Musk says he 'deleted' IRS easy filing team that let Americans file taxes for free online
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25117460
Summary
Elon Musk claimed on X that he eliminated the IRS team responsible for the "Direct File" program, which allows Americans to file taxes online for free.
His statement came in response to a right-wing influencer criticizing the program as government overreach.
However, the Treasury Department confirms that the Direct File system remains active, offering free tax filing with customer support.
The program, available in English and Spanish, is optional, allowing taxpayers to choose between using it or filing their taxes manually.
https://www.rawstory.com/elon-musk-irs-easy-filing/Open linkView original on lemmy.ca1022
Comments176
I think I'll skip paying taxes this year, my religion states I cannot support terrorist groups.
Not religious, but my ethics, and laws against aiding and abetting should also apply.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_objection_to_military_taxation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Freedom_Peace_Tax_Fund_Act
https://nwtrcc.org/war-tax-resistance-resources/readings/tax-refusal-as-conscientious-objection-to-war/
but also: Office of Chief Counsel Internal Revenue Service Memorandum https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-lafa/20133303f.pdf
Good luck with that.
But, in all seriousness: Everyone should do their taxes ASAP. If you are due a refund? File very quickly. If you owe money? Wait until the last possible minute. Because there are decent odds that we don't have an IRS after a month or two of this...
That said, DO make it a point to file state taxes regardless since those actually go toward things that, even in red states, are focused on the populace.
To late he just got rid of what takes to do our fucking taxes. I REFUSE TO USE TURBOTAX OR HR BLOCK OR ANY OTHER PREDATORY TAX FILING COMPANY.
Guess no refund for us and no child tax credit.
Btw what the fuck is Congress doing? This motherfucker should not be able to do any of this, yet no one stopping him.
You do you. Personally, I want to get my money while I still can. But if you would rather throw away you and your children's money then ... 'kay.
Because there are basically 3 outcomes for the IRS at this point
And if you truly refuse to use any software? You can file by hand. I did back in college when I couldn't afford even fricking turbotax.
Democrats cannot fix this. Perhaps you lived under a rock, but they lost power in all branches of government. Further, whether the actions by Musk violate the constitution is up for review by the courts, not congress. Remember who is in charge there? People warned that electing Trump would end Democracy, but I guess they were just scaremongering.
The article goes on to mention he is either lying or doesn't know what he is talking about as the system is very much still in place. It could be either, and likely it's both, that he doesn't know enough to be sure if he did or not, but would be ok if it turns out to be a lie anyway.
Isn't freetaxusa still good?
It charges for state tax returns
Ah, okay. Just for electronic filing though, right? You can still use it, print the results, and mail it in, can't you?
Has for 2 years so far.
Turns out America is weak as fuck. We're only good at applying force when it comes to other nations.
Try this site.
Where been doing my taxes. Thanks for the link.
I use cash app and it's free, or at least it was last year.
Cash App Taxes is still free 👍
Republicans? Sucking a lot Trump, Musk, and any other billionaire's dick.
Democrats? Completely self-sabotaging any attempt to get any opposition going.
You can file by paper
The government shuts down immediately of it stops drafting from our paychecks. You can be assured that whatever happens, that will continue.
If that stops then there are going to be other more pressing issues.
Can’t it also later be argued that it’s uncertain and unclear what’s there or not, since that imbecile is running around yanking out wires of the government like a ketamine fueled chimp.
Casting doubt on the sanctity of the government’s records… I’d say that would go through courts for years.
Plus I suspect the states will outlast the feds at this point. With maybe the sole exception of Utah, and that has more to do with the fact that the nuttier Mormons have a weird fucked up prophecy where theyll save America in its dying days or some shit.
I’m still waiting on two forms that the companies say won’t be available till 2/28. Otherwise I’m ready to submit.
Everybody with a 1099 should just refuse to pay taxes.
You probably already pay taxes. Filing your taxes usually just helps dial in if you paid a bit too much or too little.
I think our best bet is to 'delete' Musk.
