You can try the IRS alternative to Turbo Tax in 12 states today

April is just around the corner, so if you're not stressed about filing taxes yet, it's likely coming any day now. Thanks to the lovely (read: horrible) tax lobby and the politicians who take their money, the headache taxes bring is as American as apple pie. The IRS is attempting to simplify things a bit with a Direct File tool, a free digital program that provides step-by-step guidance for taxpayers submitting their returns, The Associated Press reports. The IRS first announced this tool was on its way back in October.

To clarify, yes, even this development still requires filing your taxes and determining how much you owe (why tell us when we can just guess?), but it should be a more straightforward process and save you some money. However, it's far from open for all. The IRS pilot program is available to residents of 12 states and only those with a simple tax situation — we're talking basic W-2s and standard deductions here. Other potentially eligible reporting includes SSA-1099 Social Security income, the Child Tax Credit and student loan interest. The IRS has a complete list of eligibility requirements and a tool to check if you qualify.

Direct File is available to residents of Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Texas, Wyoming, Washington, Arizona, California, Massachusetts, and New York. The last four also require state tax returns, so their residents who use Direct File will be directed to tools for filing those once they are finished. Alaska was initially in the mix but has seemingly been dropped since last year's statement.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/you-can-try-the-irs-alternative-to-turbo-tax-in-12-states-today-125757658.html?src=rss

The UK moves another step closer to banning phones in schools

Mobile phone ownership has become standard for people of most ages, and, while there's a convenience argument, experts and regulators alike have expressed concerns about children's well-being and distraction while learning. To that end, the UK government has become the latest to announce guidance for banning the use of phones during school. It follows other European countries like France and Italy, which prohibit phones in classrooms. 

Some schools in the UK already have no-phone policies in place, but these guidelines could bring widespread adoption and uniformity. "This is about achieving clarity and consistency in practice, backing headteachers and leaders and giving staff confidence to act," Gillian Keegan, the UK's secretary of state for education, said in a release. "Today's children are growing up in an increasingly complex world, living their lives on and offline. This presents many exciting opportunities – but also challenges. By prohibiting mobile phones, schools can create safe and calm environments free from distraction so all pupils can receive the education they deserve."

While the UK government encourages schools to create their own policies, it outlines a few overarching options. The first — and most extreme — is a complete ban on mobile phones from school premises. However, the guidance acknowledges that this could create complications or risks for children when traveling to and from school. The next option takes care of that problem while still taking phones away. It suggests having students hand in their phones when arriving at school.

Then there's the locker route, where phones are kept strictly in students' lockers or whatever personal storage they get at school. While this allows students to keep possession of their device, it still wouldn't be usable at any point in the day, even when accessing the locker during breaks. The final option aligns with what many schools do — let students keep their phones in their bags, but they should be turned off and never accessed. 

The guidance also recommends teaching students about the mobile phone's potentially harmful impact on young people. Study after study has found that social media, in particular, can negatively impact young people's mental health. The UK government argues that, in addition to combating the social media issue, restricting phone use can increase students' concentration, time being active and spending time with peers face-to-face. 

Parents are encouraged to contact the school directly rather than through a private phone if they need to get in touch with their child. The guidance also encourages parents to discuss the rules at home and, once again, the risks of phones and the internet.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-uk-moves-another-step-closer-to-banning-phones-in-schools-132518091.html?src=rss

IRS will start piloting its free TurboTax alternative in 2024

It looks like the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) truly was working on a free TurboTax alternative like earlier reports had claimed. The US tax authority has announced that it will start pilot testing its new Direct File program for the 2024 filing season, though it will initially be available for select taxpayers in 13 states only. During its pilot period, Direct File will only cover individual federal tax returns and won't have the capability to prepare people's state returns. That's why 9 out of the 13 states testing it — namely Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming — don't levy state income taxes. 

Arizona, California, Massachusetts and New York, the other four states in the list, worked with the IRS to integrate their state taxes into the Direct File system for 2024. The IRS says it invited all states to join the pilot program, but not all of them were in a position to participate "at this time." In addition to being only available in certain locations, Direct File will only be accessible by people with "relatively simple returns" at the beginning. It will cover W-2 wages and tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, for instance, but it will not cover self-employment income and itemized deductions. However, the agency is still finalizing the tax scope for the pilot, so it could still change over the coming months. 

