[HN Gopher] Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit ___________________________________________________________________ Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit Author : samizdis Score : 540 points Date : 2021-06-30 16:36 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (pluralistic.net) (TXT) w3m dump (pluralistic.net) | randomhodler84 wrote: | Consider using credit karma tax (run by good guy Jack Dorsey); it | was forced to be split out from CK when they were bought by | intuit. It's free, it supports nearly everything you would need | these days. | crysin wrote: | I know you're getting downvoted but I was hoping to get more | context around the ownership situation of specifically Credit | Karma Tax? Are there articles anywhere discussing how it will | be spun off from CK or will it stay within their services just | run by a different company? | twostorytower wrote: | It has already spun off. Square currently operates it under | the "Credit Karma Tax" brand but it's probably going to move | under the Cash App branding eventually. | Rebelgecko wrote: | At least for me, it is a huge pain in the add to have to | manually type numbers instead of automatically importing from | my 1098s, 1099s, etc. Until the competitors can do that, I'm | sticking with TurboTax (even if their software was broken last | year for anyone who refinanced a home worth more than >$350k) | aceazzameen wrote: | This was the first year I used Credit Karma Tax. I found it | easier than Turbo Tax in some ways. Turbo Tax has these wizards | that ask various questions. In some edge cases, I needed to | research how a question applies to my scenario. Credit Karma | basically just wants raw data. Searching about a form number is | much easier than an obscure Inuit question. | | Both systems output the same result, so I used CK. | macspoofing wrote: | >Many of the people eligible for CTC don't file tax returns | | There is a level of pragmatism that calls for better | communication of programs and help with tax filings ... but ... | as a citizen, you do have a responsibility to file tax returns. | Why is it always hard to make the argument from both sides, | namely: we should make tax filing as easy as possible AND the | citizen has a responsibility to file their taxes regardless. It | seems we, as a society, have a hard time with the latter part. | kaiju0 wrote: | Most every other country has the government send a tax sheet to | you. If you disagree you go to appeal. If you do nothing your | done. | | So much easier. | barbazoo wrote: | While I agree that that would be nice, I'm not sure that this | is really as common as you say it is. Do you have examples? | andrewaylett wrote: | The UK is a good example of this -- if you're a regular | employee and earn under the higher earnings threshold then | you're very unlikely to be required to fill in any kind of | tax return, as all your income will have been taxed at | source and we don't tend to _do_ deductions. You'll get a | P60 from your employer and you've got until October to | notice if you either want to or need to fill in a self- | assessment (hint: you don't). If you earn more, it may well | be worthwhile filling one in because schemes like gift-aid | assume basic rate tax and you can claim back the difference | between basic and higher rate. But even then, as an | employee you can often ask for any pension contributions or | charitable donations to be given directly from salary pre- | tax which means less paperwork later. | | Having to fill out self-assessment -- or at least | complaining about doing so -- is a bit of a humble-brag as | it's an indication that the person complaining earns enough | (or has sufficiently complicated tax arrangements) to need | to. | TFortunato wrote: | In this case, no, many of those in question are not required to | file a tax return. | erik_seaberg wrote: | Before credits like this, filing wasn't required and didn't | make sense for many people with low income: | https://www.irs.gov/publications/p501#en_US_2020_publink1000... | dragonwriter wrote: | > But ... as a citizen, you do have a responsibility to file | tax returns. | | No, this is not a general responsibility of citizenship. | boublepop wrote: | They put the company who wants the built the bypass in charge of | storing the building plans, and nobody is surprised they put a | "beware the leopard" sign up in front of it. | MarkusWandel wrote: | We had the completely free "click here for a default tax return" | situation here in Canada, at least in Ontario. | | As of last year (in my case) finally the tax authority had all | the information slips you need to file already in their database. | | The freely usable tax software (Studio Tax) was able to download | and autofill them to generate a valid (as far as the government | knows) tax return that could then be e-filed. | | The only thing that changed was that the donation-based model of | Studio Tax wasn't enough, so now you have to pay CAD $15 per | installation (not per return) in order to actually file - but you | can still try it out and see what your refund will be before you | pay. | | It would still be better if the government had all this on a | website, but $15 per household is not the end of the world and | won't ever fund consumer hostile political lobbying. | pesfandiar wrote: | You still need to do the cost basis calculation yourself, | because a single financial institution can't calculate that for | you (you may have the same securities with another | institution). | alkonaut wrote: | A different institution from what? If all banks, employers | and other institutions are required to send the info to the | tax authority, the only "other" things you need to fill in is | basically income made abroad. But most people obviously don't | have foreign income or assets, so a tax calculation should be | 100% correct and simply a matter of accepting? | | The Tax authority should also have a very good guess of all | possible deductions/credits, so that can be filled | automatically too. | whoisjuan wrote: | Already said in this thread, but I think it's ridiculous that | when people think about abusive big tech, they never think about | Intuit. Their business is literally the idea of creating friction | in federal and local tax systems so they can extort people in | exchange of removing some of those synthetic frictions (emphasis | on "some"). | | A sinister business model in every possible way. | novok wrote: | Intiuit is medium-large tech, like a twitter, ebay, paypal, | square, uber, etc. Also they pay crap and the work is | uninteresting which is why nobody focuses on them. | IMTDb wrote: | Intuit is not "big tech". It's not even "tech". If computers | and internet were not a thing, Intuit would work mostly the | same way - their business is scraping money between citizen and | the sate, and lobbying politician into keeping a broken system. | That's not tech in any way. | | Other "big tech" companies would not even exist. | tantalor wrote: | > It's not even "tech" | | Intuit most certainly is a tech company. They make web and | desktop software. This semantic argument is a distraction. | | https://jobs.intuit.com/search-jobs/ | | > If computers and internet were not a thing | | Cool counterfactual. Not relevant in this discussion. | slumdev wrote: | Doesn't a company have to be at least slightly sexy to be | called "tech"? | mumblemumble wrote: | I was firmly on the side of "Intuit is a tech company", | and then I read this comment, and then I had a hearty | chuckle, and now I think I may be on the side of "Inuit | is not a tech company." | user3939382 wrote: | Don't forget the CPA trade associations who are right there | with them lobbying for the same nonsense tax complexity. | tzs wrote: | The tax code is complex because people do not want to pay | tax, and so anything that is ambiguous or underspecified | becomes a loophole, the closing of which generally adds | complexity to the code. | [deleted] | macspoofing wrote: | >Already said in this thread, but I think it's ridiculous that | when people think about abusive big tech, they never think | about Intuit. | | Because it isn't that big of a deal. | | > Their business is literally the idea of creating friction in | federal and local tax systems so they can extort people in | exchange of removing some of those synthetic frictions | (emphasis on "some"). | | That's a hyperbolic characterization. It's not that big of | deal. | | Lobbying is a fact of life in a democracy. There are always | interest groups on every side of any issue that lobby for their | selfish benefit, frequently to the detriment of the public | (e.g. public sector union contracts). That tends to make most | government programs less efficient and more expensive then they | could be because politicians will balance needs of all kinds of | interest groups. That will never change. Intuit has a right to | lobby for their interests. Characterizing this as somehow | nefarious, or even as an outlier is hyperbolic. Welcome to | Democracy. | trhway wrote: | Marlon Brando look alikes have the right to lobby too. It | doesn't make them any less evil. | macspoofing wrote: | We are talking about inexpensive tax software as an | alternative to free filing methods. It's not a big deal. Of | course it could be more efficient and cheaper ... but so | can many government programs. Are public sector unions | _evil_ when they negotiate outrageous contracts that the | public has to pick up the tab for? This is what democracy | looks like. | Miraste wrote: | This very article explains how they're deliberately | blocking millions of desperately impoverished people from | receiving billions of dollars. How is that not a big | deal? | macspoofing wrote: | >they're deliberately blocking millions of desperately | impoverished people from receiving billions of dollars. | | They aren't. Those programs don't require Intuit to | claim. | Falling3 wrote: | The problem isn't that Intuit wants to charge something | instead or nothing. The filing fee is not the harmful | part. The problem is they can't directly ensure people | use their service. But they can indirectly make it hard | to file without using their service by lobbying against | tax code simplications that would benefit most fillers. | | Your argument makes it sound like you do not know what | the issue in question actually is. | Miraste wrote: | Recipients' other options are hire a CPA (obviously | untenable), find the correct forms, calculate the credit | themselves, do the rest of their returns by hand, and | submit those (difficult for the target groups) or... pay | to use TurboTax. That's the exact dilemma this new site | would've helped solve if it hadn't been sabotaged. | trhway wrote: | > Are public sector unions evil when they negotiate | outrageous contracts that the public has to pick up the | tab for? | | the question starts to sound more interesting when you | add the fact that the members of that union have "death | or life" power over the public. | | >This is what democracy looks like. | | it is more like a "contract you can't refuse". | Retric wrote: | It's fine to lobby for a group say fisherman or "the rich." | However, when you're getting special laws written to hand | your company money at the expense of everyone else in the | country that's corruption not lobbying. | Retric wrote: | Bribery isn't lobbying. | macspoofing wrote: | Lobbying is lobbying. There is a tendency by some purist to | label democratic actions like lobbying, patronage or | campaign donations as 'bribery' or 'corruption'. No no no | no. Democracy is messy