10 ms·

Is it really as simple as that? Budget trumps all? With all due respect to the OP, most state run software operations are complete, utter, garbage. I'd happi

Is it really as simple as that? Budget trumps all? With all due respect to the OP, most state run software operations are complete, utter, garbage. I'd happily pay money to avoid some of the clunky, poor UI/UX, and downright broken web tools that the state of California produces. TurboTax on the other hand, is a relatively nice experience.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
I am tired of for-profit companies hamstringing government using bribes to representatives and funding lobbyists from delivering inexpensive or free services to citizens. If someone wants to pay TurboTax, that is fine. If someone wants to continue to support their efforts to stymie government from delivering said services for free, they should be tarred and feathered. Intuit's tax products are regulatory capture, plain and simple, and deserve no defending.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Hm that's been a big issue for maybe 200 years. Should the government start its own companies? What happened to the free market? How does a 'free' government company respond to competition (since they have no pressure to be profitable)?
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    It seems to be working fine in every other country mentioned in this thread where government is free to provide free tax filing services. We do not need bullshit jobs at rent seeking companies that are glorified PDF generators. This is a government feature, not a product.
    - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
      So maybe this one should be allowed. Other government competition with private enterprise is not so clear. Paving roads? Providing medicine? Delivering packages? Its been a rocky road.
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        I'm going to say probably not. I've been pretty disappointed by the attempts of private industry to deliver what should be government infra (tax prep, healthcare, prisons, etc), while I'm super happy with my roads, police, fire, water, sewer, muni fiber, and the USPS (all government provided or backed).
        JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        I have 'volunteer' fire service out here in the country. And installed my own sewer. Police are essentially non-existent out here - I see a patrol car maybe once a year go by. And the USPS has been going broke for decades now. Not a good example of a well-run service.
        toomuchtodo 7y ago
        USPS requires Congressional approval to set rates (as well as pension funding requirements). Your complaint is with your representatives, not USPS itself.
        pfranz 7y ago
        It reminds me of the demonization of the IRS, they just carry out Congress' laws and funding. It's disingenuous when Congresspeople complain as they reduce their funding.
        toomuchtodo 7y ago
        Plays well to the uneducated unfortunately.
        scarejunba 7y ago
        Plays well to everyone because most people hate representatives but like their representative.
        7y ago
  - lutorm 7y ago
    It's not a right to be free from competition from the government. The reason we allow corporations is so they can serve the public good, but if the public good would be better served by the government providing that service then there's no reason society shouldn't do that.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    > How does a 'free' government company respond to competition (since they have no pressure to be profitable)? The leadership of government organizations has pressure to get re-elected, or to get someone from their party elected. I'm not sure whether you are simply ignorant how representative democracy is supposed to work, or whether you're feigning ignorance. Is it really so unfathomable that people might be motivated by something other than financial gain? Are we expected to take anything else you say seriously if this is the starting point of your ideology?
    - isaacgreyed 7y ago
      Is the vote of the election ever: "Can you make this one website that is messy better?". People are more focused on big issues and annoying software won't often make the platform.
      - kerkeslager 7y ago
        The vote of the election isn't "Can you make this one website that is messy better?" because the politicians are incentivized to never let it get that bad. One only has to take a look at the Obama administration's apparent panic over healthcare.gov to see this at work. When it wasn't going well, it very much was a political issue at the forefront of political conversation.
