[HN Gopher] FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax "free" fi... ___________________________________________________________________ FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax "free" filing campaign Author : Kesseki Score : 369 points Date : 2022-03-29 17:53 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.ftc.gov) (TXT) w3m dump (www.ftc.gov) | flerchin wrote: | Freetaxusa is so great. | rhexs wrote: | Love the product as well. Great pricing, handles my complicated | return fine. I do miss Turbotax auto importing everything, but | doing it manually helps me understand what I'm doing better. | CogitoCogito wrote: | Do you know if Freetaxusa supports declaring international | income/taxes? | | Edit: I looks like they don't :( | | Items Not Supported Foreign employment income | (Form 2555) | | https://www.freetaxusa.com/supported_forms.jsp | belval wrote: | I know that ship has sailed, but I really wish politicians would | go back to making promises that have an impact on everyone like | abolishing tax fillings. | | It might be different in the US, but in Canada I file my taxes | using the CRA's data directly. TurboTax even fetches it directly | from their website. What's the point? They have my T4, my T2202 | (studies) and everything else. Just send me a letter telling me | how much money I owe/I am owed and that's it. | crooked-v wrote: | In the US, the Republican Party has a history of intentionally | pushing for cumbersome tax filing as part of encouraging people | to hate the idea of taxes in general. | throwawayboise wrote: | That's why I do my taxes manually and mail them in. I want it | to be as painful as possible. | belval wrote: | I don't think it's a Republican thing, the Liberal party and | the NPD in Canada are both left-leaning and they have a | majority yet they aren't pushing for this. | | Pretty sure it's just run-of-the-mill lobbying and corruption | unfortunately. A typical "think of the jobs!" type of thing. | dwohnitmok wrote: | What parent is referring to is not just lack of pushing for | it, but _active_ campaigning against automatic filing. Not | a "think of the jobs" but "automatic filing is | intrinsically bad." | | See e.g. http://reason.org/files/ba148cd5babdda39f9ebb43b33 | 6b01d4.pdf | monetus wrote: | I wouldn't say its _not_ a republican thing, just also a | many other people /groups thing. You're right, just wanted | to emphasize that. | heavyset_go wrote: | Republicans and the Liberal party in Canada are both | neoliberal when it comes to their economic policies, they | mostly only diverge on social issues and social services. | slavik81 wrote: | It kinda already had been addressed. SimpleTax was released | as donationware and the CRA introduced NETFILE and | Autofill. Filing a return today is way easier than in, say, | 2011. Buying TurboTax has been unnecessary for a decade. | justin_oaks wrote: | I've heard that too. And the idea is disgusting to me. I | assume those who genuinely espouse this idea are those who | are rich enough to have an accountant do all their taxes for | them. | | Is it really necessary to "encourage" me to dislike taxes? Is | not the money leaving my pocket sufficient? | | I've also heard Republicans claiming that IRS-provided tax | bills/refunds is equivalent to a tax. I guess the implication | is that the government is going to intentionally charge you | more. | | Having to use TurboTax or someting like it is equivalent to a | tax, but it's paid to a corporation instead of the | government. If I had to choose between my money going to the | government and Intuit, I'd choose the government. | jeffwask wrote: | Intuit and HR Block spend way too much on US lobbying for that | to change. The first step has to be repealing Citizen's United. | | https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f... | anamax wrote: | > The first step has to be repealing Citizen's United. | | Citizen's United was a group that made a political-advocacy | movie and the FEC wanted to treat it as regulated political | activity. | UncleMeat wrote: | It was. And the consequence of this ruling was nearly | unlimited amounts money being spent on the reelection | campaigns of various lawmakers by corporations, with the | obvious intent being to install friendly legislators. | wnevets wrote: | The sad thing is its not even a lot of money if you consider | how much profit they make. Politicians are surprisingly cheap | jeffwask wrote: | True. Large on people scale not corporation scale which is | why treating corporations like people is a terrible idea. | wnevets wrote: | maybe the rest of us should start a gofundme so we can | pool together our funds and buy a few politicians. | munk-a wrote: | This has actually been done rather often in the past, you | can start a donor driven PAC that can compete with | corporate lobbyists with crowdfunding. It's generally | quite a bit cheaper too because while we all love to | criticize politicians for only listening to monied | interests if they can raise some campaign funds _and_ get | brownie points for their voting base they 're happy to | dramatically spurn the corporate funding they'd otherwise | accept with open arms. | | Honestly though, actually reaching out to your | representatives and talking to them is far more effective | than most people assume. | rch wrote: | I'm considering starting a 501(c)(4) to advocate for | state level legislation, but I wonder if something like a | PAC might be more effective. | istjohn wrote: | Take 5 minutes to complain to your elected representatives | every time you file taxes. | ratsmack wrote: | The only people that your representative listens to is the | ones that fill their political war chest with a lot of | money. | revscat wrote: | CU will never be peacefully repealed. | xtracto wrote: | In Mexico if you are an average employee earning less than | around $50000 usd (I.e. most workers), your employer can "do" | your taxes (very simple, they report what they have withheld | from you). | | If you have some amounts you want to regain from losses, etc., | you can still do your taxes manually. | | That means logging into the free MEX IRS platform, which shows | all your tax info preffilled. Most likely the stuff you want to | input is already there (all invoices in mexico are signed by | private/public keys through the IRS system). | | So you just enter your bank account to get your money back. Or | get your reference to pay your taxes. | | The system is really beautiful. | LinuxBender wrote: | What would be required for the US to adopt this solution? | lupire wrote: | Congress passes a law to amend the Free File program. | | https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal- | taxes-f... | goosedragons wrote: | I missed including my T2202 one year and thought I owned a ton. | They then sent me a letter saying lol, no we owe you. So | pointless. | | What annoys me now is that if you want a paper booklet you have | to request one in advance if you did not use one previously but | otherwise there is no free to everyone option to do it. You | either request a paper booklet or use 3rd party software. | 41b696ef1113 wrote: | Everyone should listen to this Planet Money episode [0] going | into some of the politics surrounding making taxes easier. | | [0] | https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/03/709656642/epis... | a1371 wrote: | Intuit is one of the few companies that I don't hear any good | things about them. They always do something shady, last one I | recall was sharing employee salary info with Equifax. | | That's why despite my bookkeepers protests, we moved to another | accounting service and when they bought MailChimp I pulled my | whole company out of that too. | | I understand workplace is not always a place for activism, but I | could switch with reasonable effort and it made me feel good not | to fund this sort of behavior. | mywittyname wrote: | I found out from a friend that she paid $600 to have her taxes | done because (presumably) she falls for the dark patterns that | TurboTax uses. She's a low paid service worker whose tax return | can probably be done for free. And it is a sizable portion of her | income because of things like Earned income tax credits, child | tax credits, etc. | | Fuck these companies. | ngokevin wrote: | The government has enough information to process the taxes for | most of us or at least publicly make it super easy. TurboTax | just lobbies the government to not do so. | amelius wrote: | We need some FOSS freedom fighters to talk to the government | and fix this with or without free software. | tombert wrote: | About two weeks ago, I got a letter from the IRS telling me | that I owe an extra eight-thousand dollars from my 2020 | return, with a $1000 fine and $200 interest as a result. [1] | | I'm not mad about owing the money, but what annoys me is if | they have enough information to know that I underreported, | then why am _I_ part of this equation to begin with? Clearly | they have enough of my tax data to know I screwed up, so why | don 't they just send me a bill once a year? I don't see why | Intuit (or HR Block or TaxAct or Jackson Hewitt etc) need to | be part of this transaction at all. | | [1] It was an honest mistake on my end, I forgot to report a | sizeable stock sale I did in 2020. | thepangolino wrote: | lupire wrote: | You can file taxes without a software package, if you want. | You have to file because they want you to report things | they don't know about, and also if you want to claim | itemized deductions. | mattnewton wrote: | It'd be great if they just billed me and I was on the | hook for correcting them however. The current method is | doing math homework under penalty of being fined. | NeutronStar wrote: | codetrotter wrote: | Here in Norway, the government fills out our tax forms | for us with all of the information that has been reported | to them by our banks, our employers, etc. It is then our | responsibility as tax payers to look over the tax forms, | add anything not included, and adding any additional | claims for deductions. | | By comparison, the needless busywork that the IRS puts | the tax payers through is nothing short of ridiculous | really. It only serves to waste time and effort, and | there is plain and simple no reason whatsoever why the | IRS could not do it like Norwegian tax authorities does. | Our system here in Norway is not perfect either, but the | citizens of the United States, and the US government, | would benefit hugely from a tax filing system built to | help you file taxes the way that ours does for us. | rootusrootus wrote: | If it's the first time you've screwed up the return, you | might try calling them and ask to have the penalty waived | or reduced. That works pretty often on first-time | penalties. | naoqj wrote: | Darwin approves. | sillysaurusx wrote: | Realistically, how would you do your tax return for free? | | Keep in mind that every service worker is terrified of an | audit. The cost is much higher when you don't have resources. | | EDIT: I think I didn't phrase this very well. My point was that | the average service worker is trained to be terrified of the | IRS. These people are already usually paying hefty fines | because they missed their returns in prior years. That's why | they take the path of least resistance, and just pay someone | else as a shield against this. | | So it's not particularly surprising that TurboTax has swindled | this person out of $600 with their upsells. Nor should she be | condemned as a fool. If you were in her shoes, you might do the | same thing. | andybak wrote: | Maybe look how other countries do it? | | Like with your health system, a lot of us are slightly | baffled by how broken things are in the US. | rurp wrote: | There are many free filing options for anyone with an average | salary from a straightforward W2 source. I went years without | paying to file, until I got into freelancing and a higher tax | bracket. | | Being audited isn't much of a concern if your only source of | income is a typical W2 job. The average service worker isn't | throwing money around in stocks, crypto, blackjack, and | corporate entities. | washadjeffmad wrote: | 1090ez, or any of a dozen free-file options? State returns | are cheap if not free almost everywhere. | | The vast majority of the people who qualify for free tax | filing have nothing to audit. The government makes enough | money off their deductions, not to mention what they generate | having to spend >50% of their income to stay afloat, to | overlook a few unreported tips or sneaker sales. | tonguez wrote: | I would get rid of the tax return process as the only purpose | for its existence is to waste the time of poor people and | thus keep the government boot on their face. | jdavis703 wrote: | Heck I'm a high skilled, non-essential employee and I fell for | this trap for years. Next year I'm using Cash App. But it's | wild what brand recognition can do. | [deleted] | tareqak wrote: | FTC's own press release: https://www.ftc.gov/news- | events/news/press-releases/2022/03/... | alephnan wrote: | I'm curious how independent the FTC is from political pressure | and lobbyists? | | In the way there is a revolving door with the SEC, is there a | revolving door at the FTC? | usednet wrote: | Yes. The FTC, BigLaw, and tech are highly interconnected. | | > Public Citizen found that just over 75 percent of top FTC | officials (31 out of 41) over the past two decades have either | left the agency to serve corporate interests confronting FTC | issues, joined the agency after serving corporate interests on | these issues, or both. | | https://www.citizen.org/article/ftc-big-tech-revolving-door-... | alephnan wrote: | Right, so when an agency like the FTC flexes their muscle, | I'm a little bit cynical. | | Are they reminding BigTech that hey, they have political | power and some palms needs to be greased. | perardi wrote: | I know, I know, there's so many dark patterns in TurboTax that | it's cliche to point them out... | | ...but man, this was a particularly egregious example I came | across this year. | | https://imgur.com/ojpLvRW | | You can pay for TurboTax using your refund...with an _additional | $39 processing fee_. That is just wild. | jackson1442 wrote: | I think that's actually somewhat standard- even FreeTaxUSA (my | personal choice) does this because they're essentially letting | you use their product on credit. | ed_elliott_asc wrote: | Is there a way to do your taxes without paying any money? | Sohcahtoa82 wrote: | Doing them yourself is an option, but I prefer to be guided by | software. | | Credit Karma has an option to do taxes that is completely free, | but I tried it once a few years ago and didn't care for it. | | I use FreeTaxUSA which offers free federal and $7 state taxes. | Cheaper than a meal at Taco Bell. | ensignavenger wrote: | For most folks, CashApp Tax works fine. Its 100% Free. I have | used it since it came out (originally Credit Karma Tax). | Jxl180 wrote: | I own an LLC, traded stocks and crypto and CashApp handled it | all flawlessly. | aidangrimshaw wrote: | I'm working with other contributors on https://ustaxes.org, an | open source tax filing webapp | https://github.com/ustaxes/UsTaxes. | | Currently, many Federal tax forms are supported, as well as tax | filing for the state of Illinois. Filing for Oregon and | California is under development! | Someone1234 wrote: | In theory, yes. | | But few people actually do because it is a painful experience. | The IRS' documentation isn't actually bad, it is just that the | tax system itself is incredibly (and needlessly) complicated. | | For example, you'd need to hand-enter every stock trade (even | automated re-investments) even though your broker likely | already electronically sent this information to the IRS. Using | a digital solution they can often log into your broker and | auto-import everything. | | For how under-budget the IRS is and how bad the tax system is, | they do ok, but the whole thing needs a massive overhaul but | there is money in politics keeping it bad in order to profit | private companies (plus there's a certain demographic that | "hating taxes" is a political position that needs to be kept up | with, essentially self-reinforcing-itself). | crooked-v wrote: | Also, one might ask "why doesn't the IRS just send you a pre- | filled copy of the forms, and you only correct them if | they're wrong?". | | The answer is "because Congress passed a law saying they | can't". | zentiggr wrote: | Doing the next step of the root cause analysis leads to | "Intuit lobbied Congress and the IRS hard enough that they | passed a law, and the IRS conspired to change their | procedures". | rootusrootus wrote: | Except Intuit hasn't paid anywhere near enough in | lobbying money to have that kind of effect. Grover | Norquist is the last step in your root cause analysis. | paulpauper wrote: | what is to stop someone from just underreporting and blaming | laziness or the process being too complicated. either the | govt. audits it themselves or does nothing. the benefit of | the doubt is on your side. | LanceH wrote: | Late fee interest and penalties are on their side. It's | statutory that you get it right, intent doesn't matter. | UncleMeat wrote: | We used to have to hand enter everything anyway. The auto- | import stuff is fairly new for all of the tax filing | products. TurboTax also fucks up the auto import for my RSUs. | Every single year there are a handful of people on the | financial planning groups posting "wtf I got a letter from | the government saying I owe $80,000" and it is uniformly | because one of these services' autoimport system set all of | the cost bases for RSUs to $0. | | The end result is that I hand-enter anyway, even when paying | $120 to Intuit for the privilege. | jfengel wrote: | If you made under $100,000 from salary and don't otherwise have | any complications (like dependents), a form 1040EZ really is | simple. There's no reason to use software for that. It's quite | straightforward. | | If you have deductions, stock sales, a nanny, a