31 ms·

Killing TurboTax

• api 6y ago
  I gotta say I have a love-hate thing with Turbotax. I hate the company and its influence peddling, lobbying, and near monopoly status, but Turbotax itself is a very well designed product with a great intuitive experience that has done a great job filing taxes. So it's a rare case of a sleazy state-sanctioned (via refusal to simplify the tax code) monopoly with a decent product. Usually such monopolies have complete shit products because they don't need to care.
  • breck 6y ago
    TurboTax works great, until things get a little too complicated, and it quickly becomes terrible. What is needed is a strongly typed DSL where you can copy and paste your entire tax return as a single text document/spreadsheet.
    • isaacimagine 6y ago
      If all you have is a hammer...
      • breck 6y ago
        If all you have is binary notation...
    • numbsafari 6y ago
      TurboTax is so full of dark patterns to get you upsold into needless add-ons, I don't think you can say it really "works great". It's intentionally obtuse and confusing for something that should be simple and straightforward for 80% of the population.
      • lancesells 6y ago
        I pay for a stand-alone and the only upsell I can recall seeing over and over again is "audit protection" for ~$59 or so. Is the free version filled with add-ons?
        • d1zzy 6y ago
          And the state efile (but since there's the "free" alternative to print out forms and mail in that's not a big deal, and it's relatively cheap anyway). I've also always used the desktop/standalone version, great time saving compared to doing it on my own.
  • ortusdux 6y ago
    The issue is that they are so slick that you don't even notice the dark patterns that funnel you into needlessly spending money.
    • JKCalhoun 6y ago
      I buy the standalone version every year. I am not sure what dark patterns are in that version that you are talking about.
      • cratermoon 6y ago
        You don't notice the dark patterns because they are dark. Are you sure you haven't paid TurboTax for an upsell when they have a free or cheaper alternative they never mention?
      • ortusdux 6y ago
        Reply All ep 144: Dark Pattern https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nhgol https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nhgol
  • JKCalhoun 6y ago
    Before Turbo Tax I sheepishly headed down to H&R Block and got reamed. Besides understanding my taxes (and taxes in general) better, I almost enjoy the process using Turbo Tax. If there is a better Turbo Tax product out there, it would have to be very compelling to get me to switch. Besides familiarity with Turbo Tax, it pulls in last years data and saves me the more tedious steps. Like you though I feel like I am locked in at this point.
    • sumtechguy 6y ago
      H&R has a similar desktop product. The prices are in the same range and the lockin feels the same. Not sure what I am locked into though both products never find my W2s correctly anyway and import my stock divs wrong.
  • mattwad 6y ago
    Try freetaxusa.com. Its interface is just as easy but it's free.
  • bradstewart 6y ago
    That's odd, I consistently have problems with it. It's fine if you add some W2s and work straight through to filing. But navigating back and forth through different sections never behaves the way I'd expect. Things like brokerage transaction imports were simply broken while I was trying to file last year (which, incidentally, is the only reason I pay for it). And their "UIs" for dealing with forms like K1s are often more confusing (to me at least) than the underlying IRS form.
  • siliconc0w 6y ago
    Hard disagree, I've had numerous problems with their app and they constantly try to upsell you even after extracting their egregious yearly fees. There has been no innovation or even noticeable change to their product in years.
    • twox2 6y ago
      Turbotax sucks ass unless you have a simple situation with a w2 and maybe a couple of 1099s, beyond that it's a nightmare to use (for me).
    • d1zzy 6y ago
      I've been using TurboTax desktop version (the Premium edition) for 10+ years and never ran into any issues (and I have relatively complex income situation) except for one bug they have always had about incorrectly summing up the mortgage loan amounts of the same loan that you refinance or transfer in the same year (so it ends up looking as if you had 2 loans that year and consequently can miss out on large deductions). But this is relatively easy to observe and workaround. Compared to spending weeks doing my own taxes (I did them for 3 years) it's a total bliss. I feel that a lot of people complaining about TurboTax upselling or anything like that are attempting to use the online version. I am very much opposed to giving some online site all my tax information so I will always keep using the desktop version for as long as I can. It includes 5 free federal e-filins and have to pay extra (about $30) for state filing (but can always just print out the filled forms and mail them in if you don't want to). And when I did the taxes on my own I had to print and mail them anyways.
