Leaderboard

"The agency described that solution as “short-term” but has still not presented a roadmap for how it plans to transition away from only using ID.me. The IRS did not respond to multiple requests for comment about its transition to Login.gov or its use of ID.me."

I need my taxpayer to withhold 15%. So I have to calculate the semi-monthly amount and take 15% of it and put that on the extra withholding line. That's not an effective method and the form does not allow me to do it any other way.

Is so confusing to older people. And to me. Why can't you just put down a percentage that you want withheld.

I have two filing requirements. Filed the first one last week. It took about 15 minutes because I took the time to look up a couple of things that weren't immediately obvious. I expect the second one to take 5 minutes or so. An entity with a single Beneficial Owner isn't very complicated. But if there are multiple owners, or non-owners who nevertheless must be listed, I think it could get more complicated. One suggestion - be sure to have an electronic copy of your drivers license handy. An upload of the D/L or another acceptable form of ID is required to complete the listing.

I disagree, most reverse mortgage are used as income replacement which does not qualify as deductible interest, unless the proceeds were used to improve the property. The amount in box 5 may be reverse mortgage origination fees?

Agreed. You can do that with IRA distributions.

The current forms are better than I can remember, as there are options to effectively set a flat dollar amount (which can be a % calculation). It is just silly and to tell them something they cannot legally enter, a flat %. While someone's "effective" tax liability can be calculated as a % for a particular year, there is no such withholding method available, so please stop telling someone their WH needs to be a flat %. A real pet peeve of mine, sicne such statements mean I, after the employer gets to deal with the employee's demand, has to tell the employer and employee the law does not permit such a selection.

Because the tax tables are not a flat %. I get this question almost daily. Ironically it comes from employees whose tax preparer tells them their liability is a flat %.

This how "temporary" arrangements become permanent.

In 2021 The IRS signed a 2 year contract with ID.me for $86 Million, which has now expired. I cannot find any publicly available information about the current financial arrangement between the IRS and ID.me. As a side note, the GSA, home of login.gov, will not consider using facial identification and for some unknown reason the required improvements to login.gov are happening slowly.

I think the IRS intended ID.me to be the long-term and only solution, but they got so much push-back from Congress and the public that they backtracked and said they would consider other options. That was two years ago, and it seems to me they are slow-walking any other options in hope that the critics will fade away. Here are examples of the criticism: https://cyberscoop.com/id-me-government-contracts-house-oversight/ https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Letter to FTC on ID.me deceptive statements 051822.pdf (note this is a PDF) https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/01/irs-will-soon-require-selfies-for-online-access/

I have privacy concerns about ID.me. They started as a direct competitor of Groupon and can be currently used to access retailer discounts. The IRS's official position is that ID.me is a temporary solution to be replaced at some point in the future, possibly by login.gov when login.gov is improved. I am not going to try to use them again!