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Free File Alliance
The Free File Alliance is a group of tax preparation companies which operate a public-private partnership with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to provide free electronic tax filing services under the IRS Free File program to United States taxpayers meeting certain guidelines. The IRS stipulates filers must have an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $72,000 or less for tax year 2020 to qualify, but participating companies can set their own requirements and restrictions. The IRS Free File program is a compromise between the IRS and for-profit tax software companies that enables lower and middle-income filers to file their taxes for free while ensuring the IRS does not develop its own free-to-use tax software that would compete with private, for-profit tax software companies. Free File Alliance is a 501(c)(4) organization registered as Free File, Inc., and based in Clifton, Virginia. Its executive director is Tim Hugo. While many of the Free File Companies offer free state income tax ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ProPublica
ProPublica (), legally Pro Publica, Inc., is a nonprofit organization based in New York City. In 2010, it became the first online news source to win a Pulitzer Prize, for a piece written by one of its journalists''The Guardian'', April 13, 2010Pulitzer progress for non-profit newsProPublicaPulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting: Deadly Choices at Memorial and published in ''The New York Times Magazine''Sheri Fink, '' New York Times Magazine'', August 25, 2009The Deadly Choices at Memorial as well as on ProPublica.org.ProPublica, August 27, 2009The Deadly Choices at Memorial ProPublica states that its investigations are conducted by its staff of full-time investigative reporters, and the resulting stories are distributed to news partners for publication or broadcast. In some cases, reporters from both ProPublica and its partners work together on a story. ProPublica has partnered with more than 90 different news organizations, and it has won six Pulitzer Prizes. History ProPub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taxation In The United States
The United States, United States of America has separate Federal government of the United States, federal, U.S. state, state, and Local government in the United States, local governments with taxes imposed at each of these levels. Taxes are levied on income, payroll, property, sales, Capital gains tax in the United States, capital gains, dividends, imports, estates and gifts, as well as various fees. In 2020, taxes collected by federal, state, and local governments amounted to 25.5% of GDP, below the OECD average of 33.5% of GDP. The United States had the seventh-lowest tax revenue-to-GDP ratio among OECD countries in 2020, with a higher ratio than Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Ireland, Costa Rica, and Turkey. Taxes fall much more heavily on labor income than on capital income. Divergent taxes and subsidies for different forms of income and spending can also constitute a form of indirect taxation of some activities over others. For example, individual spending on higher education can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public-private Partnerships In The United States
Public-private partnerships (PPP or P3) are cooperative arrangements between two or more public and private sectors, typically of a long-term nature.Hodge, G. A and Greve, C. (2007), Public–Private Partnerships: An International Performance Review, Public Administration Review, 2007, Vol. 67(3), pp. 545–558 In the United States, they mostly took the form of toll roads concessions, community post offices and urban renewal projects.David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beit''"Rival Road Builders: Private Toll Roads in Nevada, 1852–1880,*'' Nevada Historical Society Quarterly 41 (Summer 1998), 71–91. In recent years, there has been interest in expanding P3s to multiple infrastructure projects, such as schools, universities, government buildings, waste and water. Reasons for expanding public-private partnership in the United States were initially cost-cutting and concerns about Public debt. In the early 2000s, P3s were implemented sporadically by different States and municipalitie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Income Tax In The United States
Income taxes in the United States are imposed by the federal government, and most states. The income taxes are determined by applying a tax rate, which may increase as income increases, to taxable income, which is the total income less allowable deductions. Income is broadly defined. Individuals and corporations are directly taxable, and estates and trusts may be taxable on undistributed income. Partnerships are not taxed (with some exceptions in the case of Federal income taxation), but their partners are taxed on their shares of partnership income. Residents and citizens are taxed on worldwide income, while nonresidents are taxed only on income within the jurisdiction. Several types of credits reduce tax, and some types of credits may exceed tax before credits. An alternative tax applies at the federal and some state levels. In the United States, the term "payroll tax" usually refers to FICA taxes that are paid to fund Social Security and Medicare, while "income tax" re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tax Preparation In The United States