    • api 6y ago
      Maybe I am comparing it to typical accounting software, which usually has shockingly bad UI/UX.
  • tallanvor 6y ago
    Unfortunately TurboTax falls flat if you have a complex return. They "support" forms 1116 and 2555, but it's clear that they didn't put any real time into making sure they do the calculations correctly. Long story short, I got a check from the IRS for almost $1000 because TurboTax computed what I owed incorrectly.
  • PascLeRasc 6y ago
    Turbotax’s website commits all the web sins we condemn regularly on here. They hijack the back button, change your scrolling, don’t allow tab-spacebar-enter navigation, don’t allow pasting in some fields, and load buttons on a fixed resolution so you can’t see everything if you aren’t on a hires monitor. It’s really not a good product.
• breck 6y ago
  I started building my own open source US tax engine, but then found https://github.com/ustaxes/UsTaxes https://github.com/ustaxes/UsTaxes here on HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26138446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26138446) and decided to throw my efforts with them instead. Check it out!
  • ed25519FUUU 6y ago
    I was just thinking that an open-source tax engine is the way to go in the future. I would like to see it maintained by the USGOV.
    • ISL 6y ago
      Is it possible to FOIA the IRS tax-computation code itself?
      • breck 6y ago
        I love this idea. Maybe someone has already done that?
      • dastx 6y ago
        Feels like this should be in the public domain. Any reason for it not to be?
        • dspillett 6y ago
          The lobbying push from companies that would rather it wasn't (because it could erode their market position by lowering the entry bar for competitors) is stronger than any current push in the other direction, would be my guess.
        • bombcar 6y ago
          Intuit and HR Block lobby against it every year, and the IRS continues to threaten to do it.
• savanaly 6y ago
  I'm not sure I understand how monopolies acquiring their competitors early on in order to be able to maintain their monopoly price works in practice. Wouldn't the eager gaze of startup founders looking to strike their first big score turn like the Eye of Sauron on any such industry? And all the monopoly profits that the monopolist stands to extract would in the medium run hit an equilibrium of zero when balanced against the extractions of the people it's forced to acquire?
  • cratermoon 6y ago
    Barriers to entry.
    • savanaly 6y ago
      But it has been acquiring companies, as mentioned in the article. Why didn't those companies face a barrier to entry? Or if they did and it wasn't binding why is it apparently binding to other up and comers?
      • cratermoon 6y ago
        Did you read the article? None of them ever seriously threatened TurboTax as a whole, they were just trying to carve out tiny niches that weren't already under the Borg. They were assimilated.
  • nucleogenesis 6y ago
    How would an eager startup person get funded to build something that competes with TurboTax? How will you bring novel value to the industry at this point? A monopolized industry is also intentionally difficult to enter. It’s not just about buying existing competitors it’s about also making it as hard as possible to enter. So even when some startup manages to get funding and deploy a viable product, they’re immediately on the radar for acquisition for monopolists if they weren’t before going to production. TurboTax has also lobbied to affect US law in their favor. They’re a scumbag organization who makes an excellent product.
• aphextron 6y ago
  What exactly does everyone have against Turbotax? I use it every year and I love it. Sure I could save a hundred bucks and spend hours filling out IRS worksheets, but I don't want to. They have excellent UX, and serve as a reliable secure cloud repository for all of my financial information. What's the big deal?
  • toomuchtodo 6y ago
    You're paying for a service that should be provided for free by the IRS, as happens in many other developed countries. It's unnecessary financial drag on the economy.
    • aphextron 6y ago
      >You're paying for a service that should be provided for free by the IRS, as happens in many other developed countries. But Turbotax is free for 1040EZ filers. It's only in an instance where you would otherwise just hire a tax accountant that they charge you. In terms of SAAS pricing, it comes out to like $15/month annualized. It's a bargain IMO.
