In a post on X, unelected government official Elon Musk revealed that he has cut the staff of the Internal Revenue Service that oversaw the system that allows Americans to file their taxes for free easily on its website.A right-wing MAGA influencer called the "direct file" tax program a "far left go...

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 was in response to a right-wing MAGA influencer who called the “direct file” tax program a “far-left government-wide computer office” built by Elizabeth Warren.

Thus far, the website remains active.

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
    31·
    12 hours ago

    I don’t even know what adjust your withholdings mean. America purposely keeps us stupid.

    If you have an employer, you have money taking out of your paycheck every pay period to eventually go to pay your income taxes on your earnings. This money taken from you for taxes is withheld from you. This is why its called your “withholdings”. Even though money is taken out of your check at regular intervals, you’re not actually paying any income tax until you file your return next year.

    You have some control over how much money is withheld from your paycheck. In a perfect world, you would adjust your withholdings so that the exact amount of money taken out (withheld) from each of your paychecks adds up to your total income tax burden for the year. You make these adjustments on the IRS W-4 document with your employer:

    If you know exactly how much money you’re going to make that year, and you know exactly how many tax deductions, write offs, write downs, credits, and prior payments you will have, you can set your withholdings to perfectly match how much you owe. This means when you file, you’ll get $0 back, but also owe $0. However, there are penalties and fines if you grossly miscalculate and withhold too little. It also makes you more of a target for audit by the IRS in the years ahead.

    For many of us knowing exactly what our tax burden is going to be more than a year from now is near impossible. For some that have not tax benefits and a steady fixed income, its much easier to calculate. I fall into the former category making it next to impossible for me to guess correctly.

    Never have I been offered tax schooling or any thing once.

    I did get some education on this in my public high school, but didn’t understand much of it when it was explained. It took me years of growing up in the working world to get the hang of it.