and involves horse-trading, | negotiation and balancing of many interest groups to push | political priorities. | Retric wrote: | I don't mean campaign donations to support candidates who | agree with your cause. I mean strait up bribery where you | hand people cash to do stuff for you. | Nicksil wrote: | >I think it's ridiculous that when people think about abusive | big tech, they never think about Intuit. | | I don't know why you think people don't think that. I imagine | that most people who have been informed will think along | similar lines. Those who don't think it are likely not yet | informed. | whoisjuan wrote: | If you talk to people outside of tech circles and you bring | up Turbotax into the conversation, you will notice that | people have a relatively positive view of it. Most people | think of TurboTax as something that's helping them to comply | with their tax duties and navigate a complex tax system. They | think of it as a helping hand when it comes to dealing with | government bs. | | Not surprisingly, most people think the complete opposite | about the government. | | So where Intuit is diabolically good, it's at arbitraging | those colloquial narratives and embedding itself in the | middle as the savior. The good guy who is here to help. | | They screw you, so they can later come and help you. As I | said before, a sinister business model. | birdyrooster wrote: | People need to stop calling companies "big tech" because every | large cap company uses technology in a way that used to be | exclusive to one tech industry. | Retric wrote: | Nintendo wasn't a tech company for a long time but it made | the switch. The same is true of Intuit, if most of your money | comes from directly selling software/computer hardware ... | your a tech company. | | That's still not true of most large companies like say | Walmart or McDonalds which still invest a great deal in | technology. | jwoah12 wrote: | > it made the switch | | Nice. | LeifCarrotson wrote: | Obviously Microsoft or Apple is a tech company, they sell | software and hardware. It's hard to say whether Intuit | sells accounting services or whether they sell software. | | Is Google a tech company? Probably, but technically they | sell advertisements, not software. You could say that they | make money by operating ad-selling software. Walmart is a | company that makes money by operating purchasing, | distribution, and retailing software. An old west General | Store owner could, if his records were lost, make a good | guess as to what he should by from which big city | distributors, when and how much of it to stock, and how | much to sell it for, conversely, zero people have a | comprehensive understanding of Walmart's product lines, | they're just cogs in the software-powered machine that | makes the corporation work. | | Every large company today is dependent on software. I agree | that it's a bit absurd to suggest that this means they're | all tech companies. | andrewaylett wrote: | I'd suggest that being "tech company" is in large part | cultural mindset. | | Are they primarily dependant on off-the-shelf software? | Possibly not a tech company. Is their software | development team bigger than the whole of the rest of the | company put together? Probably a tech company. Have the | developers convinced everyone else to form squads and | hold all the usual agile ceremonies? Don't @ me. | boringg wrote: | "Big tech" is such a catchall that it almost completely | devoid of value. | boringg wrote: | I think OP meant - people forget about the large company | Intuit being a business built on an abusive business model | enabled by technology. "Big tech" is a pejorative term in | this case to trigger a reaction. | conanbatt wrote: | The monopoly is the government though, not Intuit...There is no | way you can argue that Intuit has monopoly power over | government! | [deleted] | whoisjuan wrote: | Have your heard about a little thing called lobbying. | | https://www.propublica.org/article/inside- | turbotax-20-year-f... | smithza wrote: | The whole "companies get political speech through untold | millions $$" makes lobbying more like a quid pro quo | bribery system. Its fine that companies have a vested | interest in how the gov't runs and policies are put forward | but the bastard child of "political speech" and capitalism | is IMHO a lot like corruption. Obviously my opinion is not | original and a lot of people talk about this... but lets | not forget how this works. | macspoofing wrote: | Lobbying is a fact of life in a democracy. For any | government regulation, law, program, etc. there are | multitudes of lobby groups on all sides of each issue. Why | in this case is this such a big unethical crime? Lots of | government programs are inefficient and expensive due to | interest groups - that will never ever change. Welcome to | Democracy. | oneplane wrote: | No it's not a fact of life, it's a known quantity but not | a fact and not life-related. And you can definitely ban | it as well. It's not a requirement, and it's not the | best, only or 'current' way. It's just a weak side-effect | of the status quo (yes, technically that means 'weak' and | 'current' but that is besides the point). | chrisseaton wrote: | > It's just a weak side-effect | | Isn't it literally a constitutional right? It's not a | side-effect of anything - it's a right by itself. | oneplane wrote: | Perhaps from a US-centric perspective. I don't know for a | fact if a company or non-person is universally allowed to | direct the facility that is the government to do | something or not do something everywhere in the world. | chrisseaton wrote: | Lobbying isn't directing the government. It's presenting | your point of view to the government. What the government | does with the information you give them is then up to | them but sometimes they're obligated to show they've | considered it. It's a super-basic part of democracy | everywhere. It's usually a right and also actively | encouraged through consultation periods while legislation | is drafted. | | I can't understand anyone suggesting that we should not | be allowed to present our opinions to the government. | What are you in favour of? Just voting once every four | years or so and never saying anything else the rest of | the time? Bizarre. | treeman79 wrote: | What form of government is not going to have lobbying? | | Even an absolute monarch is going to have have various | people/groups petitioning. For reasons both good and | selfish. | xboxnolifes wrote: | Lobbying is bad when it creates outcomes I don't like. | Falling3 wrote: | Lobbying is bad when it helps a single company at the | expense of tens of millions of citizens. The situation is | far more objective than you're pretending. | gwd wrote: | https://www.theonion.com/american-people-hire-high- | powered-l... | [deleted] | alkonaut wrote: | You mean the tax authority has a monopoly on collecting | taxes? | | That would be one way of looking at it yes. | lazyweb wrote: | There's a very good Patriot Act episode [1] regarding devious | patterns in the US tax industry. In fact the whole show is well | worth watching. It's cancelled now, presumably because Netflix | felt some heat since every episode stirred/kicked another wasp's | nest. | | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xQQkzWhMOc | WisNorCan wrote: | Intuit is consistently one of the least ethical actors in tech. | They have a monopoly position in many of their products and take | advantage of some of the poorest people through misinformation | and lobbying. | | Facebook & Uber have received most of the heat over the past few | years. Intuit has strangely avoided the same level of scrutiny. | dhosek wrote: | Around 2009 my taxes grew complicated enough that I could no | longer do them by hand and had to start using tax software for | them. I've consistently refused to use TurboTax because the | company is so evil. H&R Block is not necessarily a more ethical | company, but at the very least, there's not more unethical. | (And I'm vaguely aware of there being some open-source tax | software of some sort out there, but when I looked it was kind | of janky and didn't seem to give me much of an improvement over | filling out the forms myself. I'd love to learn that things | have changed.) | lvspiff wrote: | does H&R Block handle investments and cost basis year over | year information? That's the only tripping point im finding | with whatever product I look to in comparison to Turbotax. | Once your tax situation starts down that path I'm noticing | getting a product that can pull from multiple investment | accounts and keep track of cost basis correctly really | narrows it down to Turbotax so far for me. | PascLeRasc wrote: | Yeah, it did for me. But I only used it to make sure it | matched Credit Karma tax and filed through there. | throwawayboise wrote: | At that point why not engage an accounting firm? Yes it | would probably cost more, but you're supporting your local | economy and have a human being to discuss any questions | with (as well as be responsible for any mistakes). | ryandrake wrote: | There's still a big jump in cost between, for example | TurboTax Premier tier ($90 federal + $50 state = $140) | and a CPA (where I've been quoted $400-$600). I don't | think the level of service justifies the cost. I tried a | professional once in my life, and he basically just asked | me all the same questions the software would have asked | me, and typed them in to his system for me. 3X-4X the | cost for the services of a typist doesn't seem like a | good deal. | jbluepolarbear wrote: | A CPA takes a risk doing your taxes. They are responsible | if something goes wrong. That is probably $400 an hour. | If you are paying less than that make sure it's actually | a CPA doing your taxes. There may be a CPA at the firm, | but unless they sign and do your taxes you aren't | protected by their liability. | threatofrain wrote: | An accountant with a CPA could have ten or twenty | seasonal temps working under them, but at the end of the | day they will review and sign the outgoing product. They | are liable and will be on top of your case if the IRS | comes to bother you, but don't expect the personal | attention of the CPA. | | Also, personal accounting is an increasingly niche | industry. | jbluepolarbear wrote: | That's only if the CPA is in that position. My mom has | worked at places where they had a CPA on staff, but they | were only doing here for consulting. They never reviewed | or signed anything. | UncleMeat wrote: | The last time I got a quote from a local accounting firm | it was for $3,000. My tax situation is more complex than | most but the difference between $150 for some paid | software and an accounting firm is a _lot_. And the | people working at the budget firms are basically just | using TurboTax-equivalent software anyway. | [deleted] | daxelrod wrote: | The value proposition of a tax accountant is not usually | crunching numbers. It's instead helping you find the | optimal choices to make when filing, helping you model | your situation in terms of tax code, and giving you | advice about how to arrange your affairs the rest of the | year to give you the biggest benefit come tax time. | | The one I've used has consistently saved me more money in | taxes than he costs. That said, my tax situation is also | nowhere near complicated enough that an accountant has | ever asked the order of magnitude you were quoted, so | YMMV of course. | lowercased wrote: | agreed. it's "more" money, but generally less headache, | you can ask questions, and get answers specific to your | situation, especially