      • toomuchtodo 6y ago
        It's unacceptable to argue that it should be free for some, but not for everyone. It's not a bargain, it's unnecessary regulatory capture, for what my government should be providing at no cost to all citizens who are required to file returns. Private electronic tax filing systems (and the fees they charge) should not exist.
      • Nextgrid 6y ago
        I believe they also use dark patterns to direct people towards the paid version even if the free one would be fine for your needs.
      • lotsofpulp 6y ago
        >It's only in an instance where you would otherwise just hire a tax accountant that they charge you. This is false. There's no need for 90% of people to hire an accountant to file their state tax return, for which Intuit charges.
• sgwealti 6y ago
  Or the IRS could file our taxes for us for free.
  • jonathanlb 6y ago
    They could, but IIRC Intuit and HR Block lobbied the government to make this an impossibility.
  • Finnucane 6y ago
    Turbotax et al. lobby heavily to prevent this. Given that much of the relevant information--W2s, 1099s, etc., are already reported, you'd think that this would be easier for a very large percentage of taxpayers. But it would effectively kill TurboTax's business.
    • iamjake648 6y ago
      And that would be a good thing
    • nicoburns 6y ago
      Couldn't the legislators just... not do what the lobbyists want? Are they really all that corrupt?
      • grecy 6y ago
        You can't actually use the word "corrupt" to describe what the legislators are doing, that's painting them unfairly. All they're doing is lining their own pockets with millions from TurboTax et. al to make sure laws are favourable for those big companies. But because it's perfectly legal, and there are no thugs with guns or drugs or "bad members of society", it's absolutely not corruption. /s
      • anonymousab 6y ago
        Absolutely. And with the tax companies, it turns out that it's very cheap to corrupt a US congressperson.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• mattwad 6y ago
  Try freetaxusa.com if you're looking for a free alternative that has an equally friendly user interface!
  • hanniabu 6y ago
    Only free for federal. Also doesn't seem to be open source so who knows if they're logging your social security number and other info.
    • lupire 6y ago
      Of course they are logging your info, same as Intuit and so many other companies. SSN isn't a secret; yours is almost certainly already leaked.
  • throwaheyy 6y ago
    Another vote for FreeTaxUSA. They are totally free for federal returns but I happily pay the $6 for the ‘Deluxe’ service level to support its development. Been using them for years now after getting tired of TurboTax’s $60-100 fear racket.
  • klmadfejno 6y ago
    I had a lovely experience with freetaxusa this year. They're not entirely free, but they're still very cheap and transparent about their pricing. They don't do the login thing where you hook into your banks and pull in documents automatically, but... honestly those aren't that useful and I'm not sure I trust those on turbotax.
  • carabiner 6y ago
    I just tried it. It has a good interface, but a massive downside in that it doesn't have any automated importing/parsing of W-2's, 1099's, and other forms, unlike TurboTax. You have to type in every single number, leaving room for fat finger errors that TurboTax largely eliminates. This removes much of the advantage of doing your taxes online in the first place. TurboTax will smoothly import these, sometimes directly from your bank's website (you don't have to download and upload the PDF). If FreeTaxUSA built a robust tax form PDF parser it would be a real TurboTax competitor. Right now, it's just a cleaner interface to filling out the IRS PDF's on your own. It's good if you don't mind a more manual approach to your taxes.
• JanSolo 6y ago
  This has already been done successfully in Canada. A small team from Vancouver built a pay-what-you-want web-based tax-filing system from scratch. It's called SimpleTax and it's already a major competitor to the Canadian version of TurboTax. In fact, it was so successful that it was recently acquired by Canadian investment group WealthSimple.
  • parliament32 6y ago
    Unfortunately, the "we promise not to sell your personal data" disappeared from the privacy policy during the acquisition, so we know why they remain donationware post-acquisition. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/the-canadian-tech-company-that-changed-its-mind-about-using-your-tax-return-to-sell-stuff-1.5471400 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/the-canadian-tech-comp...
