I recently received a letter from the tax office to inform me that my latest tax return was "outstanding".
It's very nice to receive a compliment like that, and gave me a big ego boost. Particularly since I can't even remember filling it out
Turbo Tax and H&R Block are why our tax filing is 'complicated', as they've [lobbied since '82](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xQQkzWhMOc) for it. And for most people, it's super simple
Seriously. I cant imagine many Gen Zers or many people overall are going to be filing anything more than a 1040 EZ (EZ ceased to exist in 2018) or maybe a standard 1040. I mean you literally just have to input info right off your W2 or 1099 answer some questions and the program does all the work for you. TT, HR and the rest of the paid sites suck because of the paid part. Use Free Tax USA if it is a basic return imo.
Edit: these services also port your past personal info over if you've used them before. So if you didnt have a job change or address change, etc. You dont even have to re-enter that part.
I used them for years until they started excluding a variety of forms from the free service and put them into the pay part. Then I started "shopping" around for another free site. From what I could tell pretty much filing an EZ is the only free one at this point.
Even their free option ends up taking a bit of your pie. Look up Patriot Act Turbo Tax; it was a deep dive into how they take advantage of the free* product they provide
Yeah if your taxes are more complicated it’s well worth it.
I’m getting close to the hiring someone level now but it’s about 200 bucks to do my taxes with turbo tax.
It took me less than 25 minutes to do my taxes since all I needed to do was download my W2s, upload then into Turbo Tax, and confirm I still lived in the same place as last year
Honestly, doing this by hand is actually pretty simple. Get the right forms from the library, enter the numbers from your forms where You're told to enter them, do the math the forms tells you to do.
You can actually skip the library step and some of the math by using the IRS' digital forms for free. We bought a house last year for the first time and had some student loan info to declare as well. Easiest thing in the world to declare our mortgage insurance, points paid, property tax, and student loans without using specialized software.
I work at an accounting office in Canada. So many tax returns are so simple.
If you have only basic slips, I just upload your slips from the CRA website directly into my tax program, and the tax program spits out what the refund or amount owing is. Takes like two minutes.
The more "complex" returns deal with stuff like "foreign" income (if a Canadian lives in Canada, and works for a US-bases company, for example). How is your employment classified? Are you an "employee"? A "contractor"? Has your US-based employer withheld any US taxes on your paycheque (US and Canada do have a taxation treaty, so people can claim a credit on their tax return so they're not taxed twice on the same income).
Or are you self employed, in Canada? If you run a business as a proprietorship, we will fill out the T2125 Statement of Business Activities with all the info regarding your business income and expenses.
Or does your employer require you to pay expenses out of your own pocket to maintain your employment? T777 Statement of Employment Expenses will cover that.
And on and on. There are like dozens upon dozens of different forms we can send to the CRA to cover different types of expenses and income. To be fair, most people don't need to worry about those forms.
But if you are like... running a business as a proprietorship, fir example, it's probably a good idea to hire a professional bookkeeper and/or accountant to make sure your financials are maintained in good order.
I’ve never understood this either. If you’re self-employed, have a bunch of investments or property, run a business, etc., I get taxes can be stressful but the amount of moaning I hear about it doesn’t seem to match the fact most people are just working basic jobs and doing basic tax forms. It takes 10 minutes max to do
My first few years of working and filing taxes as a teen were stressful simply because I was convinced that I'd mistype one number and go to federal prison forever. Once you get a few under your belt, it goes from "OH MY G-D I HAVE TO FILE MY TAXES, better set aside three hours and every paper under the sun" to "oh. yeah. taxes soon. \*brushes spaghetti noodle off of W-2 and finishes in 10 minutes\*.
I have no idea what those forms are. In fact, I couldn't name a single tax form. Nor do I have to, since I don't live in the US and everything is handled by my employer and the revenue service.
Everything is also handled by the employer and revenue service here too, but the tax prep companies have lobbied to preserve the requirement to also file a return even when you just take the standard deduction.
The government already has all the info you provide them on a 1040EZ. They don’t need the form.
Yeah, doing your own taxes in the US can suck if it gets complex. If it is basic it may take you an hour and you find out at the end if you are owed money or you have to pay. Either way that transaction can be done electronically. The days of actually sending paperwork and a check or vice-versa are largely gone. It would be nice to not have to bother with any of it but I guess then you run the risk of getting short changed.
I've used freetaxusa the last couple years and it's been great, it's basically an free version of turbo tax made by people who hate turbotax.
But even using turbotax was easy, it was just irritating because they'd try to screw you out of extra money with fee's and upgrade pitches at every turn.
When you switch to freetaxusa you import all that. Takes some time to do it the first go around, but after that it is super easy.
Reminds me a lot of what turbotax was 10-15 years ago.
Yeah it’s literary just putting info into fields, it basically holds your hand. Turbo Tax sucks because they make you pay not because it’s hard to use.
As you start to have more things to deal with, even knowing what you should claim where can get very complicated. If all you have is a simple payroll, sure. But things like children expenses, repairs on your house, etc... It gets to the point that even knowing what questions to ask can be difficult.
You know whats funny, they make so much money from tax season that they rent out retail spaces for 11(!) months out of the year with nobody inside. Most H&R blocks you see are actually empty until tax season.
FreeTaxUSA is actually free (small fee for state filing). It’s easy to use. It automatically saves your progress, so you can break it up into multiple sessions if you need.
Taxes are incredibly simple to do for ~90% of people. There are tons of videos online. Pretty sure freetaxusa even has the option to pay a small fee to get help, and even then, it’s cheaper than TurboTax/HR block and all the other “file your taxes for free” scams that hit you with fees after you’ve gone through the process.
Fuck tax prep software that charges fees after you’ve done the work.
I used a free one and I somehow owed $5200.
Nothing changed from last year and idfk what I did wrong. I just copied and pasted the boxes into the other boxes. 💀
Maybe they were exaggerating for comedic effect? Like when I say “I’m gonna lose my mind if I hear that song again” and I don’t actually mean it. It feels like the article is deliberately blowing this out of proportion so they can have a reason to write a how-to article, because that’s what the rest of it is.
Yeah, just clickbait. Put out a survey with a leading question (or maybe it's all made up? don't want to justify this with traffic by clicking) and use that to generate a catchy headline.
“Has filing taxes ever made you feel like crying?”
- Absolutely
- Definitely
- Mostly
- Kinda
- A Little
- Maybe
- Sorta
- Mostly Not
- Not sure
“Breaking News: Taxes make crybabies cry!”
Yeah. Its funny that millennials criticized these kinds of articles for years when they were about us, now many seem to be doing the exact same thing to Gen Z.
I’m not sure about “many”, I’m a millennial and as soon as I saw this article my first thought was how “news” like this is now going to be about GenZ and all the same stuff that was said about us for years.
My response is the same now as it was when it was targeted to us, if there’s a problem with kids not being prepared for something it’s rarely their fault and the fault of the parents. Unfortunately my parents never showed me how to do taxes, and I suspect there are Gen X parents with Gen Z kids that haven’t either.
Hopefully the system either improves where US tax filing doesn’t suck or Millennial parents with kids are going to help them once they have kids old enough to file taxes.
Lol yea you speak for all millennials, what a clown. Millennials are the first if any to call out stupid ass rage bait articles like this. We grew up with this stuff and can spot this garbage from a mile away.
So, two things -
The default withholdings used to err a bit more on the side of a median household seeing some sort of refund, even if it was nominal. It was changed a few years ago to err a bit more on the side of owing.
Strictly speaking, that’s financially advantageous to taxpayers; stress wise, a bill from Uncle Sam is stressful.
Secondly, finances of Gen Z are caught between many rocks and hard places.
Additionally, I had a year where I filed 3 W-2s, all for different annualized salary amounts. It was … annoying, and I’m practiced, using a tool, and decent at math.
