this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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For your simple[r] tax needs: https://directfile.irs.gov

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[–] [email protected] 134 points 9 months ago (8 children)

As a non US citizen this is just a Robin Williams in Jumanji moment...

WHAT YEAR IS IT?!?!

Anyways, welcome to the year of the interwebs.

Have you got rid of your cheques and faxes yet? 😉

[–] [email protected] 47 points 9 months ago (2 children)

interwebs

It’s called “the information superhighway”, thank you very much. 😄

[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

It's not a big truck you just dump something on

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Saw that on Netflix, addicting.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

This must be true since I read about it on the line.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh we can file our taxes online, we're just required to pay massive amounts of money to a corporate middleman to do it.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 months ago

Oh we can ___, we're just required to pay massive amounts of money to a corporate middleman to do it.

Basically America.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (5 children)

I still write 2 cheques a year because my water bill can only be paid via physical mail (or in person I guess), I’m pretty sure fax is still common in our medical industry.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

somewhat common but dropping.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What is it with water departments being such Luddites?! Having lived in a few different cities in a few different states, they always seem to be the one utility that’s the biggest pain in the ass to work with. Gotta go down to their city office to start service - make sure to bring a voided check if you want to set up an auto draft to pay the bill because they don’t take cards. Online account management? Nah, the closest they have to an online presence is their About page on the city website.

WHY?!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Do you want to pay more just to get all that up and running though?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Utility prices keep going up, regardless. I’d rather they use the money for something useful.

[–] OpenPassageways 2 points 9 months ago

I'd use Bank of America bill pay or something similar, they will print and mail your check.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I use a check for Rumpke for the same reason, but my checkbook is still useful for when a co-worker brings in their kid's fundraiser and i can quickly write ine out

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

my wife is disputing a Healthcare charge. Went to a specialist 13 times, they reimbursed us 9 times but not the other 4, at a cost of about $800.

we have to communicate with the appeals center by fax, and wait for their snail mail response.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

At some point she should just stop jumping through their hoops and file in small claims court.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

I still write checks, mostly to pay contractors and tip my hairdresser. I wrote a tip for a contractor the other day and made it out to cash. He said that was too old-school and he was afraid the bank wouldn't accept it!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

I thought I had gotten rid of cheques, but I had to get a book specifically to get my passport.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm in the USA and we've been able to file our federal taxes for free online for like a decade, I'm not sure what these people are talking about. What's new here is that this is the IRS's official tool.

Previously we had to use an outside service -- but it was -- and still is -- free for normal people/people with normal taxes (eg I have 3 kids and a mortgage and I use it every year). State taxes are another story -- that's usually about $20. And that probably hasn't changed; state taxes have nothing to do with our IRS.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Except for the last several years it’s becoming harder to file for free. TurboTax’s free service developed some worse and worse dark patterns every year, where it was very easy to click the wrong thing and end up being charged. Iirc the fact that they provided a free service at all was to keep control of the market and prevent the IRS from stepping in with a service like this. ProPublica did some good investigations on this.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Beat me to it.

Higher tax bracket Lemmings, note that Donate icon in the upper right of their excellent reporting. Reporters probably risking their lives with the stuff they uncover about the most powerful people.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Except for the last several years it’s becoming harder to file for free with TurboTax

https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/browse-all-offers/

These just don't advertise as much

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Faxes... No, no we have not gotten rid of them. On the other hand, that means shenanigans are still available!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

~~Not~~ true - faxes are widely in use in Healthcare due to hipaa rules

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Okay, I said we've not gotten rid of them? But the good news is you can do shenanigans like fax Dad Jokes to random fax numbers...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Oh, I misread your comment, my bad.