    • jcun4128 6y ago
      Ooh ToS/privacy policy diffing service alerts as a service ha
      • eitland 6y ago
        Used to be a plain Firefox extension back in the days. It was really simple, something like: - You clicked a button in the toolbar or right clicked and chose menu option - a dialog showed up, you chose how often it should check the page and how big differences it should tolerate and clicked OK. - once every hour or 4 times a day or twice a day depending on your choice Firefox would download the page locally, compare it and tell me if there were changes. Yes, we oldtimers mostly complain about TST, but there were an entire ecosystem of brilliant extensions - so brilliant I figure it would habe been hard for me to believe today if I hadn't experienced it back then. That's what you can have when you have brilliant people making brilliant software to empower you :-/ Edit: seriously, I would pay $20 a month for someone who would fix the new Firefox. If someone made a realistic Kickstarter I'd support it right away and then monthly if necessary.
  • ehsankia 6y ago
• somehnguy 6y ago
  TurboTax is disgusting. I used them for a few years in the past due to their great marketing and easy to use website. But they pulled a bait & switch on me last year, at the last minute (after I had done everything) I was required to pay north of $120 to actually file. The problem isn't that they want money to use their software, it's that they're not upfront about it. Free is thrown in your face about 100 times during the process and then they surprise you right at the end after you've already invested a bunch of your time. My taxes are dead simple - I just don't trust myself or care enough to file without some software assistance. This year I'm using a different company who appears to be much less shady and will never use TurboTax again. I hope TurboTax making my money once was enough to lose me as a customer for life. In reality I hope the company ceases to exist in the near future, but that seems unlikely. I'm excited at the prospect of free & open source tax software - for next year maybe.
  • coldpie 6y ago
    If your taxes are super simple, you can use the IRS's free fillable forms: https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-forms https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form... You basically type your numbers in and it does the math for you. Then you print it out and mail it in. It can't do anything complex, though. In my experience (Minnesota), state filing is even easier, usually just copying numbers from your federal form and doing one table lookup. No reason to give the shitty companies more money.
    • somehnguy 6y ago
      Thank you, that actually appears to be much more user friendly than I would have imagined. When I think of government websites I think I'm still stuck in the mindset of government websites 10 years ago (aka absolutely horrible). I've been surprised at how good things have gotten regarding them a few times, so I guess I need to snap out of that mindset. While looking over the requirements and supported forms I didn't find anything about student loans (form 1098E), would you happen to know if that method is compatible with them?
      • 6y ago
• depingus 6y ago
  Use this IRS tool to find which service lets you free file. https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/ https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/
  • Thrymr 6y ago
    That link is only for people who earn <$72,000 / year. Everyone can use https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-forms https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form..., though.
• chrisseaton 6y ago
  Are accountants prohibitively expensive in the US? I don't use any tax software myself in the UK - I just pay an accountant $250 once a year and he does it for me (using some software I presume.) It's not really on my radar as things worth trying to automate or use software myself for, let alone building my own software! I'd have to be able to do it in just a few hours to be cost effective.
  • lotsofpulp 6y ago
    You also have to trust the accountant, and the accountant is not liable at the end of the day anyway. If you are a W-2 employee, even with having to file a Sch 1/2/3/B/D/etc, it shouldn’t take more than a couple hours. And you get to know you did it right. Of course, if you don’t enjoy reading tax instructions, I highly recommend parting with a couple hundred dollars and letting someone else do it.
  • clintonb 6y ago
    The idea of paying someone $250 when the government already has the data is ridiculous. Accountants are accessible to some, but we shouldn't need to pay someone when the government can do the calculations.
    • missedthecue 6y ago
      The government really doesn't have the data. Do they have cameras in your home detecting whether or not you paid for more than 50% of your child's living expenses?
      • CRConrad 6y ago
        Does the accountant? He'll just have to take your word for it, and send that in to the IRS. He won't be liable for it if it's a lie; you will. So what's the difference to you telling the IRS directly? And no, checking a box "I did not have any income besides my tax-withheld salary [_]" and filling in an integer "I have [_] dependent children" seems like something most people could do on an IRS web page without having to buy software or pay an accountant every year. (And if you tell them when the kids were born the first time you do this, they could carry them over year to year and age them out automatically when they turn 18, and then you wouldn't even have to do that any more unless and until some exception occurs.) All these pro-status quo comments sound so weird, like desperate apologetics for the world's most needlessly complicated system. Are you all just finding it impossible to conceive of there being a better way than The American Way, or what's the reason?
