year return. Accuracy rates decline with income and are higher for taxpayers who have fewer dependents or are unmarried. We also examine 2019 non-filers, finding that pre-populated returns tentatively indicate $8.2 billion in refunds due to 11 million (20 percent) of them.
The answer is clearly stated in the NBER paper. The D.C. Elite tell us that they want to make it easier on taxpayers by having the IRS calculate our taxes for us and thus eliminate the need for us to file tax returns.
But what they’re really after is a system where they are even more in control. Taxpayers wanting to dispute the IRS’s assessment of what they owe will have to hire professional help and spend countless hours trying to prove the IRS wrong. And the burden of proof will be on the taxpayer, not the IRS.
Since it can take years and cost thousands of dollars to challenge the IRS, the DC Elites know that most taxpayers will find it easier and cheaper to just pay whatever the IRS is demanding. When the IRS is doing everyone’s taxes for them, they will literally have a legal license to take whatever they want from every last one of us.
Of course, one of the consequences of this plan by the D.C. Elites is that another large group of people, tax preparers, who now profit from the income/payroll tax system will no longer have an economic incentive to support keeping the income/payroll tax system in place. They’ll have to find a new means of generating income.
For the most part, the tax preparer community understands how the present system is corrupt and bad for the country. Some are already supporting the FAIRtax but when the remainder no longer have any economic benefit from the income/payroll tax system they will demand the FAIRtax.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler told the world what he was going to do when he came into power. However, his warnings were ignored and most world leaders thought that they could simply appease him and continue to live in peace.
Churchill said, An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile — hoping it will eat him last.
Like Hitler, the D.C. Elite believe that the vast tax preparation industry will sit quietly as their income is eliminated. By the time any serious opposition arises, it will be too late—the crocodile will have eaten them.
This total control over our lives is what the D.C. Elite really want, and they arrogantly believe that they deserve it. They have convinced themselves that they are so much smarter than we are, and therefore it’s really in our best interests for us to cede control of our lives over to them so they can do what’s best for us. After all, we work for them, don’t we?
If you don’t like this dismal future and want to have the power to control the amount of taxes you pay by how much you spend, then there is an alternative-- H.R. 25, the FAIRtax.
The FAIRtax transfers power from the government and bureaucrats to the people. We, not the bureaucrats and D.C., decide how much tax we pay.
Congress and D.C. know that there is a better alternative to the present system—the FAIRtax.
Instead of spending time and money doing endless hours of paperwork that don’t create anything of value to yourself, your family or the nation, why not eliminate the unnecessary waste?
Isn’t it time to end this ludicrous tax collection system and the IRS?
When the FAIRtax is enacted, there will be no need to fear being audited by the IRS or raided by armed IRS agents because there will be no more IRS.
There is going to be a vote on the FAIRtax in the House of Representatives. McCarthy and the other elites didn’t want it, but it was forced on them.
We now have the opportunity to force all Members of the House to show where they stand. They can:
- Vote for the present income/payroll tax system or for the FAIRtax.
- Support the corrupt income tax and the IRS or eliminate it. It can’t be any simpler than that.
- Hide the true cost of their government or pass the FAIRtax and show everyone the true cost of government on each retail receipt.
- Support the largest transfer of power from government to the people, the FAIRtax, or not.
Please stand with us and demand that your representative support a much fairer, much simpler and much more efficient way to fund the government—the FAIRtax!
The FAIRtax doesn’t pick winners and losers. Because it taxes spending, not earnings, the FAIRtax lets everyone save for their retirement tax free.
The FAIRtax will allow us to TAKE BACK CONTROL.
The income/payroll tax system is broken and no longer working—we can’t repair it but we can replace it with the FAIRTAX!
Join us and TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR COUNTRY AND OUR LIVES—NOT WITH BULLETS BUT WITH THE ELIMINATION OF ONE OF THE BIGGEST THREATS TO OUR LIBERTY AND ECONOMIC PROSPERITY—THE INCOME/PAYROLL TAX.
We all should remember Edmund Burke’s warning that applies to our efforts to TAKE BACK CONTROL,
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
We should also remember this quote from George Orwell's 1984, which, if we do nothing, may foretell your and your children's future:
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
WHAT CAN EACH OF US DO?
We can write letters and make calls to our elected representatives and attend Zoom town hall meetings demanding that if they really want to allow Americans to “TAKE BACK CONTROL”, the first step is to eliminate the income/payroll tax system and enact the FAIRTAX!
TAKE BACK CONTROL! Help us PASS THE FAIRTAX!
HELP BRING ABOUT REAL TAX REFORM AND STOP FUTURE IRS ABUSES
By contributing (investing) $10.40 per month, you help provide a financial base to AFFT. If you can make larger contributions (investments), these will be used not for salaries, as we are all volunteers, but for the needed updates to our economic studies which will be vital for all future years.
Please go to this link to invest in AFFT. It’s an investment in your and your family’s future.