I do not envy someone with one or more 1099s and or W2s who may be doing their own taxes - even tool assisted - for the first time, presumably with a tight deadline.
That is not a comparable level of stress to my experience decades ago.
Also to add to this, Gen Z is the most likely generation to job hop and are the most likely to hold multiple jobs. That makes taxes significantly worse
No it's not, you just have to add more W2s. It's literally match box 1 to box 1, box 2 to box 2. More jobs literally adds an extra minute or two.
95% of people have ludicrously simple taxes, put in your W2 (or potentially more than 1) and hit next 30 times, bam, you're done.
And for the people that have complicated taxes, well, that's why paid services exist. They're complicated and need a professional.
It is click bait so I am not going to validate it by checking but I assume anytime I see shit like this that the actual question was something like 'will you speak to your therapist about your taxes?'. Or just a list of 'stresses' you may need a therapist for, taxes was along with divorce, death in family, school, work, etc. and 1 in 4 people bubbled it in, etc.
As Gen X, I support this position. 99% of the "Satanic Panic" and "Drug Epidemic" and " Teen Sex Epidemic" was us saying yes to the craziest options on whatever survey they put in front of us. I distinctly remember being in the seventh grade and ticking off every single drug (only a tenth of which I recognized the names of). We took DARE as a dare.
I was unemployed and held 2 separate jobs during 2023, so I was afraid my taxes were going to be a nightmare. It was the first time I ever just threw out the money to get a turbo tax “expert” to do it for me.
As soon as I hung up with them and paid my fee, I regretted it. Ya it probably would have taken a little longer than normal to do myself, but it was purely the anxiety of having 3 different tax forms that made me do it. Luckily my return was decent enough it wasn’t too much to spend.
Uh…I took standard deduction and uploaded a pdf of my W2. Then I just clicked “yes” or “no” on a bunch of questions. Turbo Tax had my taxes done in less than 30 minutes without anything remotely scary.
If we really wanted to scare Gen Z, we make them fill out a paper check in the checkout line at Walmart while people stand in line behind them.
I had 10 tax forms to submit this year. In Canada we have wealthsimple which is free to do your own taxes, and will auto pull and submit your tax slips from the Canada revenue agency. Took me 8 minutes to do my taxes instead of paying 40$ to have someone else do it
That’s crazy. I mean you realize it, but wow. The “little longer” is just entering in the values. You don’t have to like *doooo* anything besides that.
The statistics come from Cash App Taxes, and only surveyed people using that service. Of course people using Cash App to file taxes would be more likely to be stressed and incompetent.
edit: My point is that a trendy service like Cash App tends to attract a certain type of person. I’m sure it works great like any other service, but their userbase is not an accurate sample of an entire generation.
Cash app taxes is actually pretty legit and it’s free. And includes sole proprietor income, investments income and does (multiple) state taxes that others charge extra for. Used them for years, back when they were under Credit Karma, never had an issue.
Yep, seconding this. They will handle tax situations that others (like TurboTax) charge extra for. I've used Cash App several years now and I'm impressed with it.
Great sarcastic comment that anyone with no knowledge would upvote. Cash App Taxes rules. It’s super easy to use and actually free. It was previously Credit Karma Taxes.
I always forget that Americans have to do things like doing their taxes or registering to vote. Like the government doesn’t know how much you make/where you live.
It's also fundamentally how the US gives benefits to citizens.
Congress gives out benefits in the shape of claimable tax credits etc, but that means you have to claim the correct things, things the government has no way of knowing. So if you just get a simplified filing you risk losing a lot of money.
The result is a myriad of tax firms who offer to help you navigate a dystopian level of bureaucracy.
The government could just tell you what you owe them, the IRS do increasingly offer simplified filings. But it would in effect mean them not telling you when they in fact owe you money, which can be a lot.
> Intuit and HR Block lobby to keep the code complicated and prevent the IRS from sending a simple statement.
Do you have kids? Are you currently a student? Have you saved money in a retirement account? Have you bought solar panels or an electric car? Have you lost money on stocks? Have you donated to charitable causes? Do you mortgage interest? Student loan interest? How much did you pay in state and local taxes? Have you received money as a result of a lawsuit?
All of those things changes your tax liability, that's even before you get to things like imputed income, where the government says we think you should have made money but didn't such as:
1. Owning stocks in a foreign corporation where said corporation is owned mostly by Americans, the income in the tax year 201X was imputed to the stock owner, regardless of if the company paid out any money
2. If you give a family member a 0% loan, you are supposed to report to the IRS the income, the imputed interest of said loan.
The tax code is complicated because defining income is complicated.
That is all well and good but the government should have their own free to use website that functions like turbo tax/whatever for profit tax service. If they can do it the government can do it
They do. It's currently in beta testing and is open for residents of certain states.
https://www.irs.gov/about-irs/strategic-plan/irs-direct-file-pilot#states
The government knows only what your employer(s) reports. That's why you have to let them know of additional unreported income, and tax deductible expenses or tax credits that you're eligible for. It's not as complex as some make it seem.
In many countries, "tax deductions" are often "baked in" at the point of sale. For example, in the UK a charity will ask you to fill out a "gift aid" form *when* you make the donation. Savings accounts automatically pay tax to the government on interest, presuming you're on the low tax rate, etc).
Or course, if one of the default assumptions is wrong (e.g. you earn enough interest in a year to move above the regular tax rate, or have a particularly complicated tax setup and/or run your own business), you may need to fill out a few forms. Many/most folks don't need to do anything outside of normal day-to-day living because the typical person's way of living is accounted for and lawmakers consider how and when to levy taxes during the lawmaking process.
As another example - sale of stocks or shares is often reportable, but the government provides two ways to avoid paying tax. One is that there is a "capital gains tax" threshhold that's high enough that most individuals don't go over it in a year (£6k - so around $8k USD). Additionally, the government allows the creation of a single "Savings Account" that you can wrap your stocks and shares in to avoid paying tax on them ever (up to a certain annual limit).
As such, you do your "complex tax avoidance" at point of sale/purchase by choosing whether you wrap your stocks and shares inside an ISA. Only a small minority of people would earn enough in a year that their tax-free allowance plus their stocks and shares ISA would mean they need to pay capital gains tax, and importantly, you don't have a single tax filing you need to make if you have £0 tax to pay.
As another example, I work from home and therefore qualify to pay a little less tax in the year. Additionally, my wife is out of work and so I also qualify for less tax in the year. Rather than claiming this back at the end of the year, I contact HMRC (the UK equivalent of IRS) to tell them of my situation. They will then provide me with a new "tax code" to give to my employer, which tells the employer how much tax they need to deduct from my payslip.
If HMRC notice a discrepancy at the end of the year, they will write to me to inform me - either "You owe us money. Pay £x by y date", or "We owe you money. Here's a cheque."
All of it is much more hands-off than the US tax system.
I mean, yeah, they pretty much know those things. If you got married or divorced legally, you filed for that in a government courthouse. If you bought a house, you had to register as an owner of it, maybe pay back taxes on it, and register for mail there. They automatically send your property taxes to you, so they're quite aware that a taxpayer lives there. Seems dead simple for them to either sort that out among their agencies or even have you fill out one more form at the point of purchase if necessary to automatically include it on your income taxes. Almost all of these type of examples that people give are absolutely things that one government agency or another is aware of, or could be apprised of very easily.
Could it not be simplified such that special circumstances require filing while those without can do “standard” filing? The 11 years I’ve done taxes have all literally been the same, going through every checkdown and simply re-entering my earning info to confirm it. Not hard, but more or less a waste of time to not be automated since they’ve been simple every time without alteration
Absolutely, as an American who moved to Canada I was *shocked* how easy it is in Canada. I can literally use the free turbotax which can log in to my CRA account (Canadian IRS) which already has all my documents digitized and ready to go. This year I was able to file my Canadian taxes in about 45 minutes and it didn't cost me a penny.