• transfire 6y ago
  Younger me would say, "Or we could actually simplify and fix the tax system!". Older me unfortunately knows just how corrupt the whole thing is, thus has no hope for such honorable dreams, and is sad.
• justicezyx 6y ago
  People misinterpret TurboTax. Turbotax is a by-product of US tax law which gradually morphed into a wealth hiding and manipulation engine. Can you kill turbotax? Possibility. Can you avoid having an inherently anti human tax law, and therefore eliminate the soil of turbotax? Unfortunately no.
• mikecarlton 6y ago
  Don't give turbotax your money. If you want free, high-quality tax prep, consider Credit Karma (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/03/07/when-tax-prep-is-free-you-may-be-paying-with-your-privacy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/03/07/when-ta...) The difference is that they're using your data to target financial products at you (just like any other free service). But they don't sell your data at least.
  • briga 6y ago
    You realize Intuit owns Credit Karma now, right?
    • JCBird1012 6y ago
      Square owns Credit Karma Tax. Intuit was required to divest that part of the company as a part of the merger. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-divestiture-credit-karma-tax-intuit-proceed-acquisition-credit https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-d...
  • brocket 6y ago
    Now it's the same company unfortunately. Intuit completed their acquisition of Credit Karma in Dec, 2020. https://investors.intuit.com/news/news-details/2020/Intuit-Completes-Acquisition-of-Credit-Karma/ https://investors.intuit.com/news/news-details/2020/Intuit-C...
    • sdljfjafsd 6y ago
      Square owns Credit Karma Tax, not Intuit.
    • JCBird1012 6y ago
      The part you're missing is that as a part of the acquisition, Intuit was required by the Justice Department to divest the "tax" portion of Credit Karma - so no, they're not the same company. Credit Karma, the main app, is Intuit. The tax portion of Credit Karma is not. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-divestiture-credit-karma-tax-intuit-proceed-acquisition-credit https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-d...
• ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  I use an accountant. It has worked for me for many years. I'm grateful to be able to do that. On another note, I used TurboTax, like, no exaggeration, over 20 years ago, for the last time. They kept my email, and migrated me to one of their current accounts, and, on a regular basis, I get spammed by them to "reactivate my account." The problem is that there is absolutely no way to respond, and ask them to remove me from their spam list. They try to get me to log in, instead, and the login attempts are always rejected. I have tried to contact their support, a couple of times, and received auto-bot responses that are basically repeats of the worthless footer in the spam they send me. It's annoying. Not "jump off a cliff" annoying. More like "persistent mosquito" annoying.
• andrewpi 6y ago
  No mention of TaxAct on this post; is their marketshare really that insignificant?
• PrimeDirective 6y ago
  “What if we could give customers a button. They’d press it at the end of the year and it would automagically file their taxes for them.” Literally is like this where I live. It's done through a government website.
• klmadfejno 6y ago
  The article seems odd to me. Tax filing at the push of a button still implies a middleman. You don't need to push the button.
  • moviuro 6y ago
    We have the following data about you: [...] Does it look correct? [Y/n] That's how it's done in France for example.
    • guerrilla 6y ago
      and Sweden.
    • kwhitefoot 6y ago
      And Norway.
    • CRConrad 6y ago
      And Finland. Except they also send it by snail mail, so you can read that and if it looks correct you don't even have to go online to click "OK". (Though I think I saw somewhere they may be phasing that out; saves on trees and postage.)
• anaclet0 6y ago
  I wonder what happened to turbotaxsucksass.com, it was listing a bunch of free alternatives and it mysteriously expired right before tax season began.
  • vidarh 6y ago
    It was set up for Hasan Minhaj's show, and the show was cancelled. Since it was set up right before previous "tax season" I'm assuming they'd just paid for a year. It's in archive.org, though, e.g. [1], and it's just a static site with a bunch of links. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20210130180334/https://www.turbotaxsucksass.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210130180334/https://www.turbo...