... HOW????? This movement simply has no real agenda or philosophy - they just want to burn everything down.
That is the agenda
Sorry - I don't mean "agenda" in the weird meaningless pejorative way that partisans use it but rather in the more traditional "plan of things to be done" manner. Like - these people have no problem statement with "here is how we will fix it".
Private companies and consultants make millions on tax advice. Wrongly filed tax returns result in fines. Need I continue?
Yes, causing chaos is part of their "plan of things to be done."
If you want to know their agenda, read Project 2025.
I took what you said as the traditional meaning, there is no "fixing" unless destruction is fixing. Their "agenda", imo, is to tear down as much as possible, crash the economy, then buy up everything that they can; housing, businesses, etc
The government providing a free service that private companies charge for is considered overreach by the wealthy elite who stand to gain from holding a monopoly over access to a necessary thing.
Disclaimer: I don't agree with this but providing a possible rationale. They believe the government is overreaching because "easy" tax filing has been privatized and it would harm those businesses. Never mind those businesses harm people
That seems a reasonable guess...
They literally ran on dismantling our government and the majority of voting Americans voted for them.
For the first time in my life I'm seriously considering getting citizenship elsewhere. Nothing good can happen for the future of this nation with a populace that stupid.
It's over.
The slimmest majority of the minority of Americans who voted
Anyone of voting age that didn't vote is just as bad as anyone that voted for this.
There's your supermajority of stupid Americans.
Have you ever seen someone on social media who CLEARLY did not read the post they are responding to but saw a mention of AI or the word "implication" and posted the same tired old meme for points? And then notice that actually works because the vast majority of the internet doesn't want to discuss anything and just want to giggle at their comfort memes?
It is like that. Except they also want to enslave all lgbtq+ folk, brown people, and women. All while lining their pockets.
That's the agenda. Burn everything down.
Bluesky will delete X, but give him time.
Then they'll become X eventually.
How the hell does this lower costs?
So the right is against self-service now? wtf
This version of the right wing is against any service provided to the public for free which their own companies could profit from by charging for it. And they also, as a matter of principle, believe that the poor should be punished, and punished again.
You may want to look into Grover Norquist and his organisation Americans for Tax Reform. It is one of the most influential political lobbying groups in the United States, and it has the support of essentially the entire republican party. They essentially consider tax to be evil on principle and ask every politician to sign a pledge opposing any tax hike.
ATR is strongly against automatic filing, as they want to keep taxes difficult and complicated to stoke anti-tax sentiment. That is to say, they fear that if filing tax is easier, citizens would be less likely to fight taxes in the way that the ATR wants (mostly they like a low flat tax, because it's simple and good for rich people).
Why are looking for coherence in their ideology? They've never made any indication that they are ideological consistent. Its projection on our part to do so, and the constant exacerbation at the obvious and consistent conclusion is tiresome.
I find it useful to look for ways to make their arguments coherent. What's the underlying motivation where their actions make sense?
In this case, it makes a lot of sense if they're in favor of billionaires profiting off something currently being provided by the government. In other cases (and somewhat on this one, too), "cruelty is the point" is what gets you there.
They're against the slaves not using TurboTax.
It's just a poorly constructed lie to funnel more money to their corporate masters.
No, fascists are. It just so happens that the right are fascists.
yes because it takes money away from companies like intuit and taxact and hrblock... ,sarcasm.
The sooner average Americans realize that these people are America's enemies, the sooner we can do something about it.
So you are saying we better not wait standing up?
You'd think that if DOGE was really DOGE that this is the exact kind of thing they'd double down on and make really good, saving everyone shit load of money.
You'd think that's the case, if you thought saving money or helping average Americans was actually their goal. The American government is being carved up as fast as they can get away with it. Gotta free up cash to give billionaires more tax cuts!
Don't forget... Eliminating any government oversight that might affect their business interests...
And eliminating any funding they can for media that will speak against them.