Tax preparation is the process of preparing tax returns, often income tax returns, often for a person other than the taxpayer, and generally for compensation. Tax preparation may be done by the taxpayer with or without the help of tax preparation software and online services. Tax preparation may also be done by a licensed professional such as an attorney, certified public accountant or enrolled agent, or by an unlicensed tax preparation business. Because United States income tax laws are considered to be complicated, many taxpayers seek outside assistance with taxes (53.5% of individual tax returns in 2016 were filed by paid preparers). Some states have licensing requirements for anyone who prepares tax returns for a fee and some for fee-based preparation of state tax returns only. Commercial tax preparation software, such as TurboTax, is widely used by individuals preparing their own tax returns. The Free File Alliance provides free tax preparation software for individuals with les ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Refund Anticipation Loans
Refund anticipation loan (RAL) is a short-term consumer loan in the United States provided by a third party against an expected tax refund for the duration it takes the tax authority to pay the refund. The loan term was usually about two to three weeks, related to the time it took the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to deposit refunds in electronic accounts. The loans were designed to make the refund available in as little as 24 hours. They were secured by a taxpayer's expected tax refund, and designed to offer customers quicker access to funds. The costs to the borrower could be significant compared to other lending and some consumer organizations warned consumers of the risk involved in this type of loan. They are a largely discontinued financial product and beginning with the 2013 tax filing season, they have been largely replaced with the similar refund anticipation checks (RAC), [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
H&R Block
H&R Block, Inc., or H&R Block, is an American tax preparation company operating in Canada, the United States, and Australia. The company was founded in 1955 by brothers Henry W. Bloch and Richard Bloch. As of 2018, H&R Block operates approximately 12,000 retail tax offices staffed by tax professionals worldwide. The company offers payroll, and business consulting services, consumer tax software, and online tax preparation/ electronic filing from their website. History Founding During World War II, Henry W. Bloch was a young Army Air Forces navigator who wanted to start a family business with his brothers in Kansas City.henrybloch.com , Many Happy Returns, Thomas M. Bloch, 2010. Home from the war in 1946, Henry saw a pamphlet suggesting a bright future for companies serving small businesses, and it sparked his imagination. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intuit
Intuit Inc. is an American business software company that specializes in financial software. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and the CEO is Sasan Goodarzi. Intuit's products include the tax preparation application TurboTax, personal finance app Mint.com, Mint, the small business accounting program QuickBooks, the credit monitoring service Credit Karma, and email marketing platform Mailchimp. more than 95% of its revenues and earnings come from its activities within the United States. Intuit offers a free online service called TurboTax Free File as well as a similarly named service called TurboTax Free Edition which is not free for most users. In 2019, investigations by ProPublica found that Intuit deliberately steered taxpayers from the free TurboTax Free File to the paid TurboTax Free Edition using tactics including Search engine privacy#Delisting and reordering, search engine delisting and a deceptive discount targeted to members of the military. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dark Pattern
Darkness, the direct opposite of lightness, is defined as a lack of illumination, an absence of visible light, or a surface that absorbs light, such as black or brown. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low luminance. This is because the hue sensitive photoreceptor cells on the retina are inactive when light levels are insufficient, in the range of visual perception referred to as scotopic vision. The emotional response to darkness has generated metaphorical usages of the term in many cultures, often used to describe an unhappy or foreboding feeling. Referring to a time of day, complete darkness occurs when the Sun is more than 18° below the horizon, without the effects of twilight on the night sky. Scientific Perception The perception of darkness differs from the mere absence of light due to the effects of after images on perception. In perceiving, the eye is active, and the part of the retina that is unstimulated produces a complementar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TurboTax
TurboTax is a software package for preparation of American income tax returns, produced by Intuit. TurboTax is a market leader in its product segment, competing with H&R Block Tax Software and TaxAct. TurboTax was developed by Michael A. Chipman of Chipsoft in 1984 and was sold to Intuit in 1993. The company has been subject of controversy over its political influence and deceptive business practices. Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, has lobbied extensively against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) creating its own online system of tax filing like those that exist in most other wealthy countries. Intuit is under investigation by multiple state attorneys general, as well as New York's Department of Financial Services. As part of an agreement with the IRS Free File program, TurboTax allowed individuals making less than $39,000 a year to use a free version of TurboTax; a 2019 ProPublica investigation revealed that TurboTax deliberately made this version hard to find, even through ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