business, etc | then you need the regular 1040 and various schedules, and those | are all complex enough that you'd probably benefit from | software. It's not absolutely required, but there are enough | ways to do it wrong (like adding up the wrong lines) that the | peace of mind alone is probably worth it to you. | drdec wrote: | FYI, the 1040EZ form no longer exists. It was eliminated in | the name of simplifying the forms (don't ask me how that's | supposed to work). | [deleted] | ohples wrote: | bombcar wrote: | If your tax situation doesn't change much from year to year, | you can have a CPA or even TurboTax do this years, and next | year fill out the new forms based on the new numbers. | nonameiguess wrote: | You can go marry an Air Force officer. Military installations | offer free professional preparation services to anyone | stationed at the installation. | mindslight wrote: | Just pirate TurboTax. Torrent it, set up a fresh windows VM | with Internet access via VPN, install/update turbotax, crack it | to get the state version, make sure it's got live versions of | all the forms you need, disconnect Internet access (never to be | reconnected), copy previous year's data files to VM, do taxes, | print out and file by mail, copy data files off to long term | storage, save VM image in case you need to revisit any time | soon. | | Sure, it's a bit tedious. But short of a privacy-preserving | libre solution or just doing them manually with fillable PDFs, | you'd have to do most of that isolation prepwork anyway. So | fuck 'em. | | P.S. The directions for modifying .NET assemblies to crack | TurboTax are simple and easily followed by anyone with basic | programming skill. So if you're fine trusting Intuit you could | obtain the installation files from them directly, crack it | yourself, and even have e-filing capability from what I | understand. | Jxl180 wrote: | Or just use CashApp Tax. Your procedure makes it sound like | Turbo Tax is the only game in town. Turbo Tax isn't worth any | of the effort you mentioned. | mindslight wrote: | TurboTax is one of the few pieces of tax software meant for | offline use, thus letting you keep your personal | information from entering the permanent records of | surveillance valley. | | Just quickly looking at CashApp Tax, it appears it is an | Android app that likely will want network access to | function. If that meets your requirements, good for you. | But it doesn't meet mine. I'd also rather use the same | software year to year so that information is carried | forward, rather than being subject to whichever way the | startup winds blow. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _Is there a way to do your taxes without paying any money?_ | | Do them yourself. The IRS has guidance and resources for those | who are interested [1]. | | [1] https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal- | taxes-f... | lastofthemojito wrote: | You can absolutely do your own taxes, either on paper and | mail the forms or (possibly) via the Free File Fillable forms | mentioned on the page you linked (as long as you don't hit a | corner case). The Free File Fillable forms page [0] says | "Make sure we fully support the forms you need" and links to | another page with a lengthy list of limitations [1]. | | So yeah, we're in a place where the IRS says taxpayers | "should file electronically with direct deposit if at all | possible" [2] but also informs taxpayers that not everyone | can use the IRS's forms to file electronically. | | 0: https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable- | form... | | 1: https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable- | form... | | 2: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-begins-2022-tax-season- | urge... | CaptainNegative wrote: | Among unsupported forms, the validation step in Free | Fillable Forms also has a number or bugs that prevents | filing due to phantom arithmetic errors. It's beyond | frustrating filling out everything on FFF, then needing to | copy everything onto a third party service just to pay for | the privilege of having my data harvested by a shady | company and electronically filed exactly as it would have | otherwise. The current situation is unworkable. | robotcookies wrote: | Yes, I used to file taxes with paper forms from the IRS years | ago and this is free. There isn't even an income limit to do it | this way as far as I know. But of course it's more of a hassle | than doing it online as you have to buy stamps, go to the post | office, etc. | munk-a wrote: | It is quite possible to do them yourself especially if your | taxes are relatively simple - and in a lot of other countries | you'll just be mailed a bill or credit depending on how much | your withholding was along with a receipt to review if you | think they messed up somehow. American and Canada are held | hostage by tax software lobbyists though. | foxyv wrote: | Did my taxes this year using TurboTax like always. Sold some | stocks this year and all of a sudden I am paying $90 for TurboTax | "Premium" to put a couple additional entries in the 1040. What a | racket. Next year I'm going to file using something else. This | has gone on too long. | bombcar wrote: | Dirty secret: all versions of TurboTax have all the _forms_ - | you can just switch to form mode and enter the values yourself | into the forms. | munk-a wrote: | Even dirtier secret - the government is legally required to | publish all the forms in an accessible manner. You can just | download them without ever even installing any Intuit | software. | | Just to back this up with facts - here are the braille and | spanish language offerings which took all of two seconds of | googling: | | https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/irs-tax-forms-in-braille- | and-... | | https://apps.irs.gov/app/picklist/list/formsPublications.htm. | .. | bluGill wrote: | Let me know if you find anyone that is better. I'm sick of | TaxAct premium for the same reason. | | I'm ready to go back to doing my taxes by hand and mailing them | in. (I'm old enough to remember doing that - it is faster than | doing it on the computer except for the one year I forgot to | copy line 13 of form 1234A to line 56b of form 9876B) So many | dark patters where the software is pretending to take time | doing a complex calculation that takes a computer a couple | nanoseconds, not to mention all the time to skip over things | that don't apply to me. | colinmhayes wrote: | I'll second free tax usa. Quick process, $10. | rajup wrote: | FreeTaxUsa is great for most usecases, including stock sales. | It is free for federal filing, state is a bit extra ($10) | ThatPlayer wrote: | I used them for the first time and it was fine. But it | doesn't look like they support the state form I plan to use | for this year. Already contacted them asking for it next | year, but didn't receive a concrete answer. | davchana wrote: | Plus until now they always have 10% off with code FTUSA10 | 1991g wrote: | I also would vote for FreeTaxUSA, they have served me well. | I do however note the irony of them being named FreeTaxUSA | and in the same breath, mentioning that it costs to file. | Especially given the context of the thread in general. | tomc1985 wrote: | FreeTaxUsa forced me to manually enter my stock last year, | I had to provide a supplemental PDF form outlining each | transaction. | | Obnoxiously, this year TurboTax's integration with Binance | is broken. I haven't checked in a few weeks but it won't | accept Binance CSV's either. This needs to be fixed soon. | pvarangot wrote: | TuboTax web or the desktop application? Last year their | Schwab integration was broken on the web version but not | on the desktop version. | oh_sigh wrote: | I like them for the most part, but FTU tricked me this year | by forcing me to upload certain forms for a state EV tax | credit, and then just completely ignoring those uploaded | forms and not sending them to my state tax agency. I only | noticed it because I went over the final packet of state | tax forms and noticed the ones I uploaded weren't included. | Osiris wrote: | I use FreeTaxUsa.com. It's free for federal filing. | tzs wrote: | I used Cash App Taxes. I sold some mutual fund shares in 2021 | and it handled it fine. | | Here's a page describing forms and situations it does not | handle [1]. | | One thing that might annoy some people is that to login to the | Cash App Taxes website you must use their mobile app. The | website shows a QR code which you scan from the mobile app. | | It uses the approach of asking you various questions in order | to figure out what forms it thinks you need to file, which is | an approach that some people do not like. | | If there is a form you know you have to do that it missed or | you have a 1099-something that it has not asked you to enter it | took me a little while to figure out how to deal with that. | What you do is type the name of the form into the help search | box. One of the results will be a link to take you directly to | the page that deals with that