Edit: these people are directly tanking the platform Mr. Rogers had. The magic school bus, sesame Street, Arthur, Clifford, Barney, Reading Rainbow... They come from PBS, which is under attack by Elon Musk and Donald Trump
I get advertisements trying to give free pamphlets to kids about what Trump has done for our country and how he is saving it. He's looking for the fucking Hitler Youth. Period
They also learned from the wall. Can't pay to deport 10-20 million for free. Gotta enact tariffs and just stop paying for anything they can get away with.
Oh, you see, you fucked up like... three words into your comment
You mean instead of "deleting" it right?
Ya, don't delete, make it even better and save even more money for everyone
Ok. For a second I wanted to down vote because I thought you meant they should double down on what they did.
Thanks for asking for clarification first!
Cruelty is the point. The goal is to make the lives of impoverished people harder.
That's never the point. The point is power, wealth, influence, remaking the world into one they like better. They're stepping on poor people to get there.
In Denmark We've had easy tax filing on the Internet for more than a decade, and before that it was also extremely easy, as we got a form with all the usual data filled out, and we only had to send in if we had changes. I haven't done my taxes for 30 years!!!
Except when we bought a house we've had a few tax deductions on energy saving changes, which took 2 minutes to enter.
Every piece of standard information is collected automatically, like wages, bank info, stock profits, real estate taxes, and the rest if you have anything additional is super easy to fill out. The old paper tax return form is AFAIK completely abandoned since more than a decade ago.
USA under Trump with Elron Musk making it even worse is what we would call working like monkeys in a cage. If they really end this program, it makes it more difficult to do your taxes, AND cost tax payers MORE!!
Thanks, we know the rest of the modern world has it better in literally every way literally everywhere else. Can someone just like invade and save us please?
Unfortunately USA is extremely good at violence, probably the best in the world, so I guess you'll just have to fight it out amongst yourselves. But I wish all the best to all the reasonable Americans, that still believe in decency and democracy.
This is most accurate and depressing assessment of the United States I have ever read.
Being a child of the 60's in Europe, the first President I remember is Jimmy Carter. It is really disappointing that we have seen no other president of USA come even close to caliber of Jimmy Carter.
Nobody since can even "Nå ham til sokkerholderne." Sorry but I can't find a fitting translation, the literal translation is "reach his sock holders" the closest AFAIK is "head and shoulders above", but it doesn't really illustrate the huge distance between Jimmy Carter and every US president since.
Back then we dreamed of peace, tolerance and progress of society. Since then it's been all about money, and at the most scraping a few benefits for the worst off.
So when you say it's depressing, you are goddam right it's depressing. USA threw away their future, mostly to just benefit big oil and the 1%. But more than that, almost all of the developed world is following in the footsteps of USA!? So although it's not nearly as bad, we are going the wrong way too. 😥
Once they have control of all the people and property used to commit that violence... I mean, it's not going to stay within US borders, is it?
No probably not, I hope MAGA will be thrown out when the stupid people rooting for them realize what it really is.
But as things are going, it doesn't look good.
Sorry, you've spent 75 years arming your own government to the point of making this impossible. In the name of "security". Do you feel secure yet?
Imagine calling it a “Defense” budget and going to invade the Middle East, on the near opposite side of the world, twice in 3 years.
Even this easy file was ineligible for anyone who did any IRA which americans have to do to have retirment funds and is super common. Of course the idea was the thing was supposed to be expanded not sunk.
They're still developing it. This was a test rollout to see if they could do it. IRS software was still running on cobol mainframes. Upgrading from these things take time and a lot of development. And they're doing it from scratch.
I mean its sorta funny though because if someone does not put in their taxes the irs will send them a filled out one and ask for a signature to go forward. They also have this great form 1040x that would be perfect to send a prefilled tax return out and leave room for modifications.
This real only works for W2 workers, and a few 1099ers.
They know when you leave some things (banks, brokerages, employers) that also report to them off. They don't know everything.
