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Rather than getting a tax card, those in the US get Free File. Free file is deal Intuit and others made with the US government in 2001 to "improve ... Governmen

Rather than getting a tax card, those in the US get Free File. Free file is deal Intuit and others made with the US government in 2001 to "improve ... Government to Citizen electronic capabilities". Filing companies offer a free filing option an in exchange the IRS does not develop their own. 70% of filers are supposed to be able to free file, however in practice ~2% actually do so. Since then Intuit and others have been a powerful lobbying force against filing simplification for obvious reasons. In fact they are incentivized to make free filing as impractical as possible. The path to free filing is best described as an anti-funnel. Online tax filing systems are a field guide to dark patterns aimed against finding their way toward free filing. And why not? Tricking millions into paying for something that is ostensibly free is a great business tactic. What we actually get is a resulting tax system which is purposely confusing to get people to pay for something they should be able to get for free already and which funds lobbyists to fight against changing it. Good for us. Edit: found this funny. Turbo Tax's Encroachment strat https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6483061-Intuit-TurboTax-2014-15-Encroachment-Strategy.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6483061-Intuit-Turbo...

klipt 6y ago
> in exchange the IRS does not develop their own Would you really want to file on a website controlled by the IRS? Imagine an auditor calling you to say "we noticed you entered a big number in this field and later edited it to a smaller number, can you explain why?"
- aaron-santos 6y ago
  I guess I'm interested in fixing actual problems rather than invented ones.
  - klipt 6y ago
    I'm just saying the incentives are different. A company acting as your accountant has incentive to represent your interests. The IRS has incentive to use all data at its disposal to detect potential tax fraud. It's like the difference between talking to a lawyer and talking directly to the police.
    - aaron-santos 6y ago
      We already have companies who participate in Free File and it's already not working so I don't really see how the incentive to represent my interests thing is working out.
      - _qulr 6y ago
        Right. The financial incentive of the for-profit tax preparation companies is to lobby the politicians to make the tax code so complicated that people need to pay tax preparation companies. If the tax code was simple, then these companies would cease to exist. The IRS itself is mainly just following the directions of the politicians. These directions may or may not include looking for fraud, depending on who is currently in power.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  I would absolutely prefer to file directly with the IRS.

klipt 6y ago

> in exchange the IRS does not develop their own Would you really want to file on a website controlled by the IRS? Imagine an auditor calling you to say "we noticed you entered a big number in this field and later edited it to a smaller number, can you explain why?"

aaron-santos 6y ago
I guess I'm interested in fixing actual problems rather than invented ones.
- klipt 6y ago
  I'm just saying the incentives are different. A company acting as your accountant has incentive to represent your interests. The IRS has incentive to use all data at its disposal to detect potential tax fraud. It's like the difference between talking to a lawyer and talking directly to the police.
  - aaron-santos 6y ago
    We already have companies who participate in Free File and it's already not working so I don't really see how the incentive to represent my interests thing is working out.
    - _qulr 6y ago
      Right. The financial incentive of the for-profit tax preparation companies is to lobby the politicians to make the tax code so complicated that people need to pay tax preparation companies. If the tax code was simple, then these companies would cease to exist. The IRS itself is mainly just following the directions of the politicians. These directions may or may not include looking for fraud, depending on who is currently in power.
toomuchtodo 6y ago
I would absolutely prefer to file directly with the IRS.