form. | | [1] https://taxeshelp.cash.app/s/article/Forms-and-situations- | Ca... | sagarun wrote: | Cash App taxes has a bug where mortgage interest deduction is | not handled properly with state vs federal. If your mortgage | is more than 750000$ and your state is California or a state | allows deduction up to a million $ in mortgage interest then | you will end up getting a lower refund. | | I'd double check by filing with another software just to make | sure (i.e https://www.freetaxusa.com/) | dang wrote: | Related: | | https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.39... | | https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/turbotax-maker-s... | (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30846884, but we've | merged the threads) | pianoben wrote: | Fucking _finally_! | | Someday our descendants will have sane and automatic filing like | the rest of the developed world; I can only hope to live long | enough to see the death of this stupid industry. | gjsman-1000 wrote: | > "In some TurboTax ads, "almost every word spoken is the word | 'free.'" | | Really? There are some TurboTax ads where _every_ word spoken is | the word 'free.' ;) | MBCook wrote: | Wait, it's NOT free free free free? | throwawaygh wrote: | Almost. I thought that was hyperbole too, but... holy shit, | they aren't kidding: | | 1. https://www.tvcommercialad.com/watch/XosLKPV | | 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qDZA7j4rXU | | 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZV7l3AD5Nc | kn0where wrote: | Good, but the situation is so much worse than just this. Most | Americans could just use the IRS Free File system, which the | article mentions, instead of ever giving money to Intuit or H&R | Block ever again. But we don't heavily advertise that system, | because that would encourage people to use it, and if you're | going that far, you might as well let the IRS build its own tax | software with all your information prefilled like they do in | civilized countries. | | As long as the job of Congress is to kiss the ass of every | powerful industry lobby, we won't have good things. | itslennysfault wrote: | .... and just to be completely clear, this is only the way it | is because of HUGE lobbying spends by Intuit. | saddestcatever wrote: | IMO: The mind blowing element, is that in the grand scheme of | things _It 's not actually that much money_. | | I'm not sure if anyone knows the true amount, but estimates | put the number spent on lobbying around a few million | dollars. Opensecrets.org estimated ~$3.2m lobbying in 2021. | | https://www.opensecrets.org/federal- | lobbying/clients/summary... | | For a company that makes $2 BILLION dollars a year, the | amount they actually spend lobbying and otherwise influencing | governments is shockingly small. | throwaway81523 wrote: | That is called the | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tullock_paradox . | _jal wrote: | Politicians are surprisingly cheap, so long as you're | talking about topics that don't get a lot of press. | | And thanks to _Citizens United_ and similar decisions that | have driven up the cost of US elections, US pols are very | expensive compared to their counterparts in other | countries. | | It does make me wonder about the efficacy of standing up a | lobbying fund to lobby to Do The Right Thing about | something. This would be a prime example - I would happily | pay $100 to compete with Intuit's lobbying here. I'm also | certain there are 31,999 other people in the US who feel | the same way. | | I just don't have the energy to do the work of learning how | to set up the corporate structure around that to make it | legal. | l33t2328 wrote: | > standing up a lobbying fund to lobby to Do The Right | Thing about something. This would be a prime example - I | would happily pay $100 to compete with Intuit's lobbying | here. I'm also certain there are 31,999 other people in | the US who feel the same way. | | Congratulations, you just independently invented the | concept of a Political Action Committee. | glenstein wrote: | I completely agree that politicians are not cheap at all. | The reality is that so much of the money that's invested | in influencing politicians is through means other than | campaign contributions. | | It's through season tickets to the network of friends | that know the politician, it's through donations to the | university that gets their child into college, it's | through pacs and issue groups, it's through lining up and | bundling donors to max out their individual donations to | a politician's preferred presidential candidate, it's | through flying them out to special events, it's through | hiring their best friend, it's through investing in their | brother in law's new business, it's through buying things | at their husband or wife's charity auction, it's through | arranging a job for them after they retire from politics, | it's through finding them a buyer for their investment | property, it's through an entire network of investments | one or two degrees removed from the politician. | | The only sliver of that that people typically cite is the | amount directly spent on campaign contributions which (1) | mistakenly makes it seem like politicians are cheap and | (2) is underwhelming, to people who cite those numbers | sincerely believing that that's the only economic | dimension to political influence. | lelandfe wrote: | TurboTax and H&R Block aren't part of Free File as of 2021, so | the supported software under the program are now things most | Americans wouldn't recognize, either. | | The problem truly is advertising, like you said. The government | just cannot out-advertise companies that are doing $9 billion | in revenue. | dboreham wrote: | Of course the government could out-advertise them. It'd be | like Google advertising its own products on its search engine | -- the government controls all end-user tax related | communications. | | They just don't want to because someone bribed them to not do | so. | lelandfe wrote: | _Everyone_ uses Google. How many more people see TurboTax | 's ads vs. government "tax related communications?" | notwedtm wrote: | Every single tax payer when they get paid, or when they | pay their tax bill each year. | lelandfe wrote: | The years in which I've had a refund, I have had the | amount directly deposited. The years in which I've paid | have been through a software portal that supports credit | card payment. | | I, personally, have no idea what the government's | "communications" have been regarding taxes outside of | news articles. | | Either way, though, this is no competition for a year's | worth of massive advertising campaigns. | sillysaurusx wrote: | I tried to make this point in the other thread, so let me take | another stab at it here. | | You say this like it's just a thing that people can do. But the | people you're telling to "Just do this" have already been | trained to be terrified of the IRS. Many of them are currently | paying huge fines due to missing their returns in prior years. | Any small mistake can hang you when you're impoverished, | precisely because you don't have any room for error. | | "Most Americans" is an umbrella that contains mostly service | workers. The people that serve you food, bag your groceries, | drive your amazon purchases, and so on. If you've spent a lot | of time with people like this, I encourage you to ask them | "Hey, do you pay someone to do your taxes, or do you do it | yourself? Why?" | | I'm pretty sure the conversation will go "I pay. I just don't | want to worry about it." And that "worry" is because they've | been hit hard in the wallet, because the (American) government | is not friendly when it comes to messing up your taxes. | | If I am mistaken about this, I would like to know. But this is | true of my extended family, and I'm pretty sure it's true for | most of their friends. | dreamcompiler wrote: | This is quite true, even excluding service workers. Every tax | season I have conversations with bright, well-to-do, college- | educated people who seem to live in terminal fear of the IRS. | They're absolutely terrified that if they get one tiny thing | wrong during the tax filing process, they will immediately be | arrested and shipped off to prison. So they always pay | someone to file their taxes, even if they're simple. It's | mind-boggling. | | The irony is that -- as you said -- the IRS hits people of | modest income harder, because the IRS doesn't have the | resources to take on many battles with wealthy people who can | afford lawyers. This means the IRS mostly goes after easy | targets who won't fight back. Yet another tax on being poor. | wolverine876 wrote: | > But the people you're telling to "Just do this" have | already been trained to be terrified of the IRS. Many of them | are currently paying huge fines due to missing their returns | in prior years. Any small mistake can hang you when you're | impoverished, precisely because you don't have any room for | error. | | Why do you say that? I've never encountered people