3 ms·

How many articles are we going to have on this?

sctb 7y ago
It's alright to flag stories (and hold off on commenting) if you feel they're getting more than their fair share of coverage.
geodel 7y ago
I feel like at least 1-2 times per week until next tax season and perhaps daily once W2s start coming in for 2019. Free tax filing seems one of the biggest issue people are facing in USA.
- Amezarak 7y ago
  Most people don’t think twice about it. Tax simplification is supported so long as everyone’s tax bill goes down, but huge swaths if the population are utterly convinced that paying an accountant to do their simple W2 taxes is way better than using software or doing it themselves or letting the IRS do it because they think they have a magical ability to get more back by their arcane knowledge of mystical loopholes. I have had this discussion many many times with many people.
danso 7y ago
I'll explain my submission (I submitted the other article 6 days ago too): the tax reform bill, which would have enshrined tax prep companies to be the approved providers of free file tax software, had wide bipartisan support and was considered a likely shoo-in to be signed into law (it didn't even require a roll call vote in the House). But people, including advocates and reporters, discovered the directives in robots.txt and <meta> tags, which have been out-in-plain-sight for at least a decade [0], and that has apparently led former employees to speak out and/or leak internal documents that will very likely lead to an investigation. Tax prep companies have spent millions per year in lobbying, and now a major, easy legislative victory may be spoiled because of robots.txt. It's pretty rare that we see grass-roots complaints actually stymie a popular bipartisan bill supported by industry lobbyists, nevermind because of a webdev technical issue. [0] http://web.archive.org/web/20080512004753/http://turbotax.intuit.com/robots.txt http://web.archive.org/web/20080512004753/http://turbotax.in...
SilasX 7y ago
As many as it takes for Congress to change the asinine laws that make it so the IRS has us search for and input information it already has about us.
- craftyguy 7y ago
  I seriously doubt Congress browses HN. Your cause would be better served by taking actual action, like writing your congressperson

sctb 7y ago

It's alright to flag stories (and hold off on commenting) if you feel they're getting more than their fair share of coverage.

geodel 7y ago

I feel like at least 1-2 times per week until next tax season and perhaps daily once W2s start coming in for 2019. Free tax filing seems one of the biggest issue people are facing in USA.

Amezarak 7y ago
Most people don’t think twice about it. Tax simplification is supported so long as everyone’s tax bill goes down, but huge swaths if the population are utterly convinced that paying an accountant to do their simple W2 taxes is way better than using software or doing it themselves or letting the IRS do it because they think they have a magical ability to get more back by their arcane knowledge of mystical loopholes. I have had this discussion many many times with many people.

danso 7y ago

I'll explain my submission (I submitted the other article 6 days ago too): the tax reform bill, which would have enshrined tax prep companies to be the approved providers of free file tax software, had wide bipartisan support and was considered a likely shoo-in to be signed into law (it didn't even require a roll call vote in the House). But people, including advocates and reporters, discovered the directives in robots.txt and <meta> tags, which have been out-in-plain-sight for at least a decade [0], and that has apparently led former employees to speak out and/or leak internal documents that will very likely lead to an investigation. Tax prep companies have spent millions per year in lobbying, and now a major, easy legislative victory may be spoiled because of robots.txt. It's pretty rare that we see grass-roots complaints actually stymie a popular bipartisan bill supported by industry lobbyists, nevermind because of a webdev technical issue. [0] http://web.archive.org/web/20080512004753/http://turbotax.intuit.com/robots.txt http://web.archive.org/web/20080512004753/http://turbotax.in...

SilasX 7y ago

As many as it takes for Congress to change the asinine laws that make it so the IRS has us search for and input information it already has about us.

craftyguy 7y ago
I seriously doubt Congress browses HN. Your cause would be better served by taking actual action, like writing your congressperson