Based on the screenshots the IRS shared with The Washington Post, taxpayers will only have to answer a questionnaire to be able to file their taxes directly, simplifying the process without having to pay for a third-party service. An IRS official told the publication that select eligible taxpayers in the aforementioned states will start getting invitations to use the service sometime around mid-February next year. The agency says it will begin with a small group of taxpayers before expanding access to more and more people as the filing season for the 2023 federal tax return progresses.

"This is a critical step forward for this innovative effort that will test the feasibility of providing taxpayers a new option to file their returns for free directly with the IRS," IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement. "In this limited pilot for 2024, we'll be working closely with the states that have agreed to participate in an important test run of the state integration. This will help us gather important information about the future direction of the Direct File program."

The IRS is hoping to gather data and feedback during the pilot to be able to analyze how effective Direct File is. It's also hoping to identify areas of improvement for a "potential large-scale launch in the future."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/irs-will-start-piloting-its-free-turbotax-alternative-in-2024-065553528.html?src=rss

Microsoft reveals IRS notice asking for $28.9 billion in back taxes

Microsoft owes the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) $28.9 billion in back taxes, not including penalties and interest, at least according to the tax authority. The tech giant has revealed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it received a series of Notices of Proposed Adjustment (NOPAs) from the IRS for the tax years 2004 to 2013. In its filing, it said that it's been working with the IRS for nearly a decade to address the authority's questions about how it distributed its profits among countries and jurisdictions, and this is the agency's decision after a lengthy investigation. 

To be exact, the IRS audit centered around a practice known as "transfer pricing," which legally allowed companies to allocate profits and expenses between their operations in different regions. Microsoft explained that a lot of large multinational corporations practice this cost-sharing scheme to reflect "the global nature of their business." In its case, its subsidiaries shared in the costs of developing some IPs, which means that they're also entitled to the related profits. As AP notes, though, critics of the regulation argue that companies frequently use it to minimize the taxes they have to pay by reporting lower profits in high tax countries, and vice versa. 

Microsoft explained that the issues raised by the IRS are only relevant to those aforementioned years, because it has since changed its corporate structure and practices. Nevertheless, the IRS believes Microsoft owes $28.9 billion in back taxes. The tech giant disagrees, as expected, and said that newer tax laws could reduce the back taxes it owes from this particular audit by $10 billion. Based on its plan of action shared with the SEC, the company intends to contest the decision to the best of its ability: Microsoft said that it will pursue an appeal within the IRS, which typically takes years to complete, and will even "contest any unresolved issues through the courts" if needed. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-reveals-irs-notice-asking-for-289-billion-in-back-taxes-055326006.html?src=rss

The IRS wants to phase out most IRL tax documents by 2025

Most taxpayers will have the option of going entirely paperless starting with the 2024 filing season. The IRS said today that it aims to “achieve paperless processing for all tax returns” by 2025. The agency says the IRS Paperless Processing Initiative will “eliminate up to 200 million pieces of paper annually, cut processing times in half and expedite refunds by several weeks.” The project is funded by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

The IRS expects the changes will solve the annoyance of transmitting digital documents in some cases but still having to mail paper ones in others. “For decades, taxpayers had to respond to notices for things like document verification through the mail, and IRS employees had to manually enter numbers from paper returns into computers one digit at a time, creating significant delays for taxpayers and challenges for IRS staff,” the US Treasury Department wrote today.

Starting next year (2024 filling season), taxpayers can digitally submit all correspondence — including many non-tax forms. The IRS says at least 20 additional e-File tax forms will be available digitally starting then. It estimates that over 94 percent of individual filers will never have to mail another tax form or document. The initiative will spare taxpayers from sending approximately 125 million paper documents annually.

By the 2025 filling season, “an additional 150 of the most used non-tax forms will be available in digital, mobile-friendly formats.” (The IRS cites research showing that around 15 percent of Americans rely solely on their phones for internet access.) It says all paper-filed tax and information returns — an estimated 76 million paper documents per year — will be processed digitally as soon as it receives them. Similarly, half of paper-submitted correspondence, non-tax forms and notice responses (another 60 million paper docs) will be recorded digitally. Finally, the IRS also plans to digitize up to one billion historical documents, making accessing older filing data easier for customer service agents and taxpayers.