So yes, they could prefill it a majority, but the filing companies didn't want that to happen
Sorry as a non American IDK what IRA is in this context, usually it's Irish Republican Army, but that doesn't fit the context. Obviously pension funds are automatic too here, I just forgot to mention those.
Individual Retirement Account
👍
sorry I thought mentioning it had to do with retirement would be enough. if you put money into a special account you can't touch till you retire then they will not tax it right away but only when you withdraw it once your retired. Alternatively you can pay the tax and put it into an account where they will not tax any investment growth of it or tax what you withdraw. Yeah I even feel stupid typing it out. I hope this helps anyone in a country with politicians trying to sell privatizing shit.
I prefer to know what an acronym stands for, before claiming I know what is meant, and looking up 3 letter acronyms for another country is not as easy as I suspect most Americans think it is.
But from your explanation I now figure the RA is retirement account, so now I only lack the meaning of the I? Which with my new knowledge I could look up, and find out means Individual.
So now I know in this context, IRA is Individual Retirement Account.
ah. I see. I thought you want meaning and did not realize it was more just the name thing.
Thanks, it was good enough to figure it out. 😀
I love it when Nazi African fascists take control of the American monetary system.
Presumably he just directs other people to do things.
If I was in the IT department I would already be looking for a new job, and I would just tell him that I'd done it, it's not like he's going to check. Although in this case it seems more a situation where he's just running his mouth.
Lots of DR drills gonna be strained to their limits I’m betting
Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
How? If things get too hot here, they'll just move to another country. Oh... I see now. But then that's just passing our problems onto someone else like those South Africa bastards did.
There shouldn't be any place on earth where it is safe to be absurdly rich.
I’d pay more taxes to fund a team of rich hunters.
They already do, thats why they're doing this to government, which they fear. They need to fear public reprisal
I actually disagree with this. I believe its their fear that is driving them. Fear of losing money, wealth, and power. Fear of death and being 'controlled' by the status quo.
Nothing will meaningful improve until the rich put down their fears and begin thinking rationally and with compassion for humanity.
I'm sure they'll come around if we let them know.
Whats your plan to make that happen?
Waow never heard that one b4
About what I expected from you.
Man who pays someone else to do his taxes makes it harder for people who do their own taxes because he doesn't seem to understand how annoying and frustratingly difficult it is to file in USA
He understands. His cronies make big bank from paid services.
He thinks people with less money than him are inferior people, morally, intellectually and socially. If there's anything he's unaware of it's what a pathetic little man he is, and how billions of dollars can't fix that. But deep down I suspect he knows it.
Stop thinking that these people are stupid and don't understand what they're doing. They know exactly what they are doing.
According to Forbes, the only thing he actually deleted was the 18F's (group that created Direct File) Xitter account. Lol
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2025/02/04/irs-direct-file-still-working-this-tax-season-despite-musks-comments/
Really Musky of him to confuse the 2
I mean his social media obsession was what really showed behind the curtain of his fraying sanity the past few years, so I'm not especially surprised that he can't seem to distinguish between a Twitter account and real life.
If he and Trump have one thing in common it's thin skin and being terminally online
Reminder Elon cannot code
I'm not sure he can do anything well.
Except Nazi salutes. That arm thrust was chock full of intent and came straight from the heart!
Bullshit. You're telling me he has a heart?
Well not anymore, of course, as it went out to all his fellow Nazis
It was the most awkward and embarrassing Nazi salute in the history of Nazi salutes. He didn't even do that well.
The irony of course being that actual Nazis wouldn't have liked him because he was South African. Him being white would probably be the minor mitigating factor but had they won their war he wouldn't have had a nice time.
Nothing makes the government more efficient than cleaning house on the group responsible for bringing money into the government and which has an ROI of 5.
Arrest his ass and lock him away for life!
We can buy rope at Home Depot.
I already got rope
It's basically the same thing in Sweden, but in the rare chance that the tax agency makes a mistake, it's usually resolved before summertime without any court issues.