questions that may include | state/local tax concerns as well. | shadilay wrote: | Last I checked state governments have links for the free tax | software that taxpayers are already paying for but the | companies so desperately hide. | [deleted] | throwawayboise wrote: | I still do my taxes manually. I've looked for open-source | software to assist. I've tried OpenTaxSolver, it is OK for | what it does (basic 1040 and a few schedules like SE income | and Schedule C). It does not come close to handling all | possible scenarios. | | It's possible that you could write your own modules to handle | any mising forms, in fact I tweaked one calculation that | wasn't handling some edge case properly. But that's more than | most people would want to do, and would certainly be _more_ | work than just doing those forms manually with pen and | calculator. But like any open-source project, it relies on | individual efforts like that to build something that 's | useful to more people. | | The UI itself is extremely minimalist and would not be | regarded as "user friendly" by a user from the general | public. | | Edit: it also only attempts a few state returns. Mine is not | one of them, but fortunately in my state the tax forms are | pretty easy assuming the Federal return is done. | cbhl wrote: | Is H&R block actually an independent code base? The last time | I opened it, it looked like a page-for-page copy of TurboTax, | which made me wonder whether it was just a white-label reskin | of the same. | verall wrote: | I've went through both H&R block and turbotax's flows this | previous year, and although heavily inspired, it did not | seem like a reskin. Certain info was organized differently, | etc. | | After being completely ready to spend $40 or whatever it | was for the "Basic Premium" offering of each, BOTH H&R and | turbotax silently upgraded me to "Self-employed" (I am not) | and said I was free to pay the ~$100 or delete my account | and make a new one. | | "TaxSlayer" finally let me file for like $30 or something. | rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: | It's even worse - if you don't opt-out of the data sharing, | they have an absolute field day with all your financial data. | | They soak up a lot of the tech talent in San Diego, and every | person I've met that works there on the TurboTax team has | admitted to me that they feel ethically torn about what they | do. | cmckn wrote: | For sure. The IRS needs to offer a tax preparation platform, | the grift in this industry is astounding. I've always had | decent experiences with TurboTax, but they've gotten extremely | good at making your taxes hell if you want to avoid giving them | $89.99. | jandrese wrote: | This year we tried doing our taxes using both TurboTax and | FreeTaxUSA. | | TurboTax has a much worse interface, it took almost twice as | long to complete the taxes despite having an identical | return. TurboTax did find about $50 more return for us | somehow despite having entered the same information into both | sites, but that amount is less than the fee TurboTax would | charge so we ended up submitting through FreeTaxUSA instead. | | Next year I don't think I'm even going to bother with | TurboTax. | chrisseaton wrote: | > TurboTax did find about $50 more return for us somehow | | Don't you have to sign to say that you're entitled to that | return? How are you doing it if you don't understand where | it's coming from? | adrusi wrote: | The person paying the taxes is not always expected to | understand exactly how the tax code applies to them. | IANAL but I think that when you hire a human tax | accountant, their saying that your return is legally | sufficient for you to testify that you are entitled to | your return as filed. I don't know how that would apply | to tax software, but I imagine that for purposes that | TurboTax is appropriate for, saying "well TurboTax, a | widely used and generally respected accounting tool | generated this return, so I believe that it is correct," | would be sufficient. Of course if it turned out that you | were not entitled to the full refund you filed for, you | would still be liable to pay back the difference, but you | wouldn't be assessed an additional fine. | | Again IANAL, this is how I expect the law would work, not | necessarily how it actually works. | notshift wrote: | I did the same this year, but found that FreeTaxUSA's | support for crypto transactions was basically non-existent. | Filing through TurboTax was way less work than what I | would've had to do with FreeTaxUSA. | xyzelement wrote: | This is the sort of critical thing. You do your taxes once | a year but the impact could be hundreds, thousands or even | tens of thousands of dollars. In your case it was only 50 | but thematically this says that TT is better because it | found you more credits/deductions. You don't know it's | gonna "only" be 50 ahead of time. And the more | complexity/money is at stake, the more important it is to | get right. Once you are talking about potentially real | money, the quality of the UI becomes quite secondary in my | opinion. | | Don't get me wrong, would love for the IRS to offer a | standard free filing solution. But short of that, I want | the thing that is most likely to get me the biggest legal | return | jbluepolarbear wrote: | I got totally screwed last year job wise. 2 of my employers | have not reported my tax contributions to the state. I | never received a W2 from one of them. TurboTax was able to | find all my W2 from the HR companies, but I was unable to | access those HR websites for my W2s. Because my | contributions weren't reported to the state I have to get | all my W2 (luckily it was in my federal return) and resend | them to the state. I hate TurboTax, but I wouldn't have | been able to file my taxes this year without them. | missblit wrote: | You would have been able to but it'd be a bit painful: | https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc154 | | The basic process is to: 1. Contact your employer and | have them send you a W2 2. If your employer does not send | you your W2 by the end of February, contact the IRS and | they'll send you a Form 4852 3. If you still haven't | received a W2 in time to file taxes, then you can file | using the Form 4852 instead 4. If you receive the W2 | after filing and the actual numbers differ from your | estimates, then you have to file an amended return. | jbluepolarbear wrote: | I'm not doing that under any circumstances. I'd rather | get audited | WorldMaker wrote: | It may be apocrypha, but supposedly Intuit years ago | realized that people don't think the system "worked hard | enough" if results returned immediately. (These kind of | calculations are what computers do well and generally | return immediately.) Supposedly Intuit has been A/B testing | for decades how many artificial delays to give people the | impression that the system is "working harder" for them. | They intentionally want their interface to be worse and | "slower" because of the idiot dark pattern that our dumb | monkey brains think that "serious things" like taxes need | lots of "calculation time". | jandrese wrote: | It wasn't even the stupid "spinning numbers" thing that | slowed us down. Mostly it was being locked into wizards | asking us one question at a time. | Dialog: Do you have foreign bank accounts? | Y/N Next dialog: Do you have | foreign investments? Y/N Next dialog: | ... | | For every single damn thing. FreeTaxUSA put them all in a | list so we just clicked on the applicable ones. It was | much more efficient. | | And if you have to go back and double check/change | something TurboTax makes you go through the whole damn | wizard again. | | TurboTax is supposedly able to import my W2 automatically | (I work for a large corporation that use a large | professional third party company to do W2s), but this has | never worked. I always have to enter the information by | hand. | perl4ever wrote: | I always go to the forms and ignore the interview. | | I haven't found any other software that is practical to | use in this way and has all the forms I need. | | I tried H&R Block's free software one year, I think, | because I was mad at Intuit, but it was useless because | there were big gaping holes in the functionality. | spinax wrote: | H&R Block wanted to upcharge me additional $$ just to fill | out a Schedule D on top of the $$ tier fee (the past few | years these forms were included in that tier price). They | lost a long term (10yr?) customer by trying to grift me this | year. | | I used https://www.taxslayer.com/ instead this past year, a | bit more DIY but if you've done your taxes for years and | they're generally the same year after year it's not that hard | to read your docs and type them in the boxes. You pay for | Support level, not tax form access with this service. | dole wrote: | I'll second TaxSlayer (2nd year) after being a online | TurboTax user for 12+ years, desktop app user years before | that, and afraid and skeptical of jumping ship and losing | "history", tired of the fake delays and dialogs. | | Relatively stripped down UI/UX and few "waiting" dialogs | and I have to assume a good savings of clicks vs. TT. I | have a relatively easy joint return with little audit risk | and basically in the "generally the same year after year" | boat as well. | acomjean wrote: | the IRS has actually partnered with the "Free File Alliance" | which is a group of companies that partner with the IRS (Free | tax filing for incomes < X).. So Saddly I feel the hope of | the IRS just sending you a bill is slim. | | Intuit is one of the members: | | https://freefilealliance.org/free-file-alliance-members/ | | https://freefilealliance.org/about/ | | Its a little weird. One would hope they would just send you | the bill.. I filed my taxes late with an extension. I could | go to the IRS site and get all the documents they had filed | by banks and my employeer, for me. They have that info... | CRConrad wrote: | > I could go to the IRS site and get all the documents they | had filed by banks and my employeer, for me. They have that | info... | | As Robotbeat says, this is literally because Intuit lobbied | to ban the IRS from being able to do it for you -- which is | also literally _what TFA is all about._ YTF do people | comment on stuff they obviously haven 't even read?!? | Robotbeat wrote: | This is literally because Intuit lobbied to ban the IRS | from being able to do it for you. | Cederfjard wrote: | This is so bizarre looking in from the outside. I've | spent my working life in two European countries, one | where if you're just a regular employee and not doing | anything special you just approve and submit your | prefilled tax return, and one where you under the same | circumstances literally have do to nothing. | [deleted] | toomuchtodo wrote: | https://www.propublica.org/article/inside- | turbotax-20-year-f... | | https://www.propublica.org/series/the-turbotax-trap | | "ProPublica has long detailed how Intuit, the maker of | TurboTax, and other companies have worked against making tax | preparation easier and less costly. They have lobbied to ban | the IRS from offering free, simple tax filing. And they have | deceived customers who should qualify for the Free File | product." | KorematsuFred wrote: | I find this criticism somewhat weird. It is very common for | companies or even individuals to promote and support | policies that benefit themselves. Intuit is seeking self | interest here. But why would IRS and our elected | representatives cave in ? Are these people so clueless or | unethical that they do not care about