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• williesleg 6y ago
  Thank God for Trump, my taxes are a lot easier now! Just a 1040ez!
• wheybags 6y ago
  Something I never understood about us taxes - from reading discussions online, it seems like everyone needs to file taxes at the end of every year? Here it's only self employed, or people with rental or investment income. In a normal employer-employee relationship, the employer has to take care of it for you, they deduct taxes before sending the money to your account. This seems to be the way it works in most places, but not the us?
  • colejohnson66 6y ago
    Correct. Companies like Intuit lobby the government to keep complex tax codes so they can provide services that make it easy.
    • nightski 6y ago
      While that may be true, the reality is a lot of the complexity comes from deductions to handle people's "special" situations and needs.
    • astrea 6y ago
      They don't lobby to make the tax code itself more complex, they just lobby to be the only providers of such services: https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...
    • mumblemumble 6y ago
      It's not quite that simple. There's a lot of popular political support for things that make a simpler tax season impossible, too. For example, the existence of tax-advantaged savings vehicles such as IRAs and HSAs mean that the taxable portion of your income isn't settled until the deadline for making contributions for that tax year. Which is April 15. But I imagine there would be a lot of popular political backlash if Congress were to abolish IRAs in the name of sticking it to Intuit. There's also that whole mess of expenditures that you can deduct from your taxable income, which doesn't kick in until the total of your deductible expenses exceeds the standard deduction. And a lot of people were worried when the standard deduction got increased a few years ago. It made a lot of people's taxes nominally easier to calculate, but people were worried that it might remove an incentive for charitable donations, or reduce the largess that the government gives to homeowners relative to renters, or alter the impact of tax incentives for people who put solar panels on their roofs, or whatever. Long story short, we love to blame Intuit, and it is true that Intuit generally wants a nasty complicated tax code, but it's also true that, in the aggregate, so does America.
• totaldude87 6y ago
  Ok am curious. Why people hate TurboTax so much ? Is it because its a monopoly (or) does it uses any predatory practices (or) kill other companies that tries to compete. Disclosure: I used TurboTax to file this year's taxes and kind of like their UI and ease of use (for top $ of course):|
  • alex_g 6y ago
    All of the above. Yeah TurboTax is great because they make it easier to do something nearly everyone hates to do and doesn't understand. So most people don't care about why Intuit is a terrible company because TurboTax is their only option and it works well. Intuit has excessively lobbied the US government to prevent simplification of the tax code, they struck a deal to offer a free option in return for the IRS not developing their own alternative, and then deceptively hid access to the free option so that users are tricked into purchasing it anyway.
  • frockington1 6y ago
    People don't like TurboTax becauseof their advertising and lobbying tactics. They target income levels that can file for free online and spend money 'lobbying' the government to allow the practice to continue. That being said, I use Turbo Tax and love it. The clean UI made filing take 90 minutes despite having several property and other transactions this year.
  • alteria 6y ago
    The other comments provided a great overview, but I would really recommend read ProPublica's reporting about them [1] Some very brief highlights: - They use dark patterns and other trickery to prevent people from filing for free (the vast majority of Americans can file for free via IRS free-file), instead directing them to the "free" up-sell laden product - Lobbying against literally anything that would make filing taxes easier or cheaper. It doesn't have to be this way (and it's not in many countries), but it's how they make their money. [1] https://www.propublica.org/series/the-turbotax-trap https://www.propublica.org/series/the-turbotax-trap
  • bajsejohannes 6y ago
    Not only do they kill other companies, but they kill the government's ability to compete. As is mentioned in other threads, many countries don't have this tax filling non-sense at all. The government just says: Here's what we're basing your taxes on; let us know if there are any mistakes. It's absurd to spend ones time and money to file taxes only to have the government punish you because you didn't get the right answer.