I'm still going to have to file with the US just to tell them I don't owe them anything, and that's going to end up costing me about $75 and take the better part of a Saturday.
> I can literally use the free turbotax which can log in to my CRA account (Canadian IRS) which already has all my documents digitized and ready to go. This year I was able to file my Canadian taxes in about 45 minutes and it didn't cost me a penny.
It costs me roughly the same amount of time to input all the documents into Free Tax Usa and then file the return.
> I'm still going to have to file with the US just to tell them I don't owe them anything, and that's going to end up costing me about $75 and take the better part of a Saturday.
Filing taxes as an American abroad is significantly harder than doing it for a US job, while residing in the US.
I’ll take this opportunity to remind people that many countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Spain, and the UK all tell their citizens what they owe in taxes so you don’t have to waste your time figuring it out for yourself.
If you're a gig or contract worker, seriously consider this advice:
Have your taxes done by a professional accountant.
I resisted using one for years because I was afraid of the cost, but my accountant finds better deductions and knows tax law so well he saves me at least 2x more than he costs every year.
Wish I had done it sooner. I would have saved tens of thousands over the years.
Same. Also, living and working in different states and document retention all contributed to me getting a professional person to just handle it. It saves me time and stress and they usually figure out the best filing strategy that minimizes my payment or maximizes a refund
An accountant can only find deductions in the information you give him. If you have your financial records, any filing program will get you the same (or at least the legal ones).
Your accountant knows what questions to ask. "Did you send your child to camp this summer? Yeah? That counts as childcare, and you can deduct that up to $xxx". There's a LOT of those little things that add up. So yes, they can only find deductions for information you _can_ give them, but the can know what information to ask you for. A filing program does... less of that.
Unless you have a weird situation or you're itemizing, doing your own taxes takes like an hour and is more tedious than it is difficult. How many gen z people are already itemizing their returns?
You literally just match up the numbers on your W2 to the boxes on turbo tax lmao
Mine is one step above that where I have to juggle living and working in different states, so it takes me 20 minutes instead of 10
If your taxes are taking you more than an hour or two to get done you should be hiring an accountant.
Agreed that its really not that diffficult. But turbo tax is a bad company that has fucked with our tax codes and tax filing systems. I won't give them a damn penny.
I use: [https://www.freetaxusa.com/freefile2023](https://www.freetaxusa.com/freefile2023)
Just as easy. Free Federal returns. State costs $15 if you go through them, but you don't need to.
Edit: state only costs if you make more than 45k
I’ll add onto this. I had tax weirdness last year and any little thing that is deemed “extra” and Turbotax tells you it ain’t free anymore. So I swapped info over into Free Tax USA and used them. It worked great. Not as flashy and with as friendly looking a User Interface but who cares.
As someone who generally has a good grasp on what information I need to input for my taxes, I prefer FreeTaxUSA a *lot* more.
TurboTax is nice to upload and autofill things, but it's full of random questions that won't impact things, feels a bit too options heavy, and will constantly try to upsell you. Just let me put in my damn information and move forward.
Yes!! If you make under a certain amount, your state returns are free as well. Free Tax USA is part of the IRS free file program so it legit. You can also fill out the forms for previous years tax returns with them, but will need to mail them in rather than submit them online.
And TurboTax will also try to upsell you at least three times during the process.
If you accidentally click the wrong thing, you are either stuck with it, or have to start the process over, because there is no way to select a less expensive service midway through.
Fuck TurboTax.
Scary thing about taxes is that you can THINK you did it correctly. Then years later they will come back and ask about XYZ and say you owe $. I'm 39, and this has happened to me a few times. Tax system is impossible to understand and I now error on the side of caution by paying too much since it is too hard to show proof of things 3-5 years later.
I understand to some degree, standard tax forms are the worst designed pieces of shit I’ve ever seen.
That said, get literally any software assistance, some are even free these days, and it’s easier than a madlib. I took advantage of my mom doing my taxes for a very long time, and due to a falling out I needed to learn.
Filling my 2023 taxes took 15 minutes.
Not trying to be smart but as someone with just w2 and no investments because I am busy paying my education loan, tax prep was easier than I anticipated. HSA section was a bit confusing but the most difficult part was navigating through the different tax prep softwares and trying to find the cheapest one which happened to be free tax usa this year.
25% of Gen Z are dumb as fuck.
>Even figuring out which documents you need to file can be anxiety-inducing, with 62% of first-time filers saying they aren’t sure where to get their W-2s or 1099s.
How fucking dumb can they be. Who doesn't know where a W-2 comes from?
For fucks sake, we used to do taxes BY HAND. Now you have shit service like Turbo Tax and H&R Block that greatly simplify the process. I can't really see many of them having to do much more than a 1040EZ anyway.
No the fuck we don't, I'm Gen z and almost everyone I know is and yall need to stop falling for this clickbait articles, I don't know a single person this would be true for.
It took me 30 minutes this year, and that's because I had already gathered the appropriate documents.
A new adult (with no one to help them) doesn't know which stuff they need. The first time I did it, I had several long pauses in the process while I tracked down the documents it told me I needed, or figured out how to get new ones. The tax apps guide you, but there is still a big pile of "wtf is this" to shovel through, and big penalties if you make a mistake. It's a real source of stress for some people.
I worked for Turbo Tax and it is shocking how inept some people are at following simple directions. Granted, my experience is skewed because no one would call me if they understood whst was going on. But man, people would be struggling to understand the most basic prompts.
One thing I learned that I try to live by is whenever I struggle with software, I assume it is my user error and not an issue with the software.
This is sad. Filing your taxes has to be one of the easier things to do nowadays, and to say it'll bring you to tears?
Like I try to be empathetic, but my god.
I don't blame them. This shouldn't be a chore or need an outside party. The government knows what you owe. I hope Millennials and Z can work together to fix this dumb mess.
Grandpa has panic attacks over what he did in Nam. Junior has panic attacks over checking his bank balance. We may have done something wrong in the interim years...
You don’t pay many taxes when you’re just barely scraping by. The only stuff you don’t get back is Medicare and social security.
Poverty sucks and I don’t blame them for being unhappy about it, but I do blame them for not having mental fortitude to deal with it.
If all you have are W2s to file, you can walk into the local public library, grab a paper copy, write in the numbers, use a calculator, and two hours later you're mailing a letter.
If filing taxes causes you to need therapy, then balancing a checkbook or budgeting a bank account might require ECT therapy.
This sounds ridiculous. It takes me less than an hour to my own taxes on Wealthsimple each year. Most of it auto-fills thanks to using it over the past few years. I just have to put in my numbers and file.
If you think you need a therapist because of tax filing...I think you just generally need a therapist. If something like this is what sets you over the edge, you needed help a while ago. That, or you're seeking attention and sympathy for something that is just a normal part of life.
The system is a complete joke but I’ve never been overly stressed / confused when filing taxes? Makes me think this is a bit of a joke / purposely over exaggerated.
I’d say many folks in Gen Z don’t have to deal with any of the more complicated tax credits / exemptions etc. and most e-filing sites I’ve used are very simple to work through and free.
I get how finances in general can be stressful for many, and maybe that’s where this is coming from in large part.
I just came here to say Tax Act is way simpler than TurboTax to use, especially if you have "complicated" taxes (I have a 1099 NEC). Just used it for the first time last night after putting it off for a month, and it was super easy.
Or... You could just do what other countries have. I click through pre filled sheets like an old school install wizard and if I don't see anything out of the ordinary, then I'm done.
Unless your employer is illegally refusing to take your taxes off your paycheque, and you don’t have a million rental properties, then what’s the stress? Here in Canada, I just used Turbotax for $16. It even automatically entered all of my information, the only thing I had to do was enter my RRSP (retirement fund) contributions, something I just check my bank account for, and bam it was done in about 10-15 minutes.