The IRS says its Paperless Processing Initiative will help eliminate errors from manual data entry, speed up processing and let the agency pour more resources into taxpayer support. “Customer service employees do not currently have easy access to the information from paper returns and other correspondence submitted by mail,” the Treasury Department wrote. “Digitization and data extraction will give them access to that information they need to better serve taxpayers.”

The agency also expects digitization will help them to hold billionaires and corporations accountable. “When combined with an improved data platform, digitization and data extraction will enable data scientists to implement advanced analytics and pattern recognition methods to pursue cases that can help address the tax gap, including wealthy individuals and large corporations using complex structures to evade taxes they owe.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-irs-wants-to-phase-out-most-irl-tax-documents-by-2025-192105265.html?src=rss

Astrophysicist who claimed to find alien tech may have done the science wrong

Last month, theoretical physicist Avi Loeb made headlines with the sensational claim that tiny spherules recovered from the bottom of the ocean were probably of alien origin. “It’s most likely a technological gadget with artificial intelligence,” he said to The New York Times, which published a story today about the Harvard professor’s contentious claims. Although the biggest scientific breakthroughs often start with a bold hypothesis, Loeb’s peers believe the decorated astrophysicist’s assertions can be called many things — but “good science” isn’t one of them.

Loeb’s proclamations stem from an object that US government sensors logged on January 8th, 2014: a fireball from space that blazed into the western Pacific Ocean off the northeastern coast of Papua New Guinea. Highlighting its logged speed and direction as an anomaly, Loeb and undergraduate assistant Amir Siraj targeted the otherwise inconsequential planetary entry as an object worthy of further investigation.

Fast-forward to last month, when Loeb led a voyage — funded by a crypto entrepreneur — to recover evidence from the fireball’s calculated crash path. Dragging a magnetic sled attached to the expedition boat across the ocean floor, the team recovered a series of tiny spherical objects which Loeb says “appear under a microscope as beautiful metallic marbles.” Preliminary analysis indicated that the sub-millimeter orbs were 84 percent iron, with silicon, magnesium and trace elements comprising the rest. Loeb believes that “as a result of being exposed to the fireball’s heat, the surface of the object likely disintegrated into tiny spherules, similar in number per unit area to those recovered by the expedition.”

An electron microprobe image of one of the spherules recovered from the ocean's bottom.
Avi Loeb / Medium

Not one to exercise much caution with public pronouncements, Loeb wrote in a Medium post, “Their discovery opens a new frontier in astronomy, where what lay outside the solar system is studied through a microscope rather than a telescope.” He summarized, in an equally dramatic manner, “The discovery of spherules felt like a miracle.” Soon after, CBS News picked up on his excitement and published an attention-grabbing article titled, “Harvard professor Avi Loeb believes he’s found fragments of alien technology.” Loeb has sent the mysterious spheres to Harvard University, the University of California, Berkeley and the Bruker Corporation in Germany for more in-depth analysis.

“It has material strength that is tougher than all space rock that were seen before, and catalogued by NASA,” CBS Newsreported Loeb as saying earlier this month. “We calculated its speed outside the solar system. It was 60 km per second, faster than 95% of all stars in the vicinity of the sun. The fact that it was made of materials tougher than even iron meteorites, and moving faster than 95% of all stars in the vicinity of the sun, suggested potentially it could be a spacecraft from another civilization or some technological gadget.”

It all sounds fascinating, especially with the resurgent interest in UFOs and the quest to discover signs of alien life. But there’s one problem: The scientific community, by and large, believes Loeb is, if not entirely full of it, practicing something far outside what they’d call science.

Peter Brown, a meteor physicist at Western University in Ontario, said that “several percent” of detected events appear interstellar at first but almost always end up chalked up to a measurement error. Steve Desch, an astrophysicist at Arizona State University, argued at a recent conference that if the object were traveling as fast as the data suggests — one of the points Loeb uses to indicate its origin was from outside our solar system — it would have been wholly incinerated entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Brown and other scientists also highlight Loeb’s lack of engagement with peers who study similar unidentified fireballs.

Brown recently presented data (accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal) demonstrating that NASA’s recordings in cases like these often end up being proven untrustworthy. He believes the fireball likely impacted at a slower speed than the recorded data suggested. “If the speed was overestimated, then the object becomes, more or less, within the realm of what we see in terms of other bound solar system objects,” he said. (Loeb retorted by citing an unbendable trust in government data: “They are responsible for national security. I think they know what they are doing.”) The New York Times adds that the government is unlikely to declassify the data that would allow the scientific community to learn how precise (or not) it is.

Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb holding a vial while looking at the camera with a proud smile.
Avi Loeb / Medium

Regardless of the spherules’ origins, researchers are alarmed by Loeb’s penchant for venturing outside science to make bold (and highly publicized) claims — with his scientific background boosting their perceived legitimacy. The gist of their alarm is that becoming a Harvard-employed astrophysicist doesn’t grant you the wizard-like ability to know the answers to questions the scientific method hasn’t yet confirmed. On the contrary, it’s supposed to mean your peers respect you for exercising restraint and doing quite the opposite. “[Loeb’s claims are] a real breakdown of the peer review process and the scientific method,” Desch said to The New York Times. “And it’s so demoralizing and tiring.”

Loeb’s views about his peers’ harsh response can be summarized in his cited quote from philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer from a recent blog post. “All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; and third, it is accepted as self-evident.” Notably, Loeb seemingly refers to his conclusions about the preliminary findings — with plenty of question marks still intact — as “truth.”

The Oxford English Dictionary defines confirmation bias as “the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories.” Loeb’s words and excited tone suggest he knows the answer and that his peers’ criticism stems from their resistance to the new frontier he’s discovered. However, their criticism seems only partially about his specific conclusions; it’s paired with a larger concern about an esteemed cohort jumping to conclusions that fall far outside of the scientific method. “What the public is seeing in Loeb is not how science works,” remarked Desch. “And they shouldn’t go away thinking that.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/astrophysicist-who-claimed-to-find-alien-tech-may-have-done-the-science-wrong-214008434.html?src=rss

Congressional report condemns tax prep companies for sending data to Meta, Google

A Congressional investigation concluded that several tax prep providers shared sensitive filing data with Meta and Google. It follows a 2022 report from The Markup highlighting the practice in which TaxSlayer, H&R Block and TaxAct used Meta’s Pixel tracking tool to harvest info like filing status, approximate adjusted gross income, refund amount, names of dependents and which text-entry fields users clicked on. Meta is already facing a lawsuit connected with the initial reporting.

The panel sent the conclusions to the IRS, FTC, DOJ and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGA), urging the agencies to investigate and prosecute if applicable. “Big Tax Prep has recklessly shared tens of millions of taxpayers’ sensitive personal and financial data with Meta for years, without appropriately disclosing this data usage or protecting the data, and without appropriate taxpayer consent,” the report reads. “The findings of this report reveal a shocking breach of taxpayer privacy by tax prep companies and by Big Tech firms that appeared to violate taxpayers’ rights and may have violated taxpayer privacy law.”

The review found the Meta Pixel tracker also gathered data about “whether taxpayers had visited pages for many revealing tax situations, such as having dependents, certain types of income (such as rental income or capital gains), and certain tax credits or deductions.” In addition, it transmitted the full names, email, country, state, city, zip codes, phone numbers and gender as hashed values. The information was also collected from taxpayers using TaxAct’s Free File service — which is through a partnership with the IRS.

Congressional investigators listed in the report include Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA).

“The tax prep firms were shockingly careless with their treatment of taxpayer data,” the investigation concluded. “They indicated that they installed the Meta and Google tools on their websites without fully understanding the extent to which they would send taxpayer data to these tech firms, without consulting with independent compliance or privacy experts, and without full knowledge of Meta’s use of and disposition of the data.” The panel also chided Meta and Google for acting “with stunning disregard for taxpayer privacy.”

The report cites laws that say, “a tax return preparer may not disclose or use a taxpayer’s tax return information prior to obtaining a written consent from the taxpayer,” while mentioning that the tax prep companies failed to do that. Although tax-filing companies can legally hand data to “auxiliary service providers in connection with the preparation of a tax return,” the panel said Meta and Google don’t meet that definition since the tracking was used for advertising. Violations can lead to fines of up to $1,000 per instance (likely pocket change for these companies) and up to a year in prison.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/congressional-report-condemns-tax-prep-companies-for-sending-data-to-meta-google-200254131.html?src=rss

Even the cheapest Tesla Model 3 now qualifies for the full $7,500 tax credit

If you're buying a Tesla Model 3 in the US, you can now get the maximum possible tax credit of $7,500 no matter what make you're getting. Tesla has updated its website to show that the rear-wheel drive Model 3, along with its long range and performance counterparts, now qualify for the full federal tax credit for EVs. You'll also get to the enjoy the same amount of savings if you're buying the all-wheel, long-range or performance Model Y. 