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    I worked for a self-sustaining government entity for a few years. There was no direct appropriation, all funds re recovered via fees. We were able to compete successfully with commercial entities in a variety of ways. A big advantage is overhead. If the work scales out, government employees get paid less, especially executives. The disadvantage was that you couldn’t make money to re-invest, and capitalizing new services was difficult. .gov orgs get a lot of grief, but if you compare them to an average large company, they aren’t as awful as most people think.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      I've worked in a private sector (publicly traded) fortune 500 company, a large government contractor, a non-profit state government subsidiary that was quasi-independent, and now for a state government. My experience is that in the public sector, things often move slower, but the range of productivity seems to have a significant overlap with an average large company. I think the cost of nobody believing in what they are doing is an underappreciated drag on many private sector workplaces. The fact that failure is not an option in the public sector has several oft repeated negative consequences, but it also means that you have a reason for coming to work and making an effort, (other than not starving) even if nobody appreciates it, management is terrible, working conditions are lousy, pay is poor, co-workers are idiots, etc. That counts for something towards effectiveness, if there is a core group that hasn't descended into nihilism.
  - mars4rp 7y ago
    Government is forcing people to pay their taxes, so Government needs to provide a free and easy way for people to pay their taxes.
- antipropaganda 7y ago
  Why are you solely blaming the companies? Are the government officials doing their jobs? If the government officials are being corrupt by accepting lobbying money and helping the corporations; they are as much (if not more) to blame for the situation as "for-profit companies". At least, for-profit companies exist to make a profit. The government, on the other hand, exists to defend the citizens.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    I did not include representatives accepting donations and lobbying money as villains in my comment. My apologies, thank you for pointing this out. > The government, on the other hand, exists to defend the citizens. Never a truer word spoken.
Rebelgecko 7y ago
I personally think the Calfile UI is better than TurboTax for what it does. CalFile's UI isn't shiny and Web 3.0, but it is nice and linear and easy to understand. IMO TurboTax can get a bit weird if you skip around sections or need to manually look at the generated forms. CalFile doesn't have all the features that TurboTax does, like being able to say "I donated a microwave to charity, figure out my deduction". However I've found that the two actually work pretty well in conjunction with each other— do Federal taxes in Turbotax to figure out my deductions and get my W2 #s collected, then copy all that info into CalFile.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  "but it is nice and linear and easy to understand" I never wanted "linear". My ideal tax software just has the forms to fill out on screen, but applies all the constraints and rules so that the return is either consistent or you have a comprehensive list of discrepancies. And cascades any fields that can be derived from others. Really, just like a compiler for taxes. Edit: TurboTax used to work like this...
vernie 7y ago
"Intuit succeeded so I'm happy."
so33 7y ago
> TurboTax on the other hand, is a relatively nice experience. For this tax year I used TurboTax. I have a relatively simple return, but editing stock sales was extremely tedious and I was constantly upsold on random products when I just wanted to go to the e-file page.
Eugr 7y ago
TurboTax is getting worse and worse every year. One example where it worked well before and became a complicated mess now: for some deductions you need answer a lot of questions just for it to tell you that you are not eligible because of your income. Why not to check this in the very beginning?
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  If they told you sooner that you weren't elligible, your return would be lower, and maybe you'd feel you could "get more back" by using a different tax preparation program, but at the juncture where you're told it isn't possible, you already feel more invested in using Turbotax and ultimately filing with it.
ajdlinux 7y ago
I file my taxes in Australia using a government-run web application. It's not perfect (like all big government systems it has outages, etc etc) but I can't really complain about it, it's more than adequate to get the job done and I certainly wouldn't want to pay for something that's only marginally better. There's a few UX tweaks which would be nice but it's fine, really.