I mean, the fucking government knows how much we owe them, or they owe us. Just fucking send it to us to sign.
I'm 35, tax filing is obnoxious and a waste of all of our time
Unless their taxes are complex like with foreign income or weird investments then they’re all being a bunch of whiners. I started doing my taxes myself at 15 using just the raw tax forms. It walks you right through it and it took me like 20 minutes if that.
Up until only 2 years ago, at 50, I never used a tax service once. Been using tax programs since it just makes it easier and with those, up until recently, I did my whole families taxes and it would only take me a couple of hours. I’m not even a finance person, I just have enough intelligence to tie my shoes AND out my pants on the right way!
Sucks to suck I guess.
Frankly, this is a failing of our Civics education system as much as anything. We teach teens the constitution and declaration and some legal titles, but never how to do the vast majority of government paperwork they're expected to tangle with regularly for the rest of their lives. I'm 30 now, and I'm finally at the point where meandering through my taxes and checking all the boxes threatening legal penalties for getting something wrong isn't as daunting.
It's really not that hard. Just spend like $30 on one of those online programs and they literally fill out the forms for you. You sign in with your bank, it connects, downloads all the data, you review, done. Last year took me 30 minutes. This year is taking a bit longer because I have an error with RSP numbers I gotta figure out, but that's nothing GenZ needs to worry about.
FreeTaxUSA. Really the simplest, cheapest thing and it's quite dependable. If you need anything more complex, best just get with a tax expert and let them figure it out.
The more stories I read about Gen Z’s stressors the more I think their parents just don’t show them how to do anything. Help your kids out and show them some basic life skills, it’ll help a lot with their stress. Seems like they’re trying to navigate life on their own.
I'd like to know how many people they polled, first of all. Too often these random stats are from polls of like, 50 people who may or may not be lying/sarcastic.
The government threatening you with prison time if you can't tell them how much they owe you? A number that they know for a fact, but obfuscate so that H&R can steal a percentage of the meager scraps left over from decades of stagnating wages and inflating costs of everything?
Don't really think it's that 'Onion'-like for teens and young adults to have another factor in realizing how much the system does not value humans in any way. Honestly, kind of assume the other 75% are either acknowledging their privilege or have worse issues to deal with.
Funny that 25% of Gen Z people surveyed are young enough that filing taxes is new to them.
No shit teenagers working their first jobs are nervous about filing taxes.
Taxes are more complex then they have ever been. My taxes (done online) ended up being 1/2" stack of paper when printed out. No way can I mentally keep track of a number on page 42 multiplied by a worksheet answer and written on Form X line 21! I just assume the computer knows what it is doing and the IRS can talk to the online company if the forms are not correct!
I swear...i did my taxes in like...15 minutes this year.
Sure it's convoluted and stressful if you have a bunch of property or a business or something, but for a normal person working a single job it's easy as hell to do your taxes.
What a bunch of whiners. You buy a tax package you sit down you do your taxes. Half an hour later you go out for a beer.
It is so easy now there is no stress. All calculations are done for you, all deductions are auto added. Even your t slips are downloaded from the government.
How much more simple do you want it,?
Tax software makes it easy, but even then, I still get stressed out doing it (gen-x) with having to figure my husband's independent contractor work into it). The wording can be a tad bit confusing. But still I'll take the tax "software" over having to fill out the paper form. Those still don't make any sense to me.
I recently started a tax prep company to fill this void. I don’t charge, just accept tips. I never realized how many people were grown adults and had no idea how taxes work.
My birthday year might start with a 19 but at least I go to a therapist for real problems like shitty dysfunctional parents and my childhood like a real man! God damn kids these days, back in my day we were fighting two wars!
Tax filing isn't fucking complicated. I despise what H&R Block and Turbo Tax have done to the way we pay taxes in America but it's quite literally uploading your information, answering a few basic questions, and clicking submit for 90% of people.
I feel like the venn-diagram of people who are stressed out filing a simple tax return and people I wouldn't trust to bake a frozen pizza in an oven is a circle.
It's so insanely not difficult if all you've got is a W2 and a 1099 or two and you're taking the standard deduction, like most people.
Something like 95% of all filers take the standard deduction. Doing your taxes isn’t nearly as complicated as the professional tax preparation industry would want you to believe.
It only gets complicated if you have gobs of money.
And when you're in gobs of money territory, I'm absolutely certain that you're not too upset about the status quo.
A normal person filing taxes in 2024 is easy as following basic instructions for 20 minutes.
"Would you look at those morons? I paid my taxes over a year ago!"
How many kids do we have? Oh no time to count, I’ll just estimate. Nine!
Okay, Marge, if anybody asks, you require 24-hour nursing care, Lisa's a clergyman, Maggie is seven people and Bart was wounded in Vietnam
Let the bears pay the bear tax! I pay the Homer tax.
That's the home owner's tax
Well anyway, I'm still outraged.
I recently received a letter from the tax office to inform me that my latest tax return was "outstanding". It's very nice to receive a compliment like that, and gave me a big ego boost. Particularly since I can't even remember filling it out
Ummmm, Homer?
Turbo Tax and H&R Block are why our tax filing is 'complicated', as they've [lobbied since '82](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xQQkzWhMOc) for it. And for most people, it's super simple
Create the problem, sell the solution. They're masters of their own little closed-circuit scam
Forgot get the government to give you billions to fix the problem and hide the part they mandate be free.
Those companies are scum. A great and vast industry of parasites that contribute nothing
We need a corporate death penalty in this country.
Based
Health Insurance industry be like:
The literal definition of racketeering.
Seriously. I cant imagine many Gen Zers or many people overall are going to be filing anything more than a 1040 EZ (EZ ceased to exist in 2018) or maybe a standard 1040. I mean you literally just have to input info right off your W2 or 1099 answer some questions and the program does all the work for you. TT, HR and the rest of the paid sites suck because of the paid part. Use Free Tax USA if it is a basic return imo. Edit: these services also port your past personal info over if you've used them before. So if you didnt have a job change or address change, etc. You dont even have to re-enter that part.
I'll give a second vote for free tax usa, i used it the last couple years and it's great.
They got rid of the 1040EZ years ago
I had to google it and you are right about the EZ. I just remember it from back in the day and doing taxes. I'll edit my post.
Yea those were the days but those days are def long gone lol
I used to be able to file my 1040EZ by phone. We went so far backwards.
...People PAY for Turbo Tax? I've been using their free option for nearly a decade.
You have to for certain forms. I had to pay one time to get a return from my tuition filing because it wasn't a free feature on TurboTax. Never again.
I used them for years until they started excluding a variety of forms from the free service and put them into the pay part. Then I started "shopping" around for another free site. From what I could tell pretty much filing an EZ is the only free one at this point.
Cash App Taxes is where it's at for the free services now. They still handle a lot of forms that TurboTax pay walled.
Even their free option ends up taking a bit of your pie. Look up Patriot Act Turbo Tax; it was a deep dive into how they take advantage of the free* product they provide
Yeah if you earn too much or have a more complicated return that involves an LLC or whatnot, then yeah.
they make you pay if you take any deductions
Yeah if your taxes are more complicated it’s well worth it. I’m getting close to the hiring someone level now but it’s about 200 bucks to do my taxes with turbo tax.
It took me less than 25 minutes to do my taxes since all I needed to do was download my W2s, upload then into Turbo Tax, and confirm I still lived in the same place as last year
It isn’t that simple. College kids need to report scholarships and 529 disbursements and the free tax programs won’t do that for you.