who were | terrified nor have I read about it. How many people are | paying "huge fines"? AFAIK, the IRS's audit capacity is | greatly underfunded. | sillysaurusx wrote: | My wife and her parents. Not her sisters though, | admittedly. | | It's possible that I'm just reacting to a biased sample of | people. But my impression was that this is a common mindset | for a nontrivial subset of the population. Being afraid of | doing something wrong on your government forms isn't really | an irrational fear. Anyone who's owned a car in Chicago | will tell you that the city's goal is to extract as many | thousands of dollars from you as possible - it was still | one of my worst financial decisions of all time. And that | wasn't even taxes. | | The broader point is that "dealing with the government" is | a big messy bucket that people usually want to pay a | janitorial service to dispose of. Even things like "being | reminded to file your taxes right now" is valuable in that | situation. Most people don't have a clue what day they need | to file by. They don't learn it in school, and their | parents either don't know or didn't bother to teach them. | wolverine876 wrote: | > Most people don't have a clue what day they need to | file by. | | That does not at all match my experience, it's widely | discussed every year, and I wonder how many returns are | late. | sillysaurusx wrote: | Alright. Thanks for the data point. | | But you left out income. The idea here is that HN users | tend to be a biased sample. Most of us aren't | impoverished. | | I would bet that your family's discussions are due to the | fact that you have a stable, fully functional family. | Most people outside of tech aren't as fortunate. | | If I'm mistaken about this, and your family isn't middle | class or higher, then that's an important data point | though. | wolverine876 wrote: | I'm not talking about my family discussions. Just turn on | the local news and you'll see them discuss it, including | the annual segment about the lines at the post office. | sillysaurusx wrote: | Ah. | | For what it's worth -- and it's possible I'm living in a | bubble, but -- the only family member I know that watches | the news is my dad. Everyone else quietly switched to | netflix long ago. The news mostly comes from the drama of | the day; things that show up on facebook. (The recent | Chris Rock drama, and other nonsense like that.) | | I recently followed CBS on TikTok though, to my surprise. | They had some of the best coverage of the Ukraine war | I've seen. I even joked to my wife that the circle of | life was complete: not only have I never watched the news | in years, and not only does my dad have no clue what | tiktok is, but now I'm watching the news on tiktok. | | Thanks for pointing out that the news is sometimes a | valuable thing to keep on one's radar. | creato wrote: | What are you actually referring to? In my experience, it | takes a pretty serious mistake to get charged a fine (it's | never happened to me despite mistakes). The IRS just charges | (fairly reasonable) interest if a mistake results in | underpayment. And IIRC, they pay interest to you when you | overpay too. | sillysaurusx wrote: | Much of my experience may have been shaped by my | experiences with Chicago. I vividly remember how painful it | was to have to call them up every month in order to pay | them. It was 2016, and I forget exactly what the reason | was. But autopay was somehow sufficiently painful to set up | that the path of least resistance was to set a reminder in | my phone of "Pay taxes to city" and deal with sitting on | hold. | | If it sounds unbelievable, I don't blame you at all. I | wouldn't have believed it myself until seeing just how | Kafkaesque "dealing with the government" can be. Especially | when penalties are involved. | | For the rest of my family, it's a little awkward to find | out. It's mostly on my wife's side; my father was always | very fastidious about taxes, as most families of most HN | readers probably are. I only wanted to point out that | there's a large number of people where this isn't true. | | I'll try to dig up direct answers for you. Thankfully most | of this pain has been not-mine for many years now. | judge2020 wrote: | Isn't the free file system simply asking e-file companies to | offer a free program to qualifying customers? I thought that | the IRS didn't actually run their own filling system/website | for citizens. | WrtCdEvrydy wrote: | Yes, here's the list -> | https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/browse-all-offers/ | | However, those options aren't advertised and these companies | like to do "Free" but then upgrade you as you fill out | options. | ericmcer wrote: | I was not allowed to use the free file because I made >70k if I | recall correctly. It seems really stupid and arbitrary to not | allow people above a certain income to access software that | helps them fill out govt. forms. Only lower income people | deserve help filling out their taxes??! Bizarre. | manholio wrote: | > Bizarre | | Follow the lobby money. | smordistan wrote: | The middle class actually has something to lose by not filing | correctly. | thebean11 wrote: | What's your point though? Does the free file system not | work correctly or something? | smordistan wrote: | AdmiralAsshat wrote: | Not just TurboTax, H&R Block does this shit as well. | | "File your taxes free! Oh, you have to file an HSA contribution? | Sorry, you'll have to buy H&R Block DELUXE ($79.99) to do that!" | | Kinda feels like blackmail, really. If I _don 't_ file my HSA | contribution I'm technically committing fraud, right? | zaphod12 wrote: | Not sure why you're including the word 'technically,' in there | - you are clearly and definitely committing tax fraud if you | knowingly fail to include all of your financial information. | bombcar wrote: | You could do it the hard way by doing the taxes in the app, | printing it out, and then modifying the forms as necessary. | | But the companies know exactly how much to charge you so you | avoid the hassle; though I won't shell out for state e-filing | when I can print and mail. | mywittyname wrote: | > If I don't file my HSA contribution I'm technically | committing fraud, right? | | The IRS will send you a corrected tax return, you sign it and | mail them a check and you'll hear nothing from them again. | Maybe you didn't get the form, or didn't understand the | software, etc, etc. There are lots of honest ways to screw up | your taxes. The IRS isn't going to assume fraud unless you | refuse to pay them when they point it out. | | I've screwed up my taxes a lot of times. Not maliciously, but | not having all of my forms, I've had clients report paying me a | different amount than they told the IRS, forgot stock trades I | made, etc. Every time, they've sent a letter asking to pay a | balance, plus maybe a small fee, and all is good. | pkulak wrote: | I wonder if this is a backdoor into having the IRS mail you | your completed form to sign and send back, like many other | countries do. Just file a 1040-EZ every year with only your | personal details and everything else zeroed out, and then | look over what comes back in 6 months. :D | notch656a wrote: | The fact that our government doesn't have the collective | intelligence to just mail the tax bill using the information it | already knows, with the option for the recipient to submit | corrections/deductions, is a testament to the utter failure of | governance in the US. Fortunately having an ineffective | government can often be a feature instead of a bug. | bombcar wrote: | The IRS wants to do it, they already have all the software | internally to do it, they're legally barred from doing it. | | It's nuts. Intuit isn't worth that much. | sidewndr46 wrote: | My understanding is that most Western European get what | amounts to a "final bill" for the previous year sometime | early on each year. It shows what you owe. If you don't want | to contest it, you just pay it and you're done. | | The fact that our government has made such a process for | fulfilling a legal obligation speaks volumes about the mafia- | like nature of our federal government. | | I pay lots of property tax where I live. But its just a bill. | I can and sometimes do dispute the amount owed. But imagine | if each year instead of that process I had to hire an | independent team to determine what I owe, make a case for | that, then submit that to my local tax authority. That's | basically what the IRS does with individuals. | itslennysfault wrote: | Blame Intuit for that one too. They're the ones that have spent | millions to lobby to keep it this way. | dudul wrote: | Or blame the people who take the money and bend over in front | of lobbies. | parineum wrote: | You're dangerously closing to blaming voters for electing | these people. I don't want it to be my fault... | tomrod wrote: | > Fortunately having an ineffective government can often be a | feature instead of a bug. | | Not in a free society. An ineffective government is a | conspicuous drain. | bushbaba