American here, I didn't work this year (stay at home parent) and we only need to file my wife's taxes. If it goes smoothly it'll take an hour, minimum, and we're usually unsure if we filed it all out correctly...
And even if they accept your return and pay you then you still can’t be sure
Doing it this way would cost the IRS less than the way our current system runs.
In Hungary, the country of the far left Orbán quasi-dictatorship, the tax filing process is if you are an employee, in May you go to the website and click okay if you're happy with it. If you forget, it's just an implied acceptance of what you've seen, so most people never do anything and some don't even know how to.
If Orban is far left I'd hate to see what you call right. Literal Satan establishing hell on earth?
It was sarcasm, a reaction to Musk calling somewhat sensible tax filing far left.
That said Orbán did price caps on staples and petrol and 13th month pensions, so it's not like these idiots have a consistent ideology.
BTW Hungary has a party that's nominally right of Orbán, it's made of antivaxers, literal neonazies and other assorted loons.
Nah, they're being facetious.
Does everyone have to file taxes? In the UK, unless you're renting a property or otherwise have some income on the side like that, you don't file taxes at all, it's just all done automatically.
Most everyone in the US files. Even if the gov withheld taxes from your payroll you still file. The gov knows how much you made, now you have to arrive at the same number or you can get fined if you claim more and they catch you in an audit.
What's funny is, on the tax form there's a field asking if you got money from illegal activity like selling drugs.....they expect you to declare it and pay the percentage.... The ultimate gov will look the other way as long as they get their cut.
They don't expect that you'll actually report illegal income. They just want to have tax evasion as another charge to add to the indictment in court. Wisconsin's lawmakers were pretty open about that ploy when they added a tax on illegal drugs years ago.
Deport this asshole back to South Africa
Unfortunately, he's now an American citizen. Fortunately, we have treason charges for this kind of thing :).
He came here illegally under false pretenses meaning his citizenship can legally be nullified and expunged. To say nothing of the administration he supports trying to find ways to nullify citizenship of immigrants and natural born citizens who are and always have been here legally.
I say we ignore that and just charge him with treason.
He's not a citizen. He never filed a 601a when he started with Paypal.
Everything he filed after not doing that should have been thrown out due to docket controls.
Including the charters for his other businesses? Meaning the $400B are ill-gotten gains?
I would hazard that $400B qualify as ill-gotten gains regardless of legality.
But I thought Trump already got rid of birthright citizenship?
He doesn't have citizenship through birthright. That would be if his mom gave birth to him in the US while she lacked citizenship of her own, no? He just went through the standard naturalization process (allegedly)
Really increasing efficiency there. You know... efficiency aside, making it easier to file taxes is one of the very few things that can actually make more money!
They don't want the government to take in more money. They just want it to cost less (and consequently do less).
Yes, but by "government efficiency" they mean shutting down everything the government does that might make poor people's lives less hellish. These are men who deeply need to believe they're better than everyone else, and have to continually prove that to themselves by means of cruelty and power games.
Is he heavily invested in TurboTax or something?
He's invested in suffering and making a profit. So yes.
This unelected fascist has no authority. Fuck him. Ignore him and refuse access...
I read the tweet. He is either referring to the people who are no longer there as being gone, or he is referring to the software, which is still here, as being gone. It seems clear he is referring to the people who are no longer there as being gone.
More fluff and smoke to generate outrage. Get that unelected creep out of our government.
Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked.
Neither of these statements have come to fruition yet thank God. Both the people and software are still there. And I'm hoping it stays that way. But things change real quick so I'm not holding my breath.
I'd bet good money he's never done his own taxes in his life
No, but he did do our taxes. Billionaires love government handouts after all.
"Elon Musk claimed on X that he eliminated the IRS team responsible for the "Direct File" program, which allows Americans to file taxes online for free"
"However, the Treasury Department confirms that the Direct File system remains active, offering free tax filing with customer support"
Big story. Is every tweet going to be a shocking story? Isn't that beneficial to the media who done nothing / helped install theese morons?