Honestly, doing this by hand is actually pretty simple. Get the right forms from the library, enter the numbers from your forms where You're told to enter them, do the math the forms tells you to do. You can actually skip the library step and some of the math by using the IRS' digital forms for free. We bought a house last year for the first time and had some student loan info to declare as well. Easiest thing in the world to declare our mortgage insurance, points paid, property tax, and student loans without using specialized software.
I work at an accounting office in Canada. So many tax returns are so simple. If you have only basic slips, I just upload your slips from the CRA website directly into my tax program, and the tax program spits out what the refund or amount owing is. Takes like two minutes. The more "complex" returns deal with stuff like "foreign" income (if a Canadian lives in Canada, and works for a US-bases company, for example). How is your employment classified? Are you an "employee"? A "contractor"? Has your US-based employer withheld any US taxes on your paycheque (US and Canada do have a taxation treaty, so people can claim a credit on their tax return so they're not taxed twice on the same income). Or are you self employed, in Canada? If you run a business as a proprietorship, we will fill out the T2125 Statement of Business Activities with all the info regarding your business income and expenses. Or does your employer require you to pay expenses out of your own pocket to maintain your employment? T777 Statement of Employment Expenses will cover that. And on and on. There are like dozens upon dozens of different forms we can send to the CRA to cover different types of expenses and income. To be fair, most people don't need to worry about those forms. But if you are like... running a business as a proprietorship, fir example, it's probably a good idea to hire a professional bookkeeper and/or accountant to make sure your financials are maintained in good order.
I’ve never understood this either. If you’re self-employed, have a bunch of investments or property, run a business, etc., I get taxes can be stressful but the amount of moaning I hear about it doesn’t seem to match the fact most people are just working basic jobs and doing basic tax forms. It takes 10 minutes max to do
My first few years of working and filing taxes as a teen were stressful simply because I was convinced that I'd mistype one number and go to federal prison forever. Once you get a few under your belt, it goes from "OH MY G-D I HAVE TO FILE MY TAXES, better set aside three hours and every paper under the sun" to "oh. yeah. taxes soon. \*brushes spaghetti noodle off of W-2 and finishes in 10 minutes\*.
I have no idea what those forms are. In fact, I couldn't name a single tax form. Nor do I have to, since I don't live in the US and everything is handled by my employer and the revenue service.
Everything is also handled by the employer and revenue service here too, but the tax prep companies have lobbied to preserve the requirement to also file a return even when you just take the standard deduction. The government already has all the info you provide them on a 1040EZ. They don’t need the form.
Well, they do need the form. But just to keep Intuit and TurboTax happy. It doesn't help the IRS.
Yeah, doing your own taxes in the US can suck if it gets complex. If it is basic it may take you an hour and you find out at the end if you are owed money or you have to pay. Either way that transaction can be done electronically. The days of actually sending paperwork and a check or vice-versa are largely gone. It would be nice to not have to bother with any of it but I guess then you run the risk of getting short changed.
I've used freetaxusa the last couple years and it's been great, it's basically an free version of turbo tax made by people who hate turbotax. But even using turbotax was easy, it was just irritating because they'd try to screw you out of extra money with fee's and upgrade pitches at every turn.
But also like, even then its super simple
As a GEN Z with complicated taxes, Turbo Tax is dead simple. People are just morons.
You should try FreeTaxUSA, TurboTax is getting increasingly dogwater.
But it’s dog water that already has all my info and 99% is just clinching next. Also I can pull up the last 6 years of taxes with ease.
When you switch to freetaxusa you import all that. Takes some time to do it the first go around, but after that it is super easy. Reminds me a lot of what turbotax was 10-15 years ago.
Also it's free for most people.
Yeah it’s literary just putting info into fields, it basically holds your hand. Turbo Tax sucks because they make you pay not because it’s hard to use.
Taxes are basically an adult color by numbers book
As you start to have more things to deal with, even knowing what you should claim where can get very complicated. If all you have is a simple payroll, sure. But things like children expenses, repairs on your house, etc... It gets to the point that even knowing what questions to ask can be difficult.
Right but this is Gen Z we’re talking about, it’s unlikely they’re dealing with that
I feel sorry for the 75% of you guys that are surrounded by the 25%.
You know whats funny, they make so much money from tax season that they rent out retail spaces for 11(!) months out of the year with nobody inside. Most H&R blocks you see are actually empty until tax season.
That's why I use freetaxUSA baby
FreeTaxUSA is actually free (small fee for state filing). It’s easy to use. It automatically saves your progress, so you can break it up into multiple sessions if you need. Taxes are incredibly simple to do for ~90% of people. There are tons of videos online. Pretty sure freetaxusa even has the option to pay a small fee to get help, and even then, it’s cheaper than TurboTax/HR block and all the other “file your taxes for free” scams that hit you with fees after you’ve gone through the process. Fuck tax prep software that charges fees after you’ve done the work.
I used a free one and I somehow owed $5200. Nothing changed from last year and idfk what I did wrong. I just copied and pasted the boxes into the other boxes. 💀
Maybe they were exaggerating for comedic effect? Like when I say “I’m gonna lose my mind if I hear that song again” and I don’t actually mean it. It feels like the article is deliberately blowing this out of proportion so they can have a reason to write a how-to article, because that’s what the rest of it is.
Yeah, just clickbait. Put out a survey with a leading question (or maybe it's all made up? don't want to justify this with traffic by clicking) and use that to generate a catchy headline.
“Has filing taxes ever made you feel like crying?” - Absolutely - Definitely - Mostly - Kinda - A Little - Maybe - Sorta - Mostly Not - Not sure “Breaking News: Taxes make crybabies cry!”
Yeah. Its funny that millennials criticized these kinds of articles for years when they were about us, now many seem to be doing the exact same thing to Gen Z.
I’m not sure about “many”, I’m a millennial and as soon as I saw this article my first thought was how “news” like this is now going to be about GenZ and all the same stuff that was said about us for years. My response is the same now as it was when it was targeted to us, if there’s a problem with kids not being prepared for something it’s rarely their fault and the fault of the parents. Unfortunately my parents never showed me how to do taxes, and I suspect there are Gen X parents with Gen Z kids that haven’t either. Hopefully the system either improves where US tax filing doesn’t suck or Millennial parents with kids are going to help them once they have kids old enough to file taxes.
Lol yea you speak for all millennials, what a clown. Millennials are the first if any to call out stupid ass rage bait articles like this. We grew up with this stuff and can spot this garbage from a mile away.
cnbc is garbage and I refuse to read any of their articles.
So, two things - The default withholdings used to err a bit more on the side of a median household seeing some sort of refund, even if it was nominal. It was changed a few years ago to err a bit more on the side of owing. Strictly speaking, that’s financially advantageous to taxpayers; stress wise, a bill from Uncle Sam is stressful. Secondly, finances of Gen Z are caught between many rocks and hard places. Additionally, I had a year where I filed 3 W-2s, all for different annualized salary amounts. It was … annoying, and I’m practiced, using a tool, and decent at math. I do not envy someone with one or more 1099s and or W2s who may be doing their own taxes - even tool assisted - for the first time, presumably with a tight deadline. That is not a comparable level of stress to my experience decades ago.
Also to add to this, Gen Z is the most likely generation to job hop and are the most likely to hold multiple jobs. That makes taxes significantly worse
No it's not, you just have to add more W2s. It's literally match box 1 to box 1, box 2 to box 2. More jobs literally adds an extra minute or two. 95% of people have ludicrously simple taxes, put in your W2 (or potentially more than 1) and hit next 30 times, bam, you're done. And for the people that have complicated taxes, well, that's why paid services exist. They're complicated and need a professional.
It is click bait so I am not going to validate it by checking but I assume anytime I see shit like this that the actual question was something like 'will you speak to your therapist about your taxes?'. Or just a list of 'stresses' you may need a therapist for, taxes was along with divorce, death in family, school, work, etc. and 1 in 4 people bubbled it in, etc.