• legitster 6y ago
  I just want to point out that this article is using a really bad definition of monopoly. There are about a dozen if not more ways to file taxes, and just because one is the most most popular and gets a bigger slice on the bell curve doesn't mean it has a monopoly. It bugs me a little because I keep seeing the definition of monopoly becoming less and less meaningful. I think the argument, if anything is the opposite: there are dozens of tax filing software, they all more or less do the same thing, and all the resources get wasted on marketing against each other. So I think I would prefer an actual monopoly! And if the government won't make it, why not make an open source one that can drive the for-profit ones out of business!
• leshow 6y ago
  This discussion feels incomplete without mentioning "return-free filing". A lot of countries you don't even need to send a return because the government already has all the info you need. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-other-countries-use-return-free-filing https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-other-cou...
  • godelski 6y ago
    The fact that this isn't in the conversation has always surprised me. Both Regan and Obama supported it. The Republicans did that whole "taxes on a postcard" skit, but we don't even need a postcard. We're talking about TurboTax, well how many of you also log in and all the information is already there? I don't see why we can't replace the 1040 with return free filing, or at least the 1040Ez
    • pfranz 6y ago
      Grover Norquist has had Republicans sign "the Pledge" opposing tax increase since 1986. Reportedly, he also wants filing taxes to be painful so you hate the government and he opposes these measures. In 2005, California had a pilot program called ReadyReturn where they mailed you prefilled forms. It was popular. TurboTax lobbied against it and it died.
      • refurb 6y ago
        California Democrats are in the pocket of TurboTax? Really?
  • adwww 6y ago
    Yeah as a Brit the whole discussion above about "nobody could replace TT because it's so complex" missed the point by a country mile.
  • alkonaut 6y ago
    I do mortage deductions etc. and I filed my taxes some years back by responding to a text message. "If this looks right and you don't want to change anything, just reply YES and you are done for this year", basically. In recent years it's just a smartphone app or website. Typically you cclick "next" 3 times to review and then submit. It's around as simple as your average online retail experience.
• jedberg 6y ago
  In case you're wondering how they justify keeping the system the way it is, the going line is, "If you allowed auto-filing taxes, the government will sneak in new taxes that you'd never even know about!!" The other argument I've heard is, "it should be painful to file taxes, to make people support the idea of getting rid of taxes".
• jrgaston 6y ago
  Seems to me that for a lot of people, maybe the majority, the government already has all your tax data and you shouldn't need to file, only accept the government's numbers. I am in the opposite situation, especially as I have to file in two countries. Not living in the US doesn't give you a pass on filing US taxes. I get to buy two different versions of TurboTax :-( We don't worry much about a US audit (some say the IRS is starved for funding by anti-tax politicos?) whereas in our other country they quickly catch even the smallest error.
• funkaster 6y ago
  I'm Chilean. Chile doesn't have the best system by far, but the SII (IRS equivalent) has made a push to modernize for several years now. Filing taxes for 90% of the people is as easy as going to the website, check that everything is pre-filled correctly (and add anything that needs to be done manually, if for instance you didn't do electronic invoices). Submit. Takes about 10 min. I've been living in the US for about 10 years now, I really wish we had a simpler system. Today, I just pay a tax consultant because I don't want this to be an extra thing in my head.
• lolsal 6y ago
  TurboTax's offering is not just about literally filing my taxes. It's about managing risk that I'm not botching my filing in the form of missing something entirely, mis-filing, or leaving deductions on the table. Even if submitting forms online is entirely free, I'm willing to pay SOMETHING to make sure SOMEONE ELSE is responsible for making sure it goes well. I pay accountants for this for this exact reason. I'm sure I could figure out what boxes to copy where, but I'm not paying an accountant or TurboTax for copying values. edit: I did not mean this to sound like an apology for TurboTax being despicable for other reasons.
  • ianlevesque 6y ago
    I get what you're saying, and I use it for the same reason, but as far as "SOMEONE ELSE is responsible" they do a really great job in the ToS making sure they legally really aren't responsible in any way. It's a great racket.
    • lolsal 6y ago
      I understand (and agree that it's a racket), but even so, it was worth something to me even when I was filing 1040EZs.
  • gugagore 6y ago
    This is an honest question: what responsibility does a TurboTax have? How would you find out that they messed up, and how would you react?