There's a term for this: entrapment.
https://www.irs.gov/forms-instructions
Read the instructions, download what you need, print it out, fill it out, and mail it in.
Even better, use the free fillable forms. You can fill them out and submit them all within your browser, no mail or paper required. Even has a
do the mathbutton that will add stuff up for you.Have been using it for the past two tax cycles and once you understand it it's quite easy, only 2 pages needed if you're doing the standard deduction with a w2.
And get fined because I'm overseas and the mail takes so long to get there the IRS fines me for a late filing
Last time the IRS sent me mail here it took almost half a year for me to receive it
File for an extension now?
If you don't have capital gains taxes or deferred tax deductions, doing your taxes is really easy.
That said, this is a way to stop providing free services that private companies want to get paid to do. HR Block makes billions from people who are either too lazy or too bad at math to do simple stuff. Real accountants earn their living on complicated taxes, but millions of Americans can do a 1040 EZ, which takes about 5 minutes to fill out.
The statistics show that even though 70% of Americans are eligible to file for free with the IRS tools, only 3% actually use that tool to file for free. So I'm not sure how much business is even being lost here.
I have capital gains, capital losses carryover, foreign investment taxes withheld, bank interest, and the $50 I made on twitch I probably need to file as well.
So that means I need to do the capital gains worksheet to figure out the exact tax
Yet I still file free every year
I have all of that, too, but I just do paper taxes because I'm old and too lazy to figure out how to do anything else.
Used free file myself and it works great, if you haven't filed your taxes yet this year better do it fast before the site gets taken down!
Why on Earth would the US government want it to be difficult for its citizens to file taxes. Surely they want the taxes.
Because Quickbooks and TurboTax or whatever wouldn’t be able to charge you out the ass
This pretty much. The IRS already knows how much you've paid them and can easily calculate how much you probably owe - they could easily switch to a system where they just send you a check/bill at the end of the year depending on the balance and that you only would have to file if you have a special tax situation, but they won't as long as tax filing is an industry.
For most middle and low income families 'filing taxes' is how they get the amount they overpaid returned. If they cannot then the government keeps the extra.
The complicated system means that there are lots of legal loopholes for wealthy people who can afford accountants. The billionaire I knew had it down exactly he how much he needed to to give to a charity, how to play games with moving money between family members…
On the other hand, because it is so complicated, lower class people working multiple shit jobs have to run through hoops and thus probably don’t get the refunds they’ve earned.
Stop assuming they actually mean well.
Haha! Joke's on them, people are so broke most just use the Form 1040 or Form 1040-SR (replaced 1040EZ) forms.
Cool so I'm not doing my taxes again this year
i always just look up this year's 1040 and just fill it out myself. easy finances though...
been meaning to get an accountant this year. we'll still do paper filing if e-filing is "deleted" lol
I hate the american tax system. Not more than wiccans, but still a whole lot. Especially since I just read of a bunch of comments saying how great their tax filing is... Musky needs to be arrested, he's obviously destroying services that make our lives as citizens easier. That's what the federal government should be, easy and comprehensive to citizens and cold and mean to people like El(t)on musk
Wiccans? Like, pagans? What do you have against them? Most I have met have been pretty chill. I get hating all religions, but weird little pagans are near the bottom for me as long as they are not hurting anyone.
As for the rest, fuck Elon and indeed, our tax system is never in our favor. Just rich assholes and businesses that never seem to have to pay anything.
Maybe they're trying to say that Wiccans have a special hatred for the American tax system? I thought the same thing you did and had to go reread and make sure i wasn't misunderstanding.
I really don't know why, but every time I see Space Karen trying to be such a sooper kewl edgelord, I think of this clip...that and the very end of the movie, too....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAjTjfipDto
Wow! Holy shit!
That's fine. I wasn't planning to pay taxes to a fascist government anyway.
Uh, if you live in the US and aren't super rich, then good luck with that.
Change my withholding to $0 and go on about my life.
Hope you like huge fines, liens, and potential prison.