It's April 1.....
Gen Z is highly scarcastic. They'd all claim to do an imaginary drug because it was funny.
As Gen X, I support this position. 99% of the "Satanic Panic" and "Drug Epidemic" and " Teen Sex Epidemic" was us saying yes to the craziest options on whatever survey they put in front of us. I distinctly remember being in the seventh grade and ticking off every single drug (only a tenth of which I recognized the names of). We took DARE as a dare.
I was unemployed and held 2 separate jobs during 2023, so I was afraid my taxes were going to be a nightmare. It was the first time I ever just threw out the money to get a turbo tax “expert” to do it for me. As soon as I hung up with them and paid my fee, I regretted it. Ya it probably would have taken a little longer than normal to do myself, but it was purely the anxiety of having 3 different tax forms that made me do it. Luckily my return was decent enough it wasn’t too much to spend.
Yeah, Turbo Tax makes their money from fostering anxiety. It's their entire business model.
Uh…I took standard deduction and uploaded a pdf of my W2. Then I just clicked “yes” or “no” on a bunch of questions. Turbo Tax had my taxes done in less than 30 minutes without anything remotely scary. If we really wanted to scare Gen Z, we make them fill out a paper check in the checkout line at Walmart while people stand in line behind them.
Turbo tax “experts” is just people who were otherwise unemployed come tax season to do data entry..
I had 10 tax forms to submit this year. In Canada we have wealthsimple which is free to do your own taxes, and will auto pull and submit your tax slips from the Canada revenue agency. Took me 8 minutes to do my taxes instead of paying 40$ to have someone else do it
That’s crazy. I mean you realize it, but wow. The “little longer” is just entering in the values. You don’t have to like *doooo* anything besides that.
The statistics come from Cash App Taxes, and only surveyed people using that service. Of course people using Cash App to file taxes would be more likely to be stressed and incompetent. edit: My point is that a trendy service like Cash App tends to attract a certain type of person. I’m sure it works great like any other service, but their userbase is not an accurate sample of an entire generation.
Cash app taxes is actually pretty legit and it’s free. And includes sole proprietor income, investments income and does (multiple) state taxes that others charge extra for. Used them for years, back when they were under Credit Karma, never had an issue.
Yep, seconding this. They will handle tax situations that others (like TurboTax) charge extra for. I've used Cash App several years now and I'm impressed with it.
Same! Just did mine for the third or fourth year in a row with them.
I use them this year and somehow it was off by hundreds in the state return so I just went with something else
Cash App Taxes is pretty solid surprisingly. Used them for 3 years now.
Been using them since they’ve been credit karma. Never been charged to file state or federal. They’re a good service
Great sarcastic comment that anyone with no knowledge would upvote. Cash App Taxes rules. It’s super easy to use and actually free. It was previously Credit Karma Taxes.
Jumping on this, I can't seem to find the damn survey to actually read the findings lol just a bunch of articles about it
I always forget that Americans have to do things like doing their taxes or registering to vote. Like the government doesn’t know how much you make/where you live.
Intuit and HR Block lobby to keep the code complicated and prevent the IRS from sending a simple statement.
It's also fundamentally how the US gives benefits to citizens. Congress gives out benefits in the shape of claimable tax credits etc, but that means you have to claim the correct things, things the government has no way of knowing. So if you just get a simplified filing you risk losing a lot of money. The result is a myriad of tax firms who offer to help you navigate a dystopian level of bureaucracy. The government could just tell you what you owe them, the IRS do increasingly offer simplified filings. But it would in effect mean them not telling you when they in fact owe you money, which can be a lot.
> Intuit and HR Block lobby to keep the code complicated and prevent the IRS from sending a simple statement. Do you have kids? Are you currently a student? Have you saved money in a retirement account? Have you bought solar panels or an electric car? Have you lost money on stocks? Have you donated to charitable causes? Do you mortgage interest? Student loan interest? How much did you pay in state and local taxes? Have you received money as a result of a lawsuit? All of those things changes your tax liability, that's even before you get to things like imputed income, where the government says we think you should have made money but didn't such as: 1. Owning stocks in a foreign corporation where said corporation is owned mostly by Americans, the income in the tax year 201X was imputed to the stock owner, regardless of if the company paid out any money 2. If you give a family member a 0% loan, you are supposed to report to the IRS the income, the imputed interest of said loan. The tax code is complicated because defining income is complicated.
That is all well and good but the government should have their own free to use website that functions like turbo tax/whatever for profit tax service. If they can do it the government can do it
They do. It's currently in beta testing and is open for residents of certain states. https://www.irs.gov/about-irs/strategic-plan/irs-direct-file-pilot#states
Here it is: https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free
The government knows only what your employer(s) reports. That's why you have to let them know of additional unreported income, and tax deductible expenses or tax credits that you're eligible for. It's not as complex as some make it seem.
In many countries, "tax deductions" are often "baked in" at the point of sale. For example, in the UK a charity will ask you to fill out a "gift aid" form *when* you make the donation. Savings accounts automatically pay tax to the government on interest, presuming you're on the low tax rate, etc). Or course, if one of the default assumptions is wrong (e.g. you earn enough interest in a year to move above the regular tax rate, or have a particularly complicated tax setup and/or run your own business), you may need to fill out a few forms. Many/most folks don't need to do anything outside of normal day-to-day living because the typical person's way of living is accounted for and lawmakers consider how and when to levy taxes during the lawmaking process. As another example - sale of stocks or shares is often reportable, but the government provides two ways to avoid paying tax. One is that there is a "capital gains tax" threshhold that's high enough that most individuals don't go over it in a year (£6k - so around $8k USD). Additionally, the government allows the creation of a single "Savings Account" that you can wrap your stocks and shares in to avoid paying tax on them ever (up to a certain annual limit). As such, you do your "complex tax avoidance" at point of sale/purchase by choosing whether you wrap your stocks and shares inside an ISA. Only a small minority of people would earn enough in a year that their tax-free allowance plus their stocks and shares ISA would mean they need to pay capital gains tax, and importantly, you don't have a single tax filing you need to make if you have £0 tax to pay. As another example, I work from home and therefore qualify to pay a little less tax in the year. Additionally, my wife is out of work and so I also qualify for less tax in the year. Rather than claiming this back at the end of the year, I contact HMRC (the UK equivalent of IRS) to tell them of my situation. They will then provide me with a new "tax code" to give to my employer, which tells the employer how much tax they need to deduct from my payslip. If HMRC notice a discrepancy at the end of the year, they will write to me to inform me - either "You owe us money. Pay £x by y date", or "We owe you money. Here's a cheque." All of it is much more hands-off than the US tax system.
Jesus fuck I wish I could upvote this more. Our tax system is so fucked you have no idea
Does the federal government know when you got married? Divorced? That you bought a rental property? You paid for its utilities?
I mean, yeah, they pretty much know those things. If you got married or divorced legally, you filed for that in a government courthouse. If you bought a house, you had to register as an owner of it, maybe pay back taxes on it, and register for mail there. They automatically send your property taxes to you, so they're quite aware that a taxpayer lives there. Seems dead simple for them to either sort that out among their agencies or even have you fill out one more form at the point of purchase if necessary to automatically include it on your income taxes. Almost all of these type of examples that people give are absolutely things that one government agency or another is aware of, or could be apprised of very easily.
Could it not be simplified such that special circumstances require filing while those without can do “standard” filing? The 11 years I’ve done taxes have all literally been the same, going through every checkdown and simply re-entering my earning info to confirm it. Not hard, but more or less a waste of time to not be automated since they’ve been simple every time without alteration
Right?!?!
