[ATOM] The better "free" tax filing
Awesome to see FTC *finally* take action on deceptive marketing for "free tax filing" by commercial tax preparers. (FYI Reply All did an epic deep dive on this back in '19): But instead of just bringing back free tax filing, we could do more.
I'm hoping that we actually just push to have a "return-free" / "simple return" tax system where you can essentially opt-in to let the IRS calc and send you a refund based on info already shared by your employers / banks (which works for ~40% of Americans).
This isn't revolutionary - 30+ countries already have return-free filing. It's bipartisan - past presidents / congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle have proposed versions of this system for years. And it's $10B+ cheaper for filers & govt and saves 6B hrs / yr.
Historically, the only players standing in the way were the lobbyists from commercial tax preparers (who have been highly successful at stopping progress other than w/ CA's CalFile). With the recent FTC move, I'm hoping they stay quiet long enough to take a big swing here.