The US government issued a revised set of guidelines for which electric vehicles qualify for the federal $7,500 EV tax credit in March to comply with the Inflation Reduction Act rules the president signed last year. Under the new guidelines, which went into effect on April 18th, vehicles using battery components that are 50 percent made or assembled in the US qualify for a tax credit of $3,750. They can only get the full $7,500 credit if their manufacturer sources at least 40 percent of their critical minerals from the US or its free trade partners, which don't include China. 

A lot of EVs were kicked off the list of vehicles qualified for credits when the change was implemented, but some were re-added in the days that followed. You could only subtract $3,750 from your taxes for Tesla's rear-wheel drive and long range Model 3 due to the new guidelines, but that's no longer the case. It's not quite clear if Tesla altered the cars' batteries or found new suppliers to ensure that its new Model 3 deliveries meet the requirements for the new guidelines. But this means in some locations, you could get the standard version of the vehicle for just a bit more than $30,000 — or maybe even less than that if the state has its own perks for EVs.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/even-the-cheapest-tesla-model-3-now-qualifies-for-the-full-7500-tax-credit-112145637.html?src=rss

Even the cheapest Tesla Model 3 now qualifies for the full $7,500 tax credit

If you're buying a Tesla Model 3 in the US, you can now get the maximum possible tax credit of $7,500 no matter what make you're getting. Tesla has updated its website to show that the rear-wheel drive Model 3, along with its long range and performance counterparts, now qualify for the full federal tax credit for EVs. You'll also get to the enjoy the same amount of savings if you're buying the all-wheel, long-range or performance Model Y. 

The US government issued a revised set of guidelines for which electric vehicles qualify for the federal $7,500 EV tax credit in March to comply with the Inflation Reduction Act rules the president signed last year. Under the new guidelines, which went into effect on April 18th, vehicles using battery components that are 50 percent made or assembled in the US qualify for a tax credit of $3,750. They can only get the full $7,500 credit if their manufacturer sources at least 40 percent of their critical minerals from the US or its free trade partners, which don't include China. 

A lot of EVs were kicked off the list of vehicles qualified for credits when the change was implemented, but some were re-added in the days that followed. You could only subtract $3,750 from your taxes for Tesla's rear-wheel drive and long range Model 3 due to the new guidelines, but that's no longer the case. It's not quite clear if Tesla altered the cars' batteries or found new suppliers to ensure that its new Model 3 deliveries meet the requirements for the new guidelines. But this means in some locations, you could get the standard version of the vehicle for just a bit more than $30,000 — or maybe even less than that if the state has its own perks for EVs.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/even-the-cheapest-tesla-model-3-now-qualifies-for-the-full-7500-tax-credit-112145637.html?src=rss

The IRS reportedly has a free TurboTax alternative in the works

Doing your taxes in the United States can be famously convoluted. It can also be expensive: on top of paying their tax bills, Americans who have more complicated finances often have to pay for software to help them navigate the US tax code. That might change soon: a report from the Washington Post says that the Internal Revenue Services is preparing to roll out a free direct filing system that will allow Americans to complete their taxes digitally.

The first version of the direct filing system could be available as soon as next year, according to the report, with a pilot program launching for a small group of taxpayers in January of 2024. That would arrive just a year after the IRS publicly started exploring the option, when the tax agency tapped the New America think tank to help explore the feasibility of an agency-run filing program. That effort was kicked off in February of this year, after the Inflation Reduction Act earmarked $15 million to the IRS to research a "multi-lingual and mobile-friendly" free direct e-file system.

That focus on a user-friendly system might be the point. The IRS already offers a Free File Online tool, but according to the Government Accountability Offices, it's used by less than 3% of eligible taxpayers. If the program is a success, it could make filing taxes easier and more affordable for millions of Americans. If not? Well, TurboTax and H&R Block probably aren't going anywhere. After all, the US tax prep and filing industry is still worth about $14 billion.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-irs-reportedly-has-a-free-turbotax-alternative-in-the-works-191527170.html?src=rss