their constituents | anymore ? And if that is the case I don't see how anyone | can bell the intuit's cat. | caslon wrote: | By your logic, here, an independent actor doing something | to terminate the employees and stakeholders of Intuit | would be completely blameless, if not celebrated by the | people of the United States. | | It's not even a slippery slope to imply that acting in | self-interest is always excusable: By the time you've | gotten to that point, you're already at the bottom of any | and every slippery slope. There are lines that we as a | species have collectively are inexcusable to cross in | self-interest, and without them life gets a lot worse for | nearly everyone. | jfengel wrote: | They're capitalizing on a generalized anti-government and | anti-IRS sentiment. It's not difficult for them to | convince representatives that the IRS would do it badly, | and it should be left up to the free market. | | They made, and basically broke, an agreement with the | IRS. But it's really not easy for a government agency to | say, "No, you broke the roles, so our agreement is void". | It would basically take a lawsuit, which would be ugly, | expensive, and time-consuming. | | It's not so much a matter of simply "caving", as that | Intuit has gotten itself entrenched and it's difficult to | dig them out. In theory it's not impossible, but it would | require a ton of work, time, and will. Such things are | very hard to come by, especially when you're the IRS and | everybody already is predisposed to hate you. | burkaman wrote: | You accept that Intuit is lobbying for unethical policies | in order to enrich themselves, but you don't understand | why anyone would criticize that? | gremlinsinc wrote: | Hypothetical: I make kerosene.... we made a bad batch | that doesn't burn just right and could hinder products | it's used in... | | We're located in California. | | We've paid politicians to look the other way while we | drop it over forests, in fire zones. It's a lot easier | than getting rid of it other ways. | | We're enriching ourselves which is the American way, so | there's definitely no problem with this, even though it | may make fire season a major bitch for some people, | luckily all our CEO's have homes in safer areas that | won't be affected.... | | ^ Are you saying you'd say to the above scenario: I have | no problems with this. | | If the answer to the above question is you would say | that... | | What's it like to be devoid of morality? Is there | anything resembling a conscious at all? | WisNorCan wrote: | It is a simple bargain. US representatives are dependent | on fundraising and endorsements for re-election which | lobbyists are happy to offer in exchange for help with | their agenda. | commandlinefan wrote: | > why would IRS and our elected representatives cave in? | | money. | not2b wrote: | The IRS has almost no say in this (because they've been | denied funding to fix it); it is entirely Congress's | doing. | bingidingi wrote: | i reckon people hate filling out tax forms by hand more than | turbotax... and within good reason, even if you're educated it | can be frustrating to simply read tax regulations (which | turbotax translates to simple english), and there's a lot of | anxiety around messing it up | | unfortunately turbotax is also one of the major players trying | to prevent tax simplification... so they've got a great scheme | going | | anyway there are more and more free options every year so let's | hope that can start hurting them... I've used creditkarma for a | couple simple years and it's great | alkonaut wrote: | I really don't get the money side of US politics. How do | these companies use money (presumably) do sway politicians? | Just openly contribute to individual politicians/think | tanks/PACs? | | How do they launder the money Is that what the PACs do? Make | sure Joe Politican can get the money, but isn't seen handed a | bag of cash from a company? | | Or is it simply that accepting campaign donations from | corporations isn't seen as corruption by voters, so | politicans can do it in the open? | bingidingi wrote: | Here's one example: I've called my congressman to complain | about his support for the Taxpayer First Act (which enables | Intuit), his campaign received $16k from Intuit and H&R | block. They spent a combined $6 million or so on lobbying | to get it passed. | | The act, among other things, removed the requirement for | the IRS to report on their development of return-free tax | filing. | | Direct PAC donations are allowed up to $5k. Super PACs are | meant to be independent, can't work directly with | politicians or campaigns... and therefore have to such | limits. They're very often used for "indirect" lobbying. | | It's a scam and everyone knows it. The people empowered by | the scam are the only ones who can change it. | SamBam wrote: | It's utterly insane. It's insane how much influence money | can have on politics, when it's basically entirely spent on | election campaigns. (And some fancy fund-raising dinners, | and stuff, but I think that is less important.) | | It's insane that election campaigns are such an important | and expensive part of politics. Accepting millions of | dollars, and for what? To keep your job for another few | years. Where the biggest part of your job is getting more | money for the next campaign to keep it for another few | years. | | Real campaign finance reform could do so much. | labcomputer wrote: | > even if you're educated it can be frustrating to simply | read tax regulations (which turbotax translates to simple | english) | | Not sure I agree with this statement. My experience with | TurboTax is that the actual tax regulations are not that hard | to read, and that TurboTax's translations do nothing to | resolve the ambiguities of the tax code. | | For example, the tax code might allow "deduction of | reasonable expenses for blah blah blah" and the TurboTax | "explanation" will be "You can deduct blah blah blah, but be | sure the expenses are reasonable". Ok, what is "reasonable"? | Oh, well, you know, _reasonable_. | | It's like a high school student plagiarizing something they | found on the internet by rearranging each sentence _just | enough_ that it isn 't googleable. | | Turbo tax is great if your income comes from one or more W-2 | jobs (that pay cash) and a simple stock portfolio or | investment properties. As soon as you start dealing with | RSUs, stock options or (horror! ESPP), it starts becoming | more trouble than its worth. | | The ESPP thing is especially weird. Every office job I've | ever had offered ESPP (so it's not some edge case). TurboTax | will double tax your ESPP, unless you know the trick to enter | your real cost basis[1]--and TT won't ever prompt you with | "Hey, looks like you have some ESPP! Want a step-by-step | guide to enter your cost actual basis so that you only pay as | much tax as you actually owe?" | | [1] https://thefinancebuff.com/adjust-cost-basis-for-espp- | sale-i... | throwaway98211 wrote: | >The Child Tax Credit is a seriously good piece of policy... | | Maybe in intent, but certainly not in implementation. Fine if you | want to give money to the poor / people with no income, but | enacting that through our tax system (designed to collect tax | dollars) seems like a particularly poor proscription to achieve | the ends. Here's another take (that I'm sure will be | unpopular)... | | 'In 2021, progressives cloaked an expansion to our entitlement | programs through a tax cut to get the bill through Congress. This | has been hard to implement, and company's like Inuit aren't | helping as much as they could.' | jkhdigital wrote: | Just like Obamacare... income taxation is the foot in the door | to basically allow the government to arbitrarily meddle in the | personal finances of every single citizen. | vmception wrote: | Tl;dr Intuit made a bad outreach website, so here's a bunch of | other stuff we don't like about Intuit unrelated to the Child Tax | Credit outreach | grayhatter wrote: | Well yeah, if you're trying to prove it wasn't a simple mistake | from ignorance, you want to prove they have a pattern of making | this mistake. That's when it turns from accidental to | intentional malfeasance. | vmception wrote: | except it reads more like "I could have made that website, | grrr I didn't apply for the government contract (or I lost | the bid)!" | | It could read that and say "by the way Intuit has a history | of poor performance" | | it doesn't really say they sabotaged it. when I read that | headline, I think that their flagship software is | miscalculating it. But thats not what this article is about | at all. | | The article is about how a tax credit has always failed to | address the needs of those eligible for the tax credit, and | Intuit has only made a small dent in that in a contract that | hoped it would make a bigger dent. | | People can still have gotten that tax credit for free before, | can get it for free after, can use Intuit's poorly crafted | free system, or not. They can also use Intuit's paid systems | the whole time. The article then points out that Intuit | always crafts circumstances to make their paid system the | desired path. | | The Child Tax Credit is fine, its the people you are worried | about. | vlovich123 wrote: | How do we know that this is actually Intuit itself & not the IRS | trying to reduce CTC payouts. After all, their enforcement budget | keeps getting squeezed & they keep struggling to prosecute high | dollar issues. Reducing their tax credits is a good way to | improve the balance of the federal government. | greedo wrote: | Reducing the tax credit disbursements won't help the IRS | budget. They have no incentive to do so. | vlovich123 wrote: | I didn't mean to imply it would somehow help the IRS budget | directly. I was saying it helps the Federal Government's | overall deficit. The IRS isn't some body immune from | political pressure. The leadership is appointed by POTUS & | confirmed by the Senate. | | Regardless of which political party is responsible, the | Federal government has a lot of benefits programs that have a | lot of roadblocks to actually take advantage of. That isn't | an accident. You could look at it as the GOP tending to send | up roadblocks (e.g. they famously forced the IRS to strike a | deal with Intuit) OR you can look at it as a class divide | where the GOP are just the "baddies" everyone can scream | about without actually needing to hold the government | accountable. | literallyaduck wrote: | I have a hardtime taking an article seriously that makes wild | claims such as "But the IRS has been starved for decades by anti- | tax extremists". Show me the evidence. | burkaman wrote: | https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted | callmeal wrote: | >https://www.atr.org/trump-budget-cuts-irs- | funding-239-millio... President Donald Trump's | 2018 budget blueprint is out, and it wisely cuts IRS funding by | $239 million. | | Compared to pretty much any metric where increasing their | budget will increase tax collection. Mainly because most tax | fraud happens where no one is looking. | | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/want-to-shrink-defic... | The number of IRS revenue agents -- the auditors qualified to | examine complex returns -- has plummeted 43 percent over the | past decade, according to a report from Syracuse University's | Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Audit rates of | those filing these complex returns have also sharply declined. | For example, the number of millionaires who were audited in | fiscal 2020 was about a quarter of