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They will if you get it wrong enough.



Yeah, but the "tax preparation" fees of the IRS are considerably higher than Intuit's.

(IOW, if you rely on the IRS to tell you what you owe, there's probably a penalty attached.)


It's not bad. The form actually says you don't have to calculate your tax and you can leave the remaining fields blank. The IRS will crunch the numbers and send a bill/refund. If your income is simple, that's a good way to file. If you made a mistake crunching that part yourself, they will correct it. If you get a refund or don't owe much, then it's not a big deal.

If you have choices (e.g. joint vs separate, itemized vs std deductible), then you want to crunch the numbers yourself so that you can make the best choice. You also need to be careful if you have reporting requirements that don't affect the tax total that year like IRA backdoors and AMT books.


Having just received a letter in the mail saying I owe an extra ~$850 from 2020 I can confirm this is the case!


Did they say what for?


They probably did at an extremely high level, I already paid and threw it away (which was silly... don't do tax stuff when mentally exhausted) but it certainly had no specific details or context on how they arrived at that conclusion, what exactly was wrong, etc. It did have some very serious statements about failure to pay, increased penalties for late fees, etc. and having tried to call the IRS in the past, I know that it's worse than pulling teeth to get real answers so I decided this fight wasn't worth it. That said, I have also had them come back before with a mistake on their end and a check I wasn't expecting so my current mental model for the IRS is that they are honest brokers in general, just really really slow.


They will say what for and give you the opportunity to dispute it. You can even call and talk with someone. They aren't faceless, heartless, or infallible. If it's their mistake, or an honest mistake on your part, they're pretty easy to work with.


I'd disagree a bit with the faceless part and being able to call and talk with someone. It depends how much patience you have to wait on the phone.




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