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TurboTax hasn't tricked me into doing anything. I am fully aware that all the forms can be completed manually. I can still remember my Dad sitting at the kitche
by JadoJodo 6y ago
TurboTax hasn't tricked me into doing anything. I am fully aware that all the forms can be completed manually. I can still remember my Dad sitting at the kitchen table for several nights with all the forms and a calculator every year.
The fees TurboTax charges are worth it to me because I don't want to have to sit at the kitchen table every year and hope that I understand the instructions well enough to fill out all the necessary forms. I can't Unit Test my tax forms. But TurboTax can (and does) and thus it's worth it to me to pay a yearly fee for the convenience. They keep up with all the tax code changes and I complete a 45-minute survey once a year. Boom. Done.
- fallingfrog 6y agoThe federal government could very easily do all that for free and it wouldn’t cost fifty dollars per taxpayer.
- JadoJodo 6y agoKnowing the federal government, I can easily imagine it costing MORE than $50/taxpayer. Just we don't pay for something directly doesn't mean it's free.
- fallingfrog 6y agoThis is an ideological knee jerk response, it’s not true that only the private sector can create software systems. There are 143 million taxpayers in the United States. If each one pays 50 dollars then that’s seven billion, 150 million dollars per year. I think they probably come with some way to do it a bit cheaper than that.
- rtkwe 6y agoEven on TurboTax they're required to provide the basic 1040-EZ form for free all the way to filing, they hide that fact below a LOT of bullshit though to make it hard to find the actually free version of the service.