the number from fiscal 2012. | Accordingly, these IRS audits turned up unreported tax bills of | $1.2 billion last year, about a quarter of the $4.8 billion | found in fiscal 2012. | literallyaduck wrote: | That doesn't show decades. The tone of the article sets up to | divide readers. | | IRS spends 11 billion, 300 million is barely a speed bump, is | the money being spent correctly? | | IRS has been used as a tool of intimidation and oppression to | target political enemies of the ruling oligarchy. | | https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/irs-scandal-fast- | fac... | | They have deep corruption, the tax code needs reform, and | justice deferred is justice denied. | | Gas lighting and blaming the victims of political | intimidation is not acceptable. | modshatereality wrote: | Who approved that domain name? | sundarurfriend wrote: | > When I say "sabotaged," I'm not speaking hyperbolically. The | tax-prep industry, led by Intuit, led the fight for 20 years, | with their cultlike leader Brad Smith at the forefront of a | bribery and intimidation campaign. | | I just finished reading the Snowden article about conspiracy | practice, and this is a stark example of it. A group of people | acting against the democratic interest, subverting the legal and | political system to their interests, and leaving the public | feeling powerless. | kregasaurusrex wrote: | I'd previously got about 3/4ths of the way through filing my | taxes using TurboTax, only to find that I wasn't able to deduct | student loan interest on the free product. Intuit also regularly | deletes threads of people who go on to ask why an expected | feature isn't in the free tier, advancing the dark pattern of | needing to pay for the feature on both the federal and state | level returns. This is likely a systemic problem- the self | employed through platforms like GrubHub & freelancers have less | simple tax structures and even if they're only making a modest | wage; spending $80 just to fill out your own return definitely | acts as a regressive tax that disproportionately affects lower- | wage groups. | robertofmoria wrote: | Intuit is not without blame, but the IRS in genrral is at fault | and allows these problems. One cannot go to or ask the IRS for | help on taxes as the IRS is not responsible legally for anything | they say. Which means the IRS can tell you how to fill out a tax | form and then penalize you for filling the form out wrong. Here | is a solution to the tax problems... no income tax. | recursive wrote: | That warning is terrifying. | | > Do NOT use this online form if you're required to file a tax | return. Use of this online form creates a simplified 2020 tax | return. If you're required to file a tax return but file a | simplified return instead, you won't be able to e-file your 2020 | Form 1040 or 1040-SR tax return. This will delay the IRS | processing your return and issuing any tax refund. | | So... what? | | Do not use this site if I'm required to do the thing that this | site does? If I use this I won't be able to e-file Form xyz? No | information what those are, or why it would matter? | mattb314 wrote: | Free fillable forms is hard to use for taxes in general, but | this page is specifically for people who want the CTC without | having filed taxes (presumably you otherwise would have gotten | the CTC when you filed takes). You can see the screenshot says | "non-filer sign up tool", where as the main page of the website | (for people who want to actually use it to file taxes) has no | such warning: https://www.freefilefillableforms.com/#/fd | majormajor wrote: | My reading is that if you _aren 't_ required to file a tax | return, this thing creating a dummy simplified one won't hurt | you. | | But if you _are_ required to file one, you are likely to need a | real one, and the dummy one will conflict with it. But it | sounds like if you file a real one, you don 't need this form, | and this form is only for people who wouldn't otherwise file. | | But the gist of the article - that the website is implausibly | bad - seems correct. | recursive wrote: | That would require that a "simplified tax return" is not a | "tax return". If that's the intention, it seems to fly | directly in the face of the common use of the English | language. Generally {ADJECTIVE} {NOUN} is a specific category | of a {NOUN}. If they're using some domain-specific jargon | that violates that, it strains credulity that they would | expect anyone to understand it. | dnautics wrote: | I'd love to see a turbotax alternative that | | 1. imports your previous turbotax years | | 2. charges $10 less than turbotax | | 3. offers a free version gated by income | | 4. squirrels away some percentage of profits each year to a big | "F U" fund, half of which goes to lobbying for permanent income | tax simplification, half of which goes to directly paying out the | shareholders in the company on dissolution. | alexlmiller wrote: | This is basically https://www.taxact.com, minus #4 | dnautics wrote: | #4 is the key part! I mean maybe I have an irrational | obsession with the idea of a corporation chartered with an | expiration date, heh. | beambot wrote: | Sounds like a good project for Intuit. Create a new competitor | to TurboTax for the low-end market. Upsell into TurboTax. And | for #4, they could become the defacto IRS tool with perfect | regulatory capture funded by government subsidies. | kerkeslager wrote: | Yet another case where letting the free market handle things | results in bad outcomes. | mike_ivanov wrote: | Lobbying has nothing to do with free market. | AlexandrB wrote: | That's a weird thing to say considering how lobbying is | justified: As the free expression of speech by companies | towards their elected representatives. So is limiting | corporate speech necessary for a free market? Most free- | market backers I've heard would say otherwise. | vkou wrote: | This kind of lobbying is just paid free speech driven by | market incentives. | | So, yes, having a society-critical service provided by a for- | profit market actor, that then uses that money to pay for | speech that results in a worse situation for everyone is a | market failure. | avalys wrote: | This is not the free market, it's a perfect example of what's | wrong with government. The fact that the IRS rules are set by | politicians and bureaucrats, not accountable to market forces, | are what allows this corrupt situation to persist in the first | place. | | You can't say "the IRS makes this too complicated in order to | funnel money into Intuit's pocket so I am going to pay my taxes | elsewhere." | | And it's a perfect example of why accepting broad government | power provides an avenue for this sort of corruption to exist, | especially in areas that people don't care enough about to | spend time influencing government policy. | | In a free market, it requires very little effort for you to | make your opinion felt - you give your money to the people you | think have the best product. Done. Those people see that they | are making money - the people with lesser products see they are | losing money. This requires very little effort on your part | other than forming an opinion on what product you want to use. | | In the government, what can you do if you think the IRS is | doing a shitty job? Write a letter to your Congressmen? Vote | for another Congressman in 2 years (what if you agree with | their position on the IRS, but disagree on something more | important, e.g. guns?) Run for office yourself? | | The result is that relatively little attention is paid to | public policy around tax preparation. There are no single-issue | voters around IRS Free-file policy. There is too much else | going on in national politics that is inarguably more | important. And because no one really cares about this other | than the tax preparation industry, the tax preparation industry | is left largely unchallenged in pushing government to enact | regulations that favor them. | fleddr wrote: | Just to give a counter example here: | | In my country (Netherlands), the IRS itself provides the | software. Once a year, you download and run it. Everything is | prefilled: income from work, bank accounts, mortgages. | | So if you're a boring, financially stable person, the entire | process is literally next -> next -> next -> submit. | | Filling out tax forms is not a value-add economic activity, | so I have no idea why you'd insist on free market, nor do I | understand the classic American anti-government stance. | | If we have solved this a decade ago, why can't you? | avalys wrote: | Your question is, why isn't the federal government of the | United States, a country of 330M people, as efficient and | effective as the government of the Netherlands, a country | of 17M people? | | Large organizations are less efficient than small | organizations. This is true even in private enterprise. | Large bloated, centralized government bureaucracies are the | most inefficient of all. | | Part of the "classic American anti-government stance" comes | from the realization that American society is too large and | too diverse to be effectively governed by a centralized | bureaucracy. This is why you hear people complaining about | "state's rights". | | However, for people who explicitly wish to control society | and don't care about efficiency, centralized power is | great. It means they only have to win one argument to | impose their will on 330M people, not 50 separate | arguments. This is why so much attention is paid to the | federal government in the US, as opposed to state or local | government. | fleddr wrote: | Population size doesn't matter for taxes, yet having many | different types of rules (perhaps at state level?) could | indeed be a complicating factor. If that's the case, I'll | take your word for it. | | But do hear me out once more. The dutch tax system is | anything but simple. It has an extremely complex rule | set. | | And because it is so complex, leaving the understanding | of it to citizens has led to an enormous burden of | processing and correcting faulty entries, staffing | massive support desks, and so on. | | So they solved complexity, centrally. The rules are just | as complex as before, but the process and UI make it a | breeze for a good 75%. | | With this I mean to say that complexity is in fact | another reason to solve things centrally. Why would you | want to spread complexity around? | avalys wrote: | I'm not talking about taxes in particular, I'm just | talking about government in general. | | The US federal government is 20x larger than that of the | Netherlands. The US is also more economically, socially, | and ethnically diverse than the Netherlands. Larger | systems are harder to manage. | pyuser583 wrote: | I pay a CPA several hundred dollars to do taxes ... they do so | much more than file the taxes. | | They create detailed financial records which are useful beyond | filing taxes. | | I don't know if Intuit is helpful in this regards. | willio58 wrote: | Add this to the reasons I would never consider working for | Intuit. This and making taxes harder to do for everyone in the | US. | mike_ivanov wrote: | This year I paid TurboTax extra to get their "professional | advice". I didn't get any. Had to find a real accountant to solve | the problem. This was my last year of using TT. | nrmitchi wrote: | I did this once. | | The "professional" they connected me with turned out too _not | actually be a CPA_ , and was an IRS "Enrolled Agent" instead, | and did all of my taxes wrong. I don't mean "the math was a | little off", I mean "used all of the wrong