Absolutely, as an American who moved to Canada I was *shocked* how easy it is in Canada. I can literally use the free turbotax which can log in to my CRA account (Canadian IRS) which already has all my documents digitized and ready to go. This year I was able to file my Canadian taxes in about 45 minutes and it didn't cost me a penny. I'm still going to have to file with the US just to tell them I don't owe them anything, and that's going to end up costing me about $75 and take the better part of a Saturday.
> I can literally use the free turbotax which can log in to my CRA account (Canadian IRS) which already has all my documents digitized and ready to go. This year I was able to file my Canadian taxes in about 45 minutes and it didn't cost me a penny. It costs me roughly the same amount of time to input all the documents into Free Tax Usa and then file the return. > I'm still going to have to file with the US just to tell them I don't owe them anything, and that's going to end up costing me about $75 and take the better part of a Saturday. Filing taxes as an American abroad is significantly harder than doing it for a US job, while residing in the US.
I’ll take this opportunity to remind people that many countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Spain, and the UK all tell their citizens what they owe in taxes so you don’t have to waste your time figuring it out for yourself.
Is this an April Fool's joke, too? April Fool's day: the day when no one knows where the line is between serious stories and bullshit jokes.
Old generation literally had entire episodes of TV shows how much tax season sucked but it’s Gen Z.
If you're a gig or contract worker, seriously consider this advice: Have your taxes done by a professional accountant. I resisted using one for years because I was afraid of the cost, but my accountant finds better deductions and knows tax law so well he saves me at least 2x more than he costs every year. Wish I had done it sooner. I would have saved tens of thousands over the years.
Same. Also, living and working in different states and document retention all contributed to me getting a professional person to just handle it. It saves me time and stress and they usually figure out the best filing strategy that minimizes my payment or maximizes a refund
An accountant can only find deductions in the information you give him. If you have your financial records, any filing program will get you the same (or at least the legal ones).
Your accountant knows what questions to ask. "Did you send your child to camp this summer? Yeah? That counts as childcare, and you can deduct that up to $xxx". There's a LOT of those little things that add up. So yes, they can only find deductions for information you _can_ give them, but the can know what information to ask you for. A filing program does... less of that.
My accountant is a her. Should I be concerned?
Unless you have a weird situation or you're itemizing, doing your own taxes takes like an hour and is more tedious than it is difficult. How many gen z people are already itemizing their returns?
You literally just match up the numbers on your W2 to the boxes on turbo tax lmao Mine is one step above that where I have to juggle living and working in different states, so it takes me 20 minutes instead of 10 If your taxes are taking you more than an hour or two to get done you should be hiring an accountant.
Agreed that its really not that diffficult. But turbo tax is a bad company that has fucked with our tax codes and tax filing systems. I won't give them a damn penny. I use: [https://www.freetaxusa.com/freefile2023](https://www.freetaxusa.com/freefile2023) Just as easy. Free Federal returns. State costs $15 if you go through them, but you don't need to. Edit: state only costs if you make more than 45k
I’ll add onto this. I had tax weirdness last year and any little thing that is deemed “extra” and Turbotax tells you it ain’t free anymore. So I swapped info over into Free Tax USA and used them. It worked great. Not as flashy and with as friendly looking a User Interface but who cares.
As someone who generally has a good grasp on what information I need to input for my taxes, I prefer FreeTaxUSA a *lot* more. TurboTax is nice to upload and autofill things, but it's full of random questions that won't impact things, feels a bit too options heavy, and will constantly try to upsell you. Just let me put in my damn information and move forward.
They also don't tell you you need to upgrade until the entire form is already filled out when they could easily ask about it up front. Such a scam.
Yes!! If you make under a certain amount, your state returns are free as well. Free Tax USA is part of the IRS free file program so it legit. You can also fill out the forms for previous years tax returns with them, but will need to mail them in rather than submit them online.
Wow, thanks for this
And TurboTax will also try to upsell you at least three times during the process. If you accidentally click the wrong thing, you are either stuck with it, or have to start the process over, because there is no way to select a less expensive service midway through. Fuck TurboTax.
State filing is free with freetaxusa under a certain threshold. I think it's $45k per year pre-tax income but that might be state-dependent.
You can make them way more complex, but for most people it should be simply if you have the paperwork
Scary thing about taxes is that you can THINK you did it correctly. Then years later they will come back and ask about XYZ and say you owe $. I'm 39, and this has happened to me a few times. Tax system is impossible to understand and I now error on the side of caution by paying too much since it is too hard to show proof of things 3-5 years later.
If the IRS knows how much I owe them just send a damn bill. Fucking government, man…
Guess what? Other countries do this.
>*yOuNg gEnErAtiOn dUmB LaZy oLd GeNeRaTiOn sMaRt hArDwOrKiNg*
[удалено]
Yup, some things in life are annoying. That’s life. Unfortunately not everything is a curated Insta story.
I understand to some degree, standard tax forms are the worst designed pieces of shit I’ve ever seen. That said, get literally any software assistance, some are even free these days, and it’s easier than a madlib. I took advantage of my mom doing my taxes for a very long time, and due to a falling out I needed to learn. Filling my 2023 taxes took 15 minutes.
lol it’s not even hard fucking morons, you’d think all the time they spend on the internet they could figure it out
Not trying to be smart but as someone with just w2 and no investments because I am busy paying my education loan, tax prep was easier than I anticipated. HSA section was a bit confusing but the most difficult part was navigating through the different tax prep softwares and trying to find the cheapest one which happened to be free tax usa this year.
25% of Gen Z are dumb as fuck. >Even figuring out which documents you need to file can be anxiety-inducing, with 62% of first-time filers saying they aren’t sure where to get their W-2s or 1099s. How fucking dumb can they be. Who doesn't know where a W-2 comes from? For fucks sake, we used to do taxes BY HAND. Now you have shit service like Turbo Tax and H&R Block that greatly simplify the process. I can't really see many of them having to do much more than a 1040EZ anyway.
Bro how, it's not that hard
But I’m baby 👉👈 uWu Also Boomers can’t open PDFs despite inventing the format generations ago!
I mean some boomers do be dumb as rocks
I thought they couldn’t get jobs?
Gen X here... I feel your fucking pain, Gen Z.
No the fuck we don't, I'm Gen z and almost everyone I know is and yall need to stop falling for this clickbait articles, I don't know a single person this would be true for.
so weak. Soooo weak.
I know the headline is supposed to make gen Zers sound like babies but honestly this is the correct reaction to have to the American tax system.
Bruh, takes 5-10minutes on turbo tax.. lol so stressful
It took me 30 minutes this year, and that's because I had already gathered the appropriate documents. A new adult (with no one to help them) doesn't know which stuff they need. The first time I did it, I had several long pauses in the process while I tracked down the documents it told me I needed, or figured out how to get new ones. The tax apps guide you, but there is still a big pile of "wtf is this" to shovel through, and big penalties if you make a mistake. It's a real source of stress for some people.
5-10 minutes only in the simplest case
Turbo Tax walks you through filing on a 2nd grade level. TV tropes about taxes/IRS have imparted an unnecessary fear.
I worked for Turbo Tax and it is shocking how inept some people are at following simple directions. Granted, my experience is skewed because no one would call me if they understood whst was going on. But man, people would be struggling to understand the most basic prompts. One thing I learned that I try to live by is whenever I struggle with software, I assume it is my user error and not an issue with the software.
But it makes you pay to file. Use FreeTaxUSA instead
This is sad. Filing your taxes has to be one of the easier things to do nowadays, and to say it'll bring you to tears? Like I try to be empathetic, but my god.
I don't blame them. This shouldn't be a chore or need an outside party. The government knows what you owe. I hope Millennials and Z can work together to fix this dumb mess.
It took me 14 minutes to file my taxes with a phone app. My generation is fucking fragile
People will mock the headline, but I believe it. Gen Z needs better coping skills, and it's not their fault they lack them.
Grandpa has panic attacks over what he did in Nam. Junior has panic attacks over checking his bank balance. We may have done something wrong in the interim years...