toomuchtodo 7y ago

I am tired of for-profit companies hamstringing government using bribes to representatives and funding lobbyists from delivering inexpensive or free services to citizens. If someone wants to pay TurboTax, that is fine. If someone wants to continue to support their efforts to stymie government from delivering said services for free, they should be tarred and feathered. Intuit's tax products are regulatory capture, plain and simple, and deserve no defending.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago
Hm that's been a big issue for maybe 200 years. Should the government start its own companies? What happened to the free market? How does a 'free' government company respond to competition (since they have no pressure to be profitable)?
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  It seems to be working fine in every other country mentioned in this thread where government is free to provide free tax filing services. We do not need bullshit jobs at rent seeking companies that are glorified PDF generators. This is a government feature, not a product.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    So maybe this one should be allowed. Other government competition with private enterprise is not so clear. Paving roads? Providing medicine? Delivering packages? Its been a rocky road.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      I'm going to say probably not. I've been pretty disappointed by the attempts of private industry to deliver what should be government infra (tax prep, healthcare, prisons, etc), while I'm super happy with my roads, police, fire, water, sewer, muni fiber, and the USPS (all government provided or backed).
      - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        I have 'volunteer' fire service out here in the country. And installed my own sewer. Police are essentially non-existent out here - I see a patrol car maybe once a year go by. And the USPS has been going broke for decades now. Not a good example of a well-run service.
        toomuchtodo 7y ago
        USPS requires Congressional approval to set rates (as well as pension funding requirements). Your complaint is with your representatives, not USPS itself.
        pfranz 7y ago
        It reminds me of the demonization of the IRS, they just carry out Congress' laws and funding. It's disingenuous when Congresspeople complain as they reduce their funding.
        toomuchtodo 7y ago
        Plays well to the uneducated unfortunately.
        scarejunba 7y ago
        Plays well to everyone because most people hate representatives but like their representative.
        7y ago
- lutorm 7y ago
  It's not a right to be free from competition from the government. The reason we allow corporations is so they can serve the public good, but if the public good would be better served by the government providing that service then there's no reason society shouldn't do that.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  > How does a 'free' government company respond to competition (since they have no pressure to be profitable)? The leadership of government organizations has pressure to get re-elected, or to get someone from their party elected. I'm not sure whether you are simply ignorant how representative democracy is supposed to work, or whether you're feigning ignorance. Is it really so unfathomable that people might be motivated by something other than financial gain? Are we expected to take anything else you say seriously if this is the starting point of your ideology?
  - isaacgreyed 7y ago
    Is the vote of the election ever: "Can you make this one website that is messy better?". People are more focused on big issues and annoying software won't often make the platform.
    - kerkeslager 7y ago
      The vote of the election isn't "Can you make this one website that is messy better?" because the politicians are incentivized to never let it get that bad. One only has to take a look at the Obama administration's apparent panic over healthcare.gov to see this at work. When it wasn't going well, it very much was a political issue at the forefront of political conversation.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  I worked for a self-sustaining government entity for a few years. There was no direct appropriation, all funds re recovered via fees. We were able to compete successfully with commercial entities in a variety of ways. A big advantage is overhead. If the work scales out, government employees get paid less, especially executives. The disadvantage was that you couldn’t make money to re-invest, and capitalizing new services was difficult. .gov orgs get a lot of grief, but if you compare them to an average large company, they aren’t as awful as most people think.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    I've worked in a private sector (publicly traded) fortune 500 company, a large government contractor, a non-profit state government subsidiary that was quasi-independent, and now for a state government. My experience is that in the public sector, things often move slower, but the range of productivity seems to have a significant overlap with an average large company. I think the cost of nobody believing in what they are doing is an underappreciated drag on many private sector workplaces. The fact that failure is not an option in the public sector has several oft repeated negative consequences, but it also means that you have a reason for coming to work and making an effort, (other than not starving) even if nobody appreciates it, management is terrible, working conditions are lousy, pay is poor, co-workers are idiots, etc. That counts for something towards effectiveness, if there is a core group that hasn't descended into nihilism.
- mars4rp 7y ago
  Government is forcing people to pay their taxes, so Government needs to provide a free and easy way for people to pay their taxes.
antipropaganda 7y ago
Why are you solely blaming the companies? Are the government officials doing their jobs? If the government officials are being corrupt by accepting lobbying money and helping the corporations; they are as much (if not more) to blame for the situation as "for-profit companies". At least, for-profit companies exist to make a profit. The government, on the other hand, exists to defend the citizens.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  I did not include representatives accepting donations and lobbying money as villains in my comment. My apologies, thank you for pointing this out. > The government, on the other hand, exists to defend the citizens. Never a truer word spoken.

Rebelgecko 7y ago

I personally think the Calfile UI is better than TurboTax for what it does. CalFile's UI isn't shiny and Web 3.0, but it is nice and linear and easy to understand. IMO TurboTax can get a bit weird if you skip around sections or need to manually look at the generated forms. CalFile doesn't have all the features that TurboTax does, like being able to say "I donated a microwave to charity, figure out my deduction". However I've found that the two actually work pretty well in conjunction with each other— do Federal taxes in Turbotax to figure out my deductions and get my W2 #s collected, then copy all that info into CalFile.

perl4ever 7y ago
"but it is nice and linear and easy to understand" I never wanted "linear". My ideal tax software just has the forms to fill out on screen, but applies all the constraints and rules so that the return is either consistent or you have a comprehensive list of discrepancies. And cascades any fields that can be derived from others. Really, just like a compiler for taxes. Edit: TurboTax used to work like this...

vernie 7y ago

"Intuit succeeded so I'm happy."

so33 7y ago

> TurboTax on the other hand, is a relatively nice experience. For this tax year I used TurboTax. I have a relatively simple return, but editing stock sales was extremely tedious and I was constantly upsold on random products when I just wanted to go to the e-file page.

Eugr 7y ago

TurboTax is getting worse and worse every year. One example where it worked well before and became a complicated mess now: for some deductions you need answer a lot of questions just for it to tell you that you are not eligible because of your income. Why not to check this in the very beginning?

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
If they told you sooner that you weren't elligible, your return would be lower, and maybe you'd feel you could "get more back" by using a different tax preparation program, but at the juncture where you're told it isn't possible, you already feel more invested in using Turbotax and ultimately filing with it.

ajdlinux 7y ago

I file my taxes in Australia using a government-run web application. It's not perfect (like all big government systems it has outages, etc etc) but I can't really complain about it, it's more than adequate to get the job done and I certainly wouldn't want to pay for something that's only marginally better. There's a few UX tweaks which would be nice but it's fine, really.