forms" because he | was was unaware of the criteria to be considered a Resident | Alien for tax purposes. | | Further, when I tried to contact this individual again (through | Turbo Tax), Turbo Tax had shut down the program and was | blackhole-ing all of the email without notice. | | It cost me thousands of dollars after-the-fact to get fixed. | vfclists wrote: | If the article is right the people most affected by this don't | read Hacker News or pluralistic.net for that matter. | | The readers on Hacker News are also less likely to follow up the | issue with their representatives. | | So why don't the authors find a way to directly target the most | affected people and get them to complain to their | representatives? | | PS. Why do some people tend to blame corporations for the corrupt | behaviour of their congressmen and senators? If lawmakers are | corrupt they should be the ones who should be targeted. | | Companies are simply doing what they can do within the law to | gain an advantage. They deal in "legality" not "morality". | lowbloodsugar wrote: | Further evidence of the "Conspiracy Practice" discussed yesterday | on HN. | lokar wrote: | I know Intuit has legislators at the federal level in their | pockets, but I would think that in a place like California it | would be harder. Has there been any progress to have simple | automatic filing for state taxes? | Rebelgecko wrote: | California has its own tax website fairly similar to TurboTax | called CalFile. One of the devs is even here on HN. | | Unfortunately CalFile seems to be intentionally gimped e.g. | only usable if you're under a certain income threshold and | technically you're not supposed to use it if you have capital | gains or loses (but since cap gains are treated as regular | income in CA it works fine if you still use it) | Spooky23 wrote: | Lol. No. | | State Legislators are really cheap. Donate <$500 and you'll be | able to get in-person meetings. | throwaway413 wrote: | All of the people supercritical of Intuit in this thread make me | wonder, do they think the government would truly be providing a | service on par with TurboTax? When has the government ever done | Internet right...looking at you, Healthcare.gov. | | $90 bucks a year to ensure your taxes are right, with a | streamlined interface that almost anyone can follow, that returns | you back significant value in time and tax return... | | Intuit legally cannot sell your information like other companies | can, because they are in the business of taxes. | | People here LOVE to tell founders, "oh, you should be charging | for your product! Otherwise it isn't sustainable!" | | I'm sorry, would you rather TT be free and them be slanging your | data like Facebook and Amazon? Or alternatively, the government | just in charge of replacing it with a congruent service? I didn't | think so. | skeeter2020 wrote: | In Canada (Alberta) but recently used their health link portal | and was very impressed with almost all of it. I don't want the | government competing with private organizations in what are | clearaly market-driven domains, but income tax preparation | against a few oligopolistic predators? Absolutely! | | >> $90 bucks a year to ensure your taxes are right | | Did you read the article? This is about how Intuit defeated an | effort to provide credits to very poor people who might not | even file a return by saying "we'll take care of this for you" | then creating an obivously sub-par product. This market doesn't | have $90 for this specific service, or likely a computer beyond | their phone. | throwaway413 wrote: | I was commenting on the generic complaint you hear about | Intuit's fees for tax preparation, not on this article's | content specifically. | | The website from the article is pure crap, I'll say that. | stouset wrote: | The government literally already computes the number they | expect you to owe. It's how they send you a letter if your own | calculations come up short (or long, in which case they will in | fact contact you to issue you a refund). If the government | simply sends you their calculations ( _which they are already | computing anyway_ ) and you disagree, you would still be able | to file an amended return with a company like TurboTax. | | Why do you think it is--specifically--that a multitude of other | governments can manage to accomplish this feat, but the United | States government shouldn't be able to? | throwaway413 wrote: | To be honest, I don't know much at all about how taxes work | in other countries, including those at or greater than the | population scale of the US. | | It's a good point, I will learn more about it. | | Regarding the first point. You trust the government to do | that for you? Genuinely asking. I have no stance formed on | that yet. | caseyross wrote: | What's telling is that TurboTax's UX is _really, really, good,_ | deceptive pricing aside. Like, so good I almost enjoy using it to | do my taxes. | | The very fact that Intuit has clearly invested money into making | a beautiful interface for a tax program, a program that people | use _once a year_ , just goes to show how profitable the current | arrangement is for them, and how determined they are to keep the | average taxpayer from switching to any competing tax filing | ecosystem. | readflaggedcomm wrote: | I disagree that their interface is good, even in the simplest | tier. | | I get absurd cosmetic delays and animations, text that's | tweaked to be so pale and thin that it disappears in some | browsers, and tedious wizard-style workflow that you have to | traverse half a dozen times when the vague language doesn't | match the data on your forms. And don't get me started on | confusing between "activities" (that's the official term, not | Intuit's fault) because there's no way to see where you are in | the process or show an overview until the end, and the final | result is in a different format that I can't reconcile with | what I filled in. | throwaway413 wrote: | Do you think if it was a government program that it would have | the same level of UX polish and ease of use? | throwawayboise wrote: | Their other big (maybe bigger?) cash cow for Intuit is | Quickbooks. It's _the_ system most small businesses use, | because their accountants are integrated with it and push all | their clients to use it. | ilamont wrote: | Yep. Accountants don't want to try anything else. | | And it's shocking how bad some of the QBO integrations are, | especially for newish technologies. Intuit even screwed up | PayPal in a way that some accountants don't want to use it | (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT5zKWBXtQU), forcing a | labor intensive manual process. | SamBam wrote: | Strongly disagree. | | It _is_ well designed to hold you by the hand if you just go | down the happy-path of what a user who has all their documents | in hand when the right question pops up on the screen. | | It's poorly designed for people who want to go back, people who | just want to input their forms, and people who value their | time. There is no reason each question needs to take up its own | screen, instead of being a list. There is no reason it needs to | pretend to calculate for 15 seconds after every few questions. | minikites wrote: | >TurboTax's UX is really, really, good | | It's really not. It's hard to keep track of where you are in | your return and easy to get lost. You can't paste into any | credential field for fetching information from your bank or | other outside data source. | slg wrote: | I wish people in the US would stop blaming specific bad actors in | a system for acting in their own best interest and start blaming | the system that empowers them. ExxonMobil and Intuit lobby the | government in their own best interest just like FAANG companies | and basically everyone else that has the size to do it. That is | how our system is designed. It isn't Intuit's fault this works, | but since it does work, they would be stupid not to do it. Blame | the legal and political system for allowing what they do to work | and/or go unpunished. Don't blame individual actors for | responding to systemic incentives. | burnished wrote: | So just.. leave the bad actors out of the narrative? | | It feels like if one does that, then you come back and say "but | who is doing [bad thing]? where is the evidence?". You can't | just leave the people causing the problem out, as if it were | some how rude to name the people pissing in the pool. | slg wrote: | I never said we need to leave the bad actors out of the | narrative. I am simply talking about not placing the blame on | them. | | It is the equivalent of a blameless postmortem. We are in a | constant cycle of firing interns for pushing costly bugs into | production without ever wondering why we are allowing interns | to push to production without supervision. We just fire the | intern and think the problem is fixed. We have learned that | isn't a good way to run a company, but we haven't learned | that isn't a good way to run a society. | skeeter2020 wrote: | Would you fire an intern who intentionally and repeatedly | pushed broken code to production because for whatever | reason it was in their best interest? We fire bad actors | all the time. | jakelazaroff wrote: | How do you propose to garner support to fix the system | _without_ drawing attention to the bad actors? "A multi- | billion dollar company has been lobbying the IRS so it can | steal money from the most vulnerable taxpayers" is far more | compelling than "poor people pay more taxes than they have to". | slg wrote: | >How do you propose to garner support to fix the system | without drawing attention to the bad actors? | | Is there any evidence that drawing attention to bad actors | actually garners political support to fix this? Look at the | comments here, almost everyone is talking about the problems | with Intuit and not how to fix this systemically. | | What we need is grassroots political change. This specific | issue regarding tax prep is a symptom of larger systemic | problems caused by two main issues. First-past-the-post | voting means that people generally only have two viable | choices when voting. Anyone who is a single issue voter and | their single issue is the tax prep industry is extremely rare | and frankly in my opinion crazy. This means that no one has | any incentive to change the status quo. The second problem is | how US's free speech laws (or perhaps more accurately the | current interpretation of these laws) basically create a near | free-for-all in terms of campaign financing. Since there is | almost no strong motivation for change, the only people | involved in the discussion about tax prep are the people who | are already invested in the industry. They obvious have a | huge incentive to lobby against the death of their industry. | So you have an issue in which we have little public | motivation for change versus an entire industry that would be | willing to dedicate all their profit to fighting change. It | isn't surprising we see the results we see. | | >A multi-billion dollar company has been lobbying the IRS so | it can steal money from the most vulnerable taxpayers" is far | more compelling than "poor people pay more taxes than they | have to". | | I am not making the second argument. I am generalizing the | first argument to "multi-billion dollar companies have been | lobbying the government to steal money from everyone, let's | adjust our system to stop that". | skeeter2020 wrote: | >> What we need is grassroots political change. | | I'd argue that someone drawing attention to specific bad | actors is implicitly saying "stop these people