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.
This unelected fascist has no authority. Fuck him. Ignore him and refuse access…
I love turbo tax and intuit. They’re my favorite companies. I hope I can give more money to the IRS via intuit and hrblock. Thank you, Elongated Muskrat, you’ve truly saved America.
Haha! Joke’s on them, people are so broke most just use the Form 1040 or Form 1040-SR (replaced 1040EZ) forms.
According to Forbes, the only thing he actually deleted was the 18F’s (group that created Direct File) Xitter account. Lol
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
things that happen on the internet are real. This is real life.
Reminder Elon cannot code
I’m not sure he can do anything well.
That’s often the case with
CEOsdespots. They’re more showmen/cheerleaders that people want to undress with their stonks. Otherwise, just talentless hacks that get paid too much money.Except Nazi salutes. That arm thrust was chock full of intent and came straight from the heart!
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.
I love it when Nazi African fascists take control of the American monetary system.
How does he do this stuff? It’s not like he’s personally logging into the server and shutting down the website.
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
If I was in the IT department I would be scrambling to get backups out the door to responsible parties
Arrest his ass and lock him away for life!
We can buy rope at Home Depot.
I already got rope
Deport this asshole back to South Africa
Unfortunately, he’s now an American citizen. Fortunately, we have treason charges for this kind of thing :).
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)
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.
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.
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
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
- musk et al completely destroy it and insist that income tax is no longer a thing and only sales tax exists. I forget if this is part of project 2025 but it is something republicans have been arguing for decades because it predominantly hurts lower income households
- Democrats do their fucking job and intervene and we file taxes normally
- musk et al completely compromise the IRS and make it a point to attack “the little guy” so they can insist they are hard on crime while actively ignoring all their cronies who refuse to ever pay taxes again.
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.
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.
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.
yet no one stopping him.
Turns out America is weak as fuck. We’re only good at applying force when it comes to other nations.
I REFUSE TO USE TURBOTAX OR HR BLOCK OR ANY OTHER PREDATORY TAX FILING COMPANY.
Where been doing my taxes. Thanks for the link.
Btw what the fuck is Congress doing?
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
I use cash app and it’s free, or at least it was last year.
Cash App Taxes is still free 👍
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.
I’m still waiting on two forms that the companies say won’t be available till 2/28. Otherwise I’m ready to submit.
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 think our best bet is to ‘delete’ Musk.
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.
A right-wing MAGA influencer called the “direct file” tax program a "far left /…/
Here in Estonia, the castle of “far left” in Europe (shh, don’t spoil the joke, comrades, we want them to think we’re dark red here ;) )…
…for something like 15 years already, you file your taxes like this:
- some day in February, your internet bank reminds you to send a report to the tax office
- you click “send”
- some day in February, you read in a newspaper that “you can file your taxes now”
- you open up emta.ee, log in with your ID card, and see a pre-filled declaration
- if you’re lucky (99% are), it’s been filled correctly and you click “confirm”, otherwise you click “edit”
- you get to see if you have returns or need to pay extra
- if you have returns, you can choose if you want the money (typically if it’s big, you do) or want to donate the small change to a non-profit
It typically takes about 15 minutes.
If it’s a bad year and the automatically filled declaration was incorrect, things will differ of course - then you wait until next winter for a court to resolve the dispute. If you can write a complaint in legalese, it costs about 20 €, but if you need a lawyer, you shell out real money. I’ve had a bad year once. Most people never have one.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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!
His statement came in response to a right-wing influencer criticizing the program as government overreach.
… HOW??? This movement simply has no real agenda or philosophy - they just want to burn everything down.
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.
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
Whats your plan to make that happen?
Waow never heard that one b4
About what I expected from you.
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.
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