wrote: | Idk. I think the IRS gets the better end of the stick here. | They have you tell them how much you owe. If you report more | than they knew about great they made money. If you tell them | less than they knew about, then they'll audit you assuming the | difference is large enough (and there being a high likelihood | of winning) | cmelbye wrote: | If you are audited by the IRS and they find that you | overpaid, they will issue a refund. It's not a one-way | street. | skeeter2020 wrote: | you can also claim refunds for years back; like an audit | this is a 2-way street as well. | alasdair_ wrote: | It isn't equal however. If you underpay, the IRS has | seven years to get the money. If you overpay, you have | three. (Simplified of course) | ryanianian wrote: | Does the IRS start an audit if they suspect you massively | overpaid? They certainly do if you massively underpay. | _jal wrote: | Not an audit, but they corrected a mistake I made in my | favor once. It was a trivial amount, like $30 or | something, but they sent me a little packet explaining | what they did, why, and a check. | antsar wrote: | Sure. But why in the world would they audit you if you | overpaid? | function_seven wrote: | Whatever indicators they use to select audit recipients | may _correlate_ with under-payers, but it 's not a | guarantee. I'm sure there's some fraction of those they | audit that turn out to have paid too much. | smitop wrote: | They have some data on this (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs- | pdf/p55b.pdf, pages 33-35). Out of 509,917 examinations, | 18,988 resulted in a refund. There was $7.0 billion of | tax refunded in 2020. For comparison, there was $17.2 | billion of additional tax generated with additional | recommended and unagreed amounts. | skeeter2020 wrote: | this is not how taxes work with the IRS. If you make a | calculation error in their favour they will correct it and | issue you a refund. If you make a compilation error in their | favour and get reviewed or audited, you will get a refund. | They also audit based more on discrepencies vs. "likelihood | of a big payout". | | If they precalculated your taxes and sent you a bill (or | refund) it would (a) be easier, (b) be more accurate and (c) | encourage simplification of the entire system. I consider | that both more effective and more fair. | jtc331 wrote: | You're missing the point. The point is that the IRS isn't | aware of a good amount of income (trivial example is tips) | unless you tell them about it. | ModernMech wrote: | Also income from illegal activity is taxed like any | other. If you get caught for doing illegal things and not | reporting it on your tax bill, you're in trouble for that | too. Harder to prove you're stiffing the IRS when you pay | the bill they send you. | aidangrimshaw wrote: | I'm working with other contributors on https://ustaxes.org, an | open source tax filing webapp https://github.com/ustaxes/UsTaxes. | | Currently, many Federal tax forms are supported, as well as tax | filing for the state of Illinois. Filing for Oregon and | California is under development! | freedomben wrote: | That's really neat and I'm glad you're doing it. That said I | worked on tax software once and the amount of changes each year | are huge and often require expert analysis. Sometimes they get | dropped on you with very little notice. | | How does the project plan to keep up with that? Will it require | volunteers? | aidangrimshaw wrote: | Absolutely, yeah the project has a loose group of contributor | volunteers but longer term we would probably have to have a | larger, more formal structure. | | Right now, we're focusing on tooling to make onboarding new | tax forms simpler and require a lower threshold of project | understanding to allow a larger, less technical group of | people to contribute | throwawayboise wrote: | Very cool. Will give it a look, I am about to start my taxes. | | Last year I used http://opentaxsolver.sourceforge.net/ | | It did the job, mostly, but had some quirks and didn't quite | get everything right with the rounding when I set it to use | whole dollar amounts, so I had to correct a few totals that | ended up being $1 off, which was annoying. Probably won't use | that one again. | heavyset_go wrote: | Is there a CLA? If so, does anything prevent the rights | holder(s) from closing the project and pivoting it towards a | for-profit business? | | I'd like to contribute, but don't feel like building someone's | business for free. | aidangrimshaw wrote: | The project has an AGPL license if that's what you're | wondering. We figured many people would feel the same way | candiddevmike wrote: | This is an interesting situation for FOSS licenses. AGPL | doesn't necessarily prohibit commercial behavior. I think | if all the maintainers truly wanted to prevent anyone from | commercializing it, you'd go with a source available | license like BSL or creative commons. | | It's interesting because having a group of disparate humans | come together and say "yea, we hate the current thing, | let's build something better and not commercialize it" | doesn't typically happen. Kudos to you folks! | xbar wrote: | Your work is needed. | myroon5 wrote: | How are states prioritized? Population and complexity? Or | personal priorities of contributors? | aidangrimshaw wrote: | Currently, it's states that contributors live in because our | resources are limited | throwawayboise wrote: | Fortunately, state tax returns (in my experience) are | pretty straightforward to do by hand once the Federal | return is done. I'm sure some states are more complicated | than others, that might be the prioritization to use if | more resources become available. | sitkack wrote: | Seems like one could setup an org/corp and get funding from | those states to implement tax filing code. | aidangrimshaw wrote: | Yeah, we have been considering setting up a nonprofit | org. I'm not sure if we have the scale to justify it yet, | but it's sort of an open question. | EnderWT wrote: | Many states already have ways to file online for free. | For example, Illinois: https://www2.illinois.gov/rev/prog | rams/mytax/Pages/il-1040.a... | aidangrimshaw wrote: | Definitely true. The goal is to unify the filing so that | the user doesn't have to refill in their information for | separate state and federal tax application websites. | paxys wrote: | This is fantastic. I'm curious if you have any tax lawyers or | accountants involved with this effort. Doing some amount of pro | bono work is standard in the legal profession, and I can't | think of too many services that would be more impactful to the | average American than this one. | dataflow wrote: | This sounds awesome. How does the user handle the actual | filing? I assume you don't have any way to provide e-filing, so | would people have to print this out and mail it? | aidangrimshaw wrote: | Yeah, currently the user would print out the PDF generated by | the site and mail it in to the IRS. E-filing is on the | roadmap, but registering as an E-file provider is a pretty | complex process. One of the options we were thinking about is | scraping and automatically filling in fields on the free | fillable forms site https://www.irs.gov/e-file- | providers/free-file-fillable-form... | dataflow wrote: | Cool! Autofilling those forms sounds like an _awesome_ | thing if you can manage it! Best of luck! And thanks for | doing this! | freedomben wrote: | I worked on designing and implementing e-file a few years | back for a startup. Happy to answer any questions or give | any advice if y'all want it | tormock wrote: | Doesn't H&R block do that too? | | And they try to trick you at every step to "upgrade" to the paid | version... | ModernMech wrote: | Intuit was begging to be sued though. Literally the only word | in the ads is "free", and they say it like 100 times to | emphasize just how free it is. And _of course_ it 's not free | at all. It can't get any easier than this. | josephd79 wrote: | Government: You must provide a free way for those that qualify. | | Intuit: OK. | | Intuits exec to its employees: Make this free system, but hide it | from the public. Provide links that are broken, make sure it | doesn't show up on search indexes. | | Scott Cook and all those involved should have all of their assets | seized. About as slimy as you can get as a person. Made billions | off of scamming United States citizens. | sofixa wrote: | As i mentioned on another thread[1], that's one of those American | things that really don't make any sense after spending more than | a few seconds about it. There is no legitimate excuse for things | to be this bad. The best I've heard is that paying taxes being | hard is good because it reminds you how much money you give the | government, so you are more attentive how it's spent, but it | doesn't really make sense either. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30842175 | Ajedi32 wrote: | > paying taxes being hard is good because it reminds you how | much money you give the government | | Wouldn't it be the opposite? Having a complicated tax system | makes it _harder_ to find out how much you 're paying. If | things were simpler it would be much more apparent. | sitharus wrote: | As a non-American who's not self-employed or a business owner | I get a monthly payslip with my gross pay and the tax | deduction. I see that every month, I know exactly how much I | pay the government. All my investments also have tax deducted | by the provider as well, when applicable. | | I never have to think about calculating or filing tax, but I | always see it and know exactly how much it is. | caymanjim wrote: | This is also the case for most Americans, but we're still | expected to file every year. For most people, it's | verifying what the government already knows. Filing a | 1040-EZ with no itemization should be unnecessary. | arebop wrote: | The exact amount doesn't matter for this, all that matters is | that you vote against taxes. It is sufficient that you | suspect you may owe some amount and realize that you are | required to figure it out. If it's hard to figure out, that | serves the purpose of those who want you to associate | negative emotions with taxes so that you'll vote against | taxes. | Ajedi32 wrote: | That sounds like an incentive to vote against _complexity_ | , not against taxes. Paying a larger _amount_ doesn 't make | the calculation any harder to figure out, nor does paying a | lesser amount make it easier. | nickff wrote: | As a counter-example, sales taxes (and VATs) are very simple, | yet almost nobody knows how much they're paying. | wongarsu wrote: | In Europe VAT is a line item on every invoice. And | apparently in the US you have to do some mental gymnastics | to manually add sales tax to the listed price to figure out | how much to pay in the first place. | | Of course most people have no idea how much VAT they pay | for Amazon purchases in a year, but that's mostly a product | of them not knowing how much they spend on Amazon in a | year. If they know the latter, the former is trivial to | figure out. | drdec wrote: | FYI, in the US, depending on the jurisdiction, some items | are exempt from sales tax. E.g. necessities like food and | clothing. In my jurisdiction, clothing is taxed by the | county but not by the state. | | Which is a long way of saying that even if you knew the | total you spent at Amazon, you wouldn't be able to derive | the total amount of sales tax paid. | Ajedi32 wrote: | > apparently in the US you have to do some mental | gymnastics to manually add sales tax to the listed price | to figure out how much to pay in the first place | | FWIW, usually in the US it's just a line item on the | receipt or checkout screen. | JohnTHaller wrote: | In the US, it's still a line item on your receipt. Most | places don't include sales tax on the shelf tag or price | sticker due to complexity. You can have state, | county/area, and/or city taxes that apply. In NYC, for | instance, we have a 4% NY State sales tax, a 4.5% NYC | sales tax, and a 0.375% NYC metro area sales tax, | totaling 8.875%. Clothes aren't taxed in the metro area | sales tax so are 8.5% unless they're under $110 and then | they're exempt. Most food is exempt except prepared food. | Then there's the issue of fractions of a cent as the | sales tax is calculated on the total bill not each item | individually. There's also the fact that taxes change now | and then... they adjust what food it applies to or what | the cutoff is for clothes, etc. Some organizations have a | sales tax exemption certificate (if they are a business | planning to resell for instance) and that must also be | taken into account. | | Due to complexity, all larger stores with multiple | geographic locations would never have separate pricing | signage for every single store, so they don't. Other | stores do the same. It's all calculated at the register | as things are scanned in the computer. | [deleted] | rurp wrote: | I've heard a slightly different version of that rational, which | I think is more more plausible but cynical. Tax collection is | deliberately painful to justify cutting IRS funding and passing | tax cuts (mostly for the very wealthy). It doesn't really make | a lot of sense rationally, but might be effective as a | manipulation tactic. | techsupporter wrote: | > The best I've heard is that paying taxes being hard is good | because it reminds you how much money you give the government, | so you are more attentive how it's spent | | The argument I've heard is that so righteous indignation over | the "staggeringly high" taxes "stolen from the hardworking | American people" or whatever. This is one of the same arguments | as to why sales taxes shouldn't be included in the shelf price | of an item or service. | | Except it doesn't work. People can be mad about taxes | regardless of whether they're easy or hard to file. ( _Paying_ | taxes is straightforward; the vast majority of us have it done | for us from our paychecks every interval.) And where I live, | public votes to raise the sales tax for various projects, often | public transit, rarely if ever fail. | | It seems to me just to be an excuse to not actually deal with | our busted as hell tax collection system because that system | benefits people who themselves have an excuse to rile people up | about taxes. | nickff wrote: | I think there is room for a reasonable agreement which could | result in a simplified filing system, without making it | opaque. My modest proposal would be that each voter's | registration card (or equivalent voting voucher) be attached | to a statement showing all the taxes they've paid since the | last election, and where they went, along with some | information on how many taxpayers there are, and the amount | and percentage of income and payroll taxes paid by income | decile. | | I think this would provide the transparency that | conservatives want, along with the simplicity that liberals | want. My only concern is that the data would be fudged, like | the social security "statements" are. | paulmd wrote: | > The argument I've heard is that ... | | > Except it doesn't work. People can be mad about taxes | regardless of whether they're easy or hard to file. | | "that can't possibly be a fair representation of that | ideologue's position, there's huge gaps in the logic!" | | look, positions way out on the fringes don't have to make | coherent sense to the rest of us. PETA runs kill-shelters | that euthanize millions of animals every year, sometimes | multiples of other kill shelters. It makes sense to them, | they have their own logic why that's good. | | Making Americans hate every aspect of taxes - the amount, | having to spend a couple quality hours with a tax program | every year, getting sales tax rolled on top of advertised | prices, everything - is the goal here. Just make taxes suck | so that people hate them. Because then people will oppose | taxation. | rootusrootus wrote: | Thank Grover Norquist for that. Arguably he has had far more | effect on this than the pittance Intuit has spent buying | politicians. | decebalus1 wrote: | I hate TurboTax with a passion. At this point, the only benefit I | see from it is the fact that because my taxes are boring, I just | update the information from the last return. Which is something | the IRS could do EASILY. Because of all the 'tax freedom' which | has been lobbied in America, I now have to pay a private | corporation, navigate countless dark patterns to make sure I | don't accidentally sign up for Super AuDiTProTec(tm) at every | step of the way (God forbid I sell stock or do something soo | complicated), to do something the federal government is more than | competent to do on their own. | | Every piece of news in which Intuit gets slapped is good news to | me. I just hope legislators start doing their jobs at some point | and spare the taxpayer of this bullshit. | [deleted] | ChrisArchitect wrote: | [dupe] | | More discussion over here: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30846884 | Melatonic wrote: | Credit Karma had a free tax filing application as of last year | but as they were purchased by Intuit who knows what is happening | with that.... | tengkahwee wrote: | It's now Cash App Tax here https://cash.app/taxes as part of | the acquisition agreement. | oneoff786 wrote: | A well deserved twist of the knife to do this right before the | tax rush. | munk-a wrote: | And it couldn't have happened to a nicer company. These guys | have been begging for some false advertising prosecution for a | while. | JRKrause wrote: | I manually filed a revision to a previous tax year in which I had | accidentally double-payed state taxes on a schedule K-2 | disbursement two years back. Without any background in this I was | able to follow the IRS and state-gov websites to get everything | together and ultimately received my check for the difference | (many thousands of dollars). All without paying a dollar. | kaitai wrote: | I manually filed taxes on paper (federal) last year and they | still have not been processed. Got a letter that the IRS is | sitting on my 5-figure tax payment but haven't gone through the | 1040 yet. | | There is an institutional (mainly Republican) commitment to | strangling the IRS here in the US. Filing taxes should be free | and easy. | cranekam wrote: | > Filing taxes should be free and easy. | | Or, ideally, not needed at all. In the UK having an average | financial situation like a job (one that doesn't pay | megabucks, anyway), a pension, a tax-efficient savings | account and a student doesn't require any filing at all. | Everything happens through payroll. If you do earn a lot or | have other things that trigger the need to file it's free and | not overly onerous -- certainly within the grasp of a mere | mortal. | | (And before someone chimes in with "how do you know the | government gets the figures right?!": because the tax code, | or at least the parts that face most people, is | straightforward and most people have a bog-standard default | configuration that is easy to verify.) | Ekaros wrote: | Same in Finland. | | They get my income, loans for future capital gain | deductions, have calculated in the basic deductions and so | on. | | I wanted some extra deductions this year, so I simply went | and inserted those on their own web site with simple boxes | to fill. Even before the tax season. No problems... | | It is great when the tax agency isn't actually adversarial, | but instead ready to help and even work with you if you are | having troubles. | rootusrootus wrote: | And of course they won't be paying interest on a delayed | refund, but they definitely want interest if you are slow in | paying _them_. | ceejayoz wrote: | If you're gonna be mad at the IRS, at least be mad about | something real. | | https://www.cnbc.com/select/what-to-do-with-late-tax- | return-... | | > A long-standing law requires the IRS to pay interest to | those who received their tax refunds late -- notably 45 | days after the typical filing date of April 15. Just as | taxpayers must pay interest on any outstanding obligations | they owe to the IRS, the rule works both ways if the IRS is | late on the money they owe back. | | They pay 3% interest currently, which is pretty nice. | aclindsa wrote: | I recently started an open-source tax solver, partly because I'm | not a huge fan of Intuit: https://github.com/habutax/habutax | | It isn't perfect since its a young project, but I've attempted to | simplify and modularize the process of creating/maintaining forms | to allow for that part to be crowd-sourced as much as possible | (and I'd love your help!). | markc wrote: | I was 80% done with my taxes this year when TT suddenly demanded | an additional $119 to list deductible expenses on income. That's | on top of $140 to file Federal plus 1 state. I've been using TT | for 20 years. Never again. | mynameisash wrote: | I'm not confident in my ability to get my taxes right (mostly | due to my wife and I having owned small businesses plus my day | job's stock awards and ESPP), so I've paid a local CPA to do | our taxes for years now. He always did an incredible job, was | happy to answer my questions for me (tax-related or not), | helped us refi our house at an amazing price, and so on. His | fees were something on the order of $400 or maybe even as high | as $600 some years. But [a] I knew he always had our back, [b] | his services partially or entirely paid for themselves in | savings I probably wouldn't have caught, and [c] I was paying | an individual who earned his keep as compared to a company like | Intuit. | vuln wrote: | Hiring a CPA was one of the best decisions I have made in my | entire adult life. | 8ytecoder wrote: | I mean, I agree. Especially in the US. I was forced to hire | a CPA because of some complicated international stuff. | Until then I filed it myself. I have used TaxAct and Credit | Karma taxes (which is now Cash app tax). TaxAct is cheap | and fully functional. Credit Karma was also | straightforward, easy to use and accurate. | | CPA can also be useful beyond just tax filing. My CPA does | a half year evaluation to see if I'd owe any additional tax | and plan accordingly. They also makes sure I get all the | deductions I can. | UncleMeat wrote: | My experience with CPAs has been poor. "I dunno, just put | what you think is right" is how the last person I paid told | me to handle a mismatch between my wife's actually grant | payments and her 1098-T. | junar wrote: | 1098-T forms are notoriously unreliable. Schools will | often misclassify or omit scholarships and payments. And | you might have additional educational expenses like books | that aren't listed in the first place. It doesn't excuse | your experience, though; that tax preparer should have | made a better effort to understand the figures. | | Out of curiosity, was the tax preparer actually a | licensed CPA, or just someone with no professional | credentials? If they were a CPA, did they prepare | individual tax returns regularly or only as a side job? | UncleMeat wrote: | > 1098-T forms are notoriously unreliable. Schools will | often misclassify or omit scholarships and payments. And | you might have additional educational expenses like books | that aren't listed in the first place. | | Worse, virtually all of the 1098-T guidance exists for | undergrads. The problems with the form are entirely | different for graduate students and basically nobody can | help. | | > Out of curiosity, was the tax preparer actually a | licensed CPA, or just someone with no professional | credentials? If they were a CPA, did they prepare | individual tax returns regularly or only as a side job? | | It's been a bunch of years so I don't know for certain, | but they weren't just a desk worker at H&R Block. Tax | preparation was their primary job. | pkulak wrote: | I could probably do my taxes with a 1040-EZ most years, but I | still pay a local CPA $300 to do it for me. I'm just happier | without $300 but with taxes done. | zentiggr wrote: | Your situation sounds like one that a CPA would be perfect | for - especially with business taxes involved. | | Our household has just the basic salaries / expenses / 401k / | IRAs. THe year I received some temporary additional benefits, | Intuit decided that I had to pay premium in order to enter | that single additional 1099. | | I left, found a much simpler, straightforward service with | which I filed legitimately free, and have never looked back. | | Plus, I've read about Intuit's history with the whole market, | and I will never willingly give them a damn cent. | rurp wrote: | > I left, found a much simpler, straightforward service | with which I filed legitimately free, and have never looked | back. | | Which service is that? I haven't filed my taxes this year | and am willing to spend some time switching to an app | that's less scummy than Intuit's offerings. | throwawayboise wrote: | It's not like an honest mistake is the end of the world. I've | made tax mistakes. You get a letter from the IRS, with the | amount you owe or are due back, and you settle up. There are | no draconian penalties or full audits unless they suspect | intentional fraud. | bombcar wrote: | The IRS will even send you "you screwed up and paid us too | much, you forgot X" letters at times. | | What they can't do for you is know about deductions | sometimes. | ceejayoz wrote: | I was once on an IRS payment plan, and a) the interest rate | was remarkably low and b) the folks I talked to when I | needed to adjust it were the nicest customer service reps I | think I've ever encountered. | rurp wrote: | Yep, that has been my experience. I got pretty freaked out | once when I received a large packet from the IRS in the | mail. Turns out I forgot to report a stock sale and just | owed them a few hundred bucks. The only penalty was having | to pay interest on the amount at a rate that was a little | high but not egregious. | kstrauser wrote: | They're usually shockingly pleasant to deal with, too. | Having owned a couple of small businesses over the years, | our taxes can get complex. There were a couple of times | where the IRS had questions about our filed returns, and | the clerks we dealt with have always been genuinely nice, | helpful to work with, and authorized to exercise decent | human judgment. | | Them: It says here you spent $X on healthcare expenses. | | Me: I've got 4 kids. I always hit my deductible. | | Them, literally laughing: Yeah, kids are expensive. OK, | moving on... | tppiotrowski wrote: | taxact.com did the same trick. Raised prices for a few | consecutive years for no apparent reason. | | They have your previous filings so switching to another | provider can be a pain since you need to know last year income | when submitting your filing. I always make sure to at least | download the PDF's. | | As a consumer we're always free to vote with our wallet and | I've been happy with freetaxusa so far but I'm also waiting for | the "rate hike" to come... | ChrisArchitect wrote: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30840861 ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-03-29 23:00 UTC)