from doing | this" which is far more actionable than your generic "What | we need is wide-spread, bipartisan support for change". | What am I supposed to do with that? | intrepidhero wrote: | I think its fair to blame both. | azinman2 wrote: | Intuit is a perfect example to me of the flawed reality in a | libertarian ideology. We know they're terrible, we know their | products aren't great... yet where are all the meaningful | competitors? People who are at least meeting their bar if not | substantially exceeding it? It's not like this is a new industry | that takes time to bake. Where are the YC startups trying to take | them on? Meanwhile they continue to make live expensive and | complicated for the rest of us just so they have a guaranteed | revenue stream! | syshum wrote: | Aside from the fact you are wrong about there being no | competition, In the libertarian ideology income based taxation | is unethical theft, thus under libertarian ideology Intuit tax | software would not be needed at all, thus no reason for them to | lobby congress, etc | vlunkr wrote: | If you looks around other comments, people are suggesting | alternatives. freetaxusa has my vote. Also I would bet that | every town in the country with more than a couple thousand | people has an office downtown where someone will file for you | and probably charge less than H&R Block would. That doesn't | cover all of their products, but certainly in the filing space | they are not the only option. | runawaybottle wrote: | I think their software is good and I usually have a very easy | time filing taxes. In comparison, I remember filling out my | FAFSA application and that being long ordeal. I don't think | government has the willingness to create a seamless tax-filing | experience. | | Who is stopping the IRS from making a competing easy to use tax | filing website? Are people suggesting Intuit is stopping a good | product team from operating within the IRS? | jakelazaroff wrote: | _> Who is stopping the IRS from making a competing easy to | use tax filing website? Are people suggesting Intuit is | stopping a good product team from operating within the IRS?_ | | Yes. The IRS signed an agreement with a coalition of | companies called the Free File Alliance (including Intuit) | stipulating that if the latter would provide free filing, the | IRS wouldn't create a competing product. [1] Intuit then | delisted the TurboTax Free File page from search engines [2] | so taxpayers would only be able to find the version that | directs users to pay. Only 3% of taxpayers took advantage of | Free File products -- remember, these are products _made by | tax prep companies like Intuit_ -- even though over 70% are | eligible. [3] | | [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/inside- | turbotax-20-year-f... | | [2] https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-deliberately- | hid... | | [3] https://www.propublica.org/article/free-file-online-tax- | prep... | krferriter wrote: | They're a corrupt, profiteering company that does everything | it legally can to stop people from filing taxes for free. | | https://www.propublica.org/article/inside- | turbotax-20-year-f... | runawaybottle wrote: | But listen to my argument, I'm willing to pay to have an | easier time filing my taxes. I'm not going to use IRS's | tool if it doesn't make it a painless process like | TurboTax. | | So I ask again, will the IRS make a painless tool? If the | answer is yes, but Intuit is lobbying them not to, then I | understand your point. | | If it's just about free vs non-free, I could care less. | Filing taxes or filling out anything for the government is | usually an awful experience and I'm willing to pay to not | have to deal with it. | only_as_i_fall wrote: | Most other first world countries manage to offer some | form of return-free filing. In that instance you wouldn't | have to fill out anything at all. | hairofadog wrote: | > So I ask again, will the IRS make a painless tool? If | the answer is yes, but Intuit is lobbying them not to, | then I understand your point. | | Exactly this, yes. It's well documented all over the | place, but here are a couple of examples: | | https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be- | fre... | | https://www.economist.com/democracy-in- | america/2013/04/02/it... | | In any case, thanks to the folks in this thread | suggesting alternatives. I was going to switch to Credit | Karma last year, but literally the day after I created an | account I woke up to the news that Intuit had bought | them. | | Edit: I see down-thread someone says they had to spin out | the tax-filing portion of the business? | alteria wrote: | Square acquired Credit Karma's Tax business, probably | folding it into CashApp | | [1] https://squareup.com/us/en/press/credit-karma-tax | | [2] https://www.pymnts.com/news/partnerships- | acquisitions/2020/c... | callmeal wrote: | >So I ask again, will the IRS make a painless tool? If | the answer is yes, but Intuit is lobbying them not to, | then I understand your point. | | Yes, IRS would have made a painless tool, but for that | lobbying. | | https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/turbotax-h-r- | block-sp... | Wavelets wrote: | The problem isn't that the IRS won't make a painless | tool. The issue is that Intuit actively works to make | sure the tax code stays as complicated as possible. | Ideally the tax code is so simple that complicated tools | aren't necessary for your average filer. | [deleted] | azinman2 wrote: | It's more than that: they stopped the potential practice | of the IRS sending you a pre-filled out tax form with | what they know that you could then just sign and accept, | as is done is many other countries. | wayoutthere wrote: | Their software is _not_ very good and a legit accountant | costs about $200 if your taxes are relatively simple. Said | acccountant will save you more than $200 over TurboTax | because TurboTax is not very good -- this goes double if | you're in a more complex tax situation. And the accountant is | even more seamless since all you do is hand over your | paperwork and let them do everything else. | | And the great irony is that said accountant is likely using | an Intuit product anyway. So it's not like they don't have | the ability to make good products for the consumer market, | they choose not to. | haltingproblem wrote: | I often help my friend who is also my accountant with his | systems. He has to use various Intuit Pro Tax products. These are | straight out of 90s boxed software land. Installing and using | them in this day and age of polished software is like taking a | step back into a timemachine especially when networking is | involved. He pays thousands of dollars /year for these products | and the technical issues with data sharing, networking, printing | are just incredible. | | Another thing that is jarring is the regard that Scott Cook, the | founder of Intuit is held in the valley. He was apparently a | mentor and coach to many founders Jobs? Page/Brin? and others. | But the disconnect with his sterling image as a coach and leader | and the general dark patterns/crappiness of Intuit products is | something that is interesting. | hydroxideOH- wrote: | What should I use to file my taxes if I want to move away from | TurboTax? | niij wrote: | A local, independent, tax preparer. There's plenty of | individuals who are partially retired that help file simple tax | returns for ~$50 during tax season. | 4d66ba06 wrote: | I like TaxAct | organman91 wrote: | If you are willing to do ALL of the leg work yourself, | https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form... | commandlinefan wrote: | > ALL of the leg work yourself | | Every year, I go ahead and self-prepare my taxes, and then | type all the data into Turbotax to see if they find something | I missed, and every year they do, and it's in my favor (and | always worth more than the Turbotax fee). OTOH, I've seen | suggestions that Intuit themselves have had a hand in making | the tax preparation process so complex that humans can't | possibly get it right without them. | cableshaft wrote: | I've had great luck with freetaxusa.com, personally. I've been | using them to file taxes for like, 10 years now. | | E-filing the federal tax form is free, and state tax form is | only like $14 I think, really cheap, and the website does a | good job taking you through it step by step in an easy to | understand way. | jwond wrote: | Yeah, I use FreeTaxUSA also. It doesn't have all the | integrations that Turbo Tax et al. have, so you have to spend | a bit more time manually entering your figures, but I had no | issues. | | You can also double check the numbers if you want by going | through another service like Turbo Tax but stopping before | the payment step. | somehnguy wrote: | +1 for freetaxusa.com | | I used them this year after getting screwed by Intuit again | last year and swore it would be the last time. Their UI isn't | quite as shiny but still very straightforward and easy to use | for someone like me who knows almost nothing about taxes | besides 'I need to do them'. | | I'll use them again next year too, was very happy with the | service. | black6 wrote: | Pen and paper. I've been doing it for the past several years. | paulproteus wrote: | I work at Code for America on the Tax Benefits team, and we're | working on a different website to apply for the Child Tax Credit. | (See https://www.getctc.org/ and https://www.getyourrefund.org/. | ) From the original article: > Alas, all [People's Policy | Project's website] can do is funnel users into Intuit's terrible | [child tax credit] site. Today at work, I'm learning how to use | the IRS's e-File SOAP API in the hopes that we can build a flow | that is easier to use than Intuit's. Feel free to subscribe to | our newsletter. :) https://info.codeforamerica.org/newsletter See | also https://www.codeforamerica.org/news/meet-code-for- | americas-n... for how we're thinking about this work. | nimish wrote: | How did you get access to the SOAP api? Doesn't it need a bunch | of verification and special dev accounts with IRS ? Would be | great for the docs to be public. | | >To receive the distribution of schema packages, you must have | an active e-services account and be listed on an e-File | application with the provider option of Software Developer. | Your role on the e-File Application must be Principal, | Responsible Official, or a Delegated User with MeF authorities. | If you are a registered user in e-services and are listed on a | State e-File application, you will receive this distribution. | krferriter wrote: | Given how much H&R Block and Intuit have unethically and | corruptly leeched from the government and the taxpayers directly, | I think the should literally be nationalized and have their tax | software platforms absorbed into the IRS. Their company | activities over the last few decades are so flagrantly, | indisputably bad for the country. There's literally no upside, | none at all. They have intentionally sabotaged tax filing and | leeched off the people by corruptly inserting themselves as | middlemen. At least the tax prep portions of the companies. | SaltyBackendGuy wrote: | I wish that our government (the people who allowed them to be | the middle man) would take some accountability. But I guess | that would be uncharacteristic. | toomuchtodo wrote: | Citizens voted these people in, the blames lies with the | electorate. | hanniabu wrote: | They get elected on one thing and do another. They should | be held liable for misleading their base at the very least. | Also misinformation and propaganda is rampant so it's very | difficult to make educated decisions, now more than ever. | akira2501 wrote: | The citizens without the ability to directly recall the | elected are to blame? There is a serious power and | attention imbalance here, and the laws to do not leave the | power in the hands of the citizens outside of a single day | every few years. | | It's hard for me to believe they are the source of the | problem, particularly with such a shabby fourth estate. | x86_64Ubuntu wrote: | The citizenry elects the people who could overturn the | laws preventing a recall. It's just not that important to | the citizenry. | thatguy0900 wrote: | The citizens cannot police the federal electorate. At best, | they can police local politicians and maybe a few big | ticket federal items. They have too much going on in their | own lives to police federal politicians passing hundred | page bills every week. | toomuchtodo wrote: | I don't know what to tell you. A small minority of | politicians can prevent progress, and there is little | recourse for the rest of us. The buck has to stop | somewhere. | thatguy0900 wrote: | Unfortunately that seems to be the case. Outside of a few | changing hot button topics they have basically free | reign,and 99.99% of people will never hear about their | actions. | EamonnMR wrote: | Every weird tax rule that makes your tax filing harder is a tax | break for someone and that person will fight to keep it. | jeffrallen wrote: | Corporate death penalty. If corporations are people, and the | USA insists on keeping the barbaric death penalty, at least | they should use it on companies. | | Exxon would be another nice target. