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Comment by PopAlongKid | Hacker News Reader

The article is primarily about processing documents other than actual income tax returns. Does the U.K. have a completely digital (paperless) way of communicating with taxpayers and resolving issues after the tax return is filed?

The U.S. has had "online tax returns" (e-file) since the 1990s. Paid tax preparers are mandated to efile, it is only the minority of DIY taxpayers who insist on paper filing their income tax returns.

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>it is only the minority of DIY taxpayers who insist on paper filing their income tax returns

This is a gross misrepresentation of the situation. Being forced to chop down and bleach trees if you don’t want to pay a bribe to a rent seeking company that lobbies directly against your interests is not “insisting on paper filing” at all.

So you are claiming that not wanting to do one thing means you are forced to do some other thing? It is a choice, nothing is "forced".

More importantly, you don't have to "pay a bribe to a rent-seeking company" (talk about gross misrepresentation!), the IRS offers free online filing to everyone (and I'm not talking about the "Free file alliance" with tax software vendors, but a direct service from the IRS).

https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...

The whole point of this discussion introduced by the article linked at the top of the page is that electronic communication is only available to the general public for initial filing.

> the IRS offers free online filing to everyone

Not to dual-status individuals for example. Those individuals must mail/fax their return to IRS.

You are correct. For the tiny fraction of taxpayers who experience this once or twice in a lifetime event (dual status), they must paper file their split-year returns. I am sure there are some other extremely uncommon forms that are not supported as well.

Free Fillable Forms is run by "On-Line Taxes, Inc", not the IRS. It's not a direct service.

Thank you for the detail. It must be a sub-contractor to the IRS. The front page of the Free File Fillable Forms User Guide, however, is 100% branded as an IRS service, the online help is through the IRS web site[0], and the service is normally accessed initiallhy via the IRS web site, so you would only know about On-Line Taxes Inc. if you spent time reading, for example, the terms of service. For practical purposes, the taxpayer will see this as an IRS service, not a 3rd party. This is opposed to the Free File Alliance, where the taxpayer is only given a list of participating vendors and then is on their own.

[0]https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...

FreeTaxUSA let's you file federal taxes completely for free. (They have paid add-ons and services of course. But the service is Actually free, unlike TurboTax 'free edition')

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