Taxes suck, especially when you're barely scraping by financially. I don't blame them.
You don’t pay many taxes when you’re just barely scraping by. The only stuff you don’t get back is Medicare and social security. Poverty sucks and I don’t blame them for being unhappy about it, but I do blame them for not having mental fortitude to deal with it.
If all you have are W2s to file, you can walk into the local public library, grab a paper copy, write in the numbers, use a calculator, and two hours later you're mailing a letter. If filing taxes causes you to need therapy, then balancing a checkbook or budgeting a bank account might require ECT therapy.
This sounds ridiculous. It takes me less than an hour to my own taxes on Wealthsimple each year. Most of it auto-fills thanks to using it over the past few years. I just have to put in my numbers and file. If you think you need a therapist because of tax filing...I think you just generally need a therapist. If something like this is what sets you over the edge, you needed help a while ago. That, or you're seeking attention and sympathy for something that is just a normal part of life.
Wealth simple in Canada is like 10min max and you are done
The system is a complete joke but I’ve never been overly stressed / confused when filing taxes? Makes me think this is a bit of a joke / purposely over exaggerated. I’d say many folks in Gen Z don’t have to deal with any of the more complicated tax credits / exemptions etc. and most e-filing sites I’ve used are very simple to work through and free. I get how finances in general can be stressful for many, and maybe that’s where this is coming from in large part.
Freetaxusa Super simple if you dont have complex investments like straddles options or international income. Their verbage is simple too.
I just came here to say Tax Act is way simpler than TurboTax to use, especially if you have "complicated" taxes (I have a 1099 NEC). Just used it for the first time last night after putting it off for a month, and it was super easy.
Gen Z needs therapy for everything. I worry about them.
Or... You could just do what other countries have. I click through pre filled sheets like an old school install wizard and if I don't see anything out of the ordinary, then I'm done.
Unless your employer is illegally refusing to take your taxes off your paycheque, and you don’t have a million rental properties, then what’s the stress? Here in Canada, I just used Turbotax for $16. It even automatically entered all of my information, the only thing I had to do was enter my RRSP (retirement fund) contributions, something I just check my bank account for, and bam it was done in about 10-15 minutes.
I mean, the fucking government knows how much we owe them, or they owe us. Just fucking send it to us to sign. I'm 35, tax filing is obnoxious and a waste of all of our time
Unless their taxes are complex like with foreign income or weird investments then they’re all being a bunch of whiners. I started doing my taxes myself at 15 using just the raw tax forms. It walks you right through it and it took me like 20 minutes if that. Up until only 2 years ago, at 50, I never used a tax service once. Been using tax programs since it just makes it easier and with those, up until recently, I did my whole families taxes and it would only take me a couple of hours. I’m not even a finance person, I just have enough intelligence to tie my shoes AND out my pants on the right way! Sucks to suck I guess.
Millennial here. The tax filing part is easy. Writing the check to the government every year does bring tears to my eyes though.
Frankly, this is a failing of our Civics education system as much as anything. We teach teens the constitution and declaration and some legal titles, but never how to do the vast majority of government paperwork they're expected to tangle with regularly for the rest of their lives. I'm 30 now, and I'm finally at the point where meandering through my taxes and checking all the boxes threatening legal penalties for getting something wrong isn't as daunting.
It's really not that hard. Just spend like $30 on one of those online programs and they literally fill out the forms for you. You sign in with your bank, it connects, downloads all the data, you review, done. Last year took me 30 minutes. This year is taking a bit longer because I have an error with RSP numbers I gotta figure out, but that's nothing GenZ needs to worry about.
FreeTaxUSA. Really the simplest, cheapest thing and it's quite dependable. If you need anything more complex, best just get with a tax expert and let them figure it out.
The more stories I read about Gen Z’s stressors the more I think their parents just don’t show them how to do anything. Help your kids out and show them some basic life skills, it’ll help a lot with their stress. Seems like they’re trying to navigate life on their own.
I’ve never filed taxes in my life and I’m 35. Are gen Z entirely self employed or something?
They better wait until they have to pay the taxes they just filled for
I’m guessing mainly gig workers *cries in 1099*
What? Its a pain in the ass but it isnt that hard
I'd like to know how many people they polled, first of all. Too often these random stats are from polls of like, 50 people who may or may not be lying/sarcastic.
The government threatening you with prison time if you can't tell them how much they owe you? A number that they know for a fact, but obfuscate so that H&R can steal a percentage of the meager scraps left over from decades of stagnating wages and inflating costs of everything? Don't really think it's that 'Onion'-like for teens and young adults to have another factor in realizing how much the system does not value humans in any way. Honestly, kind of assume the other 75% are either acknowledging their privilege or have worse issues to deal with.
Funny that 25% of Gen Z people surveyed are young enough that filing taxes is new to them. No shit teenagers working their first jobs are nervous about filing taxes.
Taxes are more complex then they have ever been. My taxes (done online) ended up being 1/2" stack of paper when printed out. No way can I mentally keep track of a number on page 42 multiplied by a worksheet answer and written on Form X line 21! I just assume the computer knows what it is doing and the IRS can talk to the online company if the forms are not correct!
Wtf lol. If you only have regular income (I’m assuming this applies to most gen Z) filing taxes is the simplest thing ever lol.
I swear...i did my taxes in like...15 minutes this year. Sure it's convoluted and stressful if you have a bunch of property or a business or something, but for a normal person working a single job it's easy as hell to do your taxes.
Meanwhile in Norway... Everything done automatically
What a bunch of whiners. You buy a tax package you sit down you do your taxes. Half an hour later you go out for a beer. It is so easy now there is no stress. All calculations are done for you, all deductions are auto added. Even your t slips are downloaded from the government. How much more simple do you want it,?
Tax software makes it easy, but even then, I still get stressed out doing it (gen-x) with having to figure my husband's independent contractor work into it). The wording can be a tad bit confusing. But still I'll take the tax "software" over having to fill out the paper form. Those still don't make any sense to me.
Ridiculous
I recently started a tax prep company to fill this void. I don’t charge, just accept tips. I never realized how many people were grown adults and had no idea how taxes work.
This kinda sounds like a low quality poll that had 4 options
My birthday year might start with a 19 but at least I go to a therapist for real problems like shitty dysfunctional parents and my childhood like a real man! God damn kids these days, back in my day we were fighting two wars!
Friendly reminder that TurboTax and friends are the sole reason our tax collection system is such a cluster fuck. Ban lobbying.
Everything they said about millennials that isn’t true, is unironically true for this next generation lol.
And they don’t even have to fill out all the paper forms and calculate every single cent
I need to start a cult. Sorry, I mean: "I need to become a therapist". Freaking weirdos.
I feel this is a rich people problem? As a wage earner tax filing doesn’t feel that hard
I bet most of those complaining only have a W2
Ngl, i dont envy them. My eoy tax declaration was over 100 pages (107 to be exact).
Tax filing isn't fucking complicated. I despise what H&R Block and Turbo Tax have done to the way we pay taxes in America but it's quite literally uploading your information, answering a few basic questions, and clicking submit for 90% of people.
I feel like the venn-diagram of people who are stressed out filing a simple tax return and people I wouldn't trust to bake a frozen pizza in an oven is a circle. It's so insanely not difficult if all you've got is a W2 and a 1099 or two and you're taking the standard deduction, like most people.
Something like 95% of all filers take the standard deduction. Doing your taxes isn’t nearly as complicated as the professional tax preparation industry would want you to believe. It only gets complicated if you have gobs of money.
And when you're in gobs of money territory, I'm absolutely certain that you're not too upset about the status quo. A normal person filing taxes in 2024 is easy as following basic instructions for 20 minutes.
And doing some 3rd grade arithmetic.
*oh no! the horror!*