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _Corporate death penalty_ | | Corporations are legal fictions. If you're wiping out | shareholders and creditors, who do the assets go to? If you | aren't wiping them out, what are you doing? Corporate death | penalties are ultimately meaningless without an expropriation | component. | | Better: massive fines and/or pulling critical licenses. | Arthur Andersen and Enron were felled through these | mechanisms. They are legal. They are proven. They are | precedented and they work. | | If you wantonly break the law, you should not be a going | concern. But "nationalization" and "corporate death penalty" | are political hot potatoes. (I'm entirely sidestepping the | argument as to whether that's reasonable.) If you want these | companies shut down, or fearful of being shut down, credibly | threatening to break them up, fine them into bankruptcy or | suspend their licenses ( _e.g._ for Intuit, their tax | preparation license) is more effective. | minikites wrote: | I agree wholeheartedly and I think health insurance companies | should receive the same treatment, they act in the same way and | cause the same problems. The incentives of these companies are | at odds with the interests of society and they should be run by | society, not for private profit. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _should literally be nationalized_ | | Political note: calls for nationalisation, in American | politics, is a gift to the other side. It lets one paint the | opposition as extremists without grounding in U.S. | Constitutional law or the economic history of countries that | regularly expropriate property. | | I get the impulse. But literally any other phrasing--massive | fines, criminal prosecution, open-licensing requirements, _et | cetera_ --is more productive for any aim other than blowing | steam. | bestcoder69 wrote: | Allowing "nationalization" to remain a dirty word (and not | "privatization") is a much bigger gift. | | Why should it be off the table? Does the average person even | give a shit about the public/private status of Intuit? I get | conservatives will complain but they will (and do) literally | call ANY improvement to the IRS Communism. Is the hope that | if you play language games they'll see the light? | alkonaut wrote: | I guess it would be easier and better to just strangle them | by simplifying the tax code, sending pre-filled returns to | _everyone_ and making a simple and accessible web app for | people to file theit taxes with a few clicks. | | Intuit aren't alone in this scheme. There must be people | who think taxes should be complex and scary, so would be | against making it easy and convenient. What I wonder though | is: aren't there any such people in the rest of the | developed world where filing taxes IS simple? | maxmamis wrote: | > Political note: calls for nationalisation, in American | politics, is a gift to the other side. | | Perhaps you should rephrase this as "calls for | nationalization run counter to my own free-market ideology" | rather than a) assuming you know what everybody else thinks, | and b) suggesting that conventional wisdom should dictate the | bounds of acceptable discourse. | | Not to mention, plenty of countries -- the US included -- | have successfully nationalized companies and entire | industries. | GavinMcG wrote: | A practical understanding of the country's political | messaging isn't the same thing as free-market ideology. I'm | not especially free-market, but I recognize that poor | messaging gets picked up by Fox News (for example) who beat | their drum over and over and over again such that the | underlying ideas have a huge uphill battle to fight. | Miraste wrote: | Unless you go back to FDR, the US has only "nationalized" | (bailed out) companies when they were on the verge of | collapse with catastrophic economic consequences, and | because of 9/11. Nationalizing a functioning company, no | matter how evil, would be unprecedented and immediately | fail after being labeled communist. I'm not commenting on | the merits of the idea here, only the political reality. | tmp_anon_22 wrote: | > labeled communist | | Its so crazy to me that some Americans label abstract | ideas as evil. Communism == evil. Socialism == evil. Many | welfare programs == evil. Immigrant labor == evil. High | minimum wage == evil. Some languages, religions, cultures | == evil. Stop subverting the English language because | you're too lazy to check a thesaurus. None of those | things are evil. | syshum wrote: | I can not think of a single company or industries the US | has nationalized that I would consider a "success" | tyre wrote: | The comment you are replying to is not assuming that they | know how everyone else thinks, _nor_ are they saying what | is "acceptable discourse". | | They are, rather, making a statement about strategy and | messaging in American politics; a point which has borne out | in countless political contests over the past decade alone. | There is a reason why Republicans try to say | "socialis(t/ism)" as often as possible. It works. | | One example off the top of my head is Florida during the | most recent presidential election. The Republicans beat the | drums of socialism broadly and especially targeted at | Cuban-Americans who immediately think of Castro. Voters who | might otherwise skew towards Biden went Trump. | | Again, that's one example, but the point is about | _messaging_ and how the electorate in America broadly (not | 100%, everywhere, etc.) responds to "socialism". | (Nationalization being, of course, clearly tied to | socialism.) | minikites wrote: | >It lets one paint the opposition as extremists | | This happens regardless of how extreme or radical the | proposal is, so why start from a position of compromise? This | is what happens when one party cries "wolf" for 40 years. | slumdev wrote: | > Political note: calls for nationalisation, in American | politics, is a gift to the other side. | | Populism changes the equation. Populism blurs the left/right | split. | | Populists of all political persuasions can get behind | nationalizing Intuit. | hannasanarion wrote: | Because as we all know, privatization never leads to perverse | incentives and anti-competitive or anti-consumer behavior. | Just look at the American telecom industry, which is famous | for high satisfaction and low prices with no price fixing, | tying, market segmentation, or any other cartel-like behavior | to be seen. | KorematsuFred wrote: | American telecom industry has done much better after US | government ended government granted monopoly to bell labs. | Plenty of literature on that topic actually. Same for | aviation. | | Whatever bad things you see with ATT and Comcast are | actually a direct result of city granted monopolies which | will likely be ended by Musk's Starlink sooner or later. | hannasanarion wrote: | How have they done better? Prices have risen | substantially as quality of service stagnates or | deteriorates unless the companies are given grants and | subsidies by governments to compel them to upgrade | infrastructure at the taxpayer's expense. All the while | they reap ever growing profits and lobby to get their | employees onto regulatory boards to prevent any pro- | consumer regulation. | | "city-granted monopolies", are you kidding? The | monopolies exist because of non-competition arrangements | between companies. A city can't have anything but a | monopoly when only one company willing to run cable | because they've made everybody else agree to keep off | their turf. | | And starlink won't save anybody. For one thing, satellite | internet already exists, you can buy it from providers | like Viasat, DirecTV, and Hughesnet: it's expensive and | the latency is outrageous because of the speed-of-light | distance to satellites. | | I get that you're just reciting the propaganda talking | points that you've heard from news organizations and | media properties (which are all now owned by telecom | monopolies thanks to all the cash they have to spare from | the extremely profitable telecom business, funny how that | works), but a person can hope. | ShroudedNight wrote: | > And starlink won't save anybody. For one thing, | satellite internet already exists, you can buy it from | providers like Viasat, DirecTV, and Hughesnet: it's | expensive and the latency is outrageous because of the | speed-of-light distance to satellites. | | Starlink latency is materially improved from traditional | satellite internet providers. 20ms vs 500ms. Conflating | them borders on equivocation. | KorematsuFred wrote: | > I think the should literally be nationalized and have their | tax software platforms absorbed into the IRS. | | This is an extremist view and basically advocating theft. I do | not think IRS has competence to build and run a complex | software system. | | > Their company activities over the last few decades are so | flagrantly, indisputably bad for the country | | That is debatable. | | > There's literally no upside, none at all. They have | intentionally sabotaged tax filing and leeched off the people | by corruptly inserting themselves as middlemen | | They have not inserted themselves anywhere. You are free to use | CPA or do all the paperwork yourself and save yourself $70 | bucks. | RC_ITR wrote: | This is the group you think will defend the little guy? "IRS: | Sorry, but It's Just Easier and Cheaper to Audit the Poor"[0] | | [0]https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just- | ea... | specialist wrote: | TLDR?: IRS can't feasibly inform beneficiaries of CTC. Because it | doesn't have a relationship with them. Because Intuit cock | blocks. | | Right? | | Doctrow always baffles me. By the end of any article, I can't | remember what we're talking about. | | Where's the call to action? Doctrow had me at "Intuit sucks". | Just tell me where to shoot. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-06-30 23:00 UTC)