    • lolsal 6y ago
      I don't know if I can answer that first question - it seems like if they position themselves as providing expert advice and competent filing, and then I pay for it, I should be guaranteed something. But the world does not really operate on SHOULDs. If I used TurboTax, I would expect to find out they messed up by getting some notification from the IRS, or accidentally discovering later that I missed a deduction. If the IRS was reaching out, I'd engage a real accountant ASAP. If TurboTax missed a deduction, I'd vote with my wallet and use an accountant the following year :) disclaimer: I use an accountant because my tax situation is complicated.
• bob1029 6y ago
  "Killing TurboTax" is essentially a meme until we meaningfully simplify the tax code. There is no software development team on earth who could catch up with the full capabilities of TurboTax without some sort of fundamental shift in the business. I really hate to say this as someone who makes a living out of it, but dealing with the current amount of complexity in the tax code with a piece of software that a non-expert could use is virtually impossible. For the happy path (i.e. single individual, no dependents, no investments, no retirement, rents home), you could certainly build an application that handles these scenarios. The moment you factor in individuals who are bringing stock sales, multiple investment properties, ownerships/K1s and other complex scenarios to bear, its a different hellscape altogether. Also don't forget that most states have their own independent tax codes as well, which further complicate matters. There's difficulty multipliers all over this problem domain, and you can be certain that the lobbyists employed by Intuit, et. al. are encouraging this.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • namdnay 6y ago
    Hmmm, how does the IRS check? Purely manually? Surely there are some alternatives out there. Worst case scenario, the government buys a turbo tax competitor
  • astura 6y ago
    The IRS themselves need to provide this "auto tax" service.
    • bob1029 6y ago
      As noted in other comments here, an "auto tax" service only really works on the happy path. There are parts of the tax code which are highly subjective in more complex situations and require explicit elections on part of the filing party. These elections can have consequences far beyond the immediate tax filing transaction.
      • 6y ago
• ldbooth 6y ago
  This sounds like a great project once the US revises it's tax code. And a lot of wasted of time should it be revised to incorporate digital tools available today (like Mint transaction categorization). It's unlikely to be revised in the near term, but I have hope that throuh some bad economic or social upheaval, we may see some appetite to increase US GDP in a real way and decrease the wealth disparity by simplifying tax filing in a real way.
• saxelsen 6y ago
  As a non-US resident, and by judging all the comments here plus the article's point about how hard it is to joust TurboTax from the top, what is the main benefit for a consumer to actually make the change? It seems like TurboTax actually does your taxes quite well and that it's pretty hard for competitors to catch up to the functionality. But was is the argument for competing with it?
• mikewarot 6y ago
  I'm willing to pay TurboTax AND test (with my info) whatever else someone gives me to run locally on my Windows machine, offline, in a virtual machine. I'll do it every year, until the software is good enough to use without paying the TurboTax Tax. I'm also willing to help debug it.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• lcuff 6y ago
  In addition to being very complex, tax codes change yearly. Whoever might take this on would have to take on that a tax code change made in December needs to be interpreted: What questions need to be asked to fill in the new line on one or more IRS forms? And any of the states can likewise make last minute changes. It's nasty time pressure because you have weeks to implement, test, and ship the accommodation to new requirements. I also observe that the tax code was crazy complex before personal computers became popular in the eighties. Blaming Turbo Tax for the complexity is misplaced blame, though no argument they have a vested interest in keeping them complex, and they pay lobbyists to safeguard their interests.
• pkoullick92 6y ago
  Hello HN! I'm the founder of Keeper Tax (keepertax.com) and killing TurboTax is our mission. We recently raised a large round, and we're hiring engineers, designers, data scientists. Ping me at paul@keepertax.com
  • devoutsalsa 6y ago
    What's the Keeper Tax business model?
• projektfu 6y ago
  This sounds to me like the "invoice problem", or whatever you might call it. Consider business invoices. Tens of thousands of entities have to share the same general flavor of data, and each already has a system for doing it. They all have to receive and process that data regularly, and have their own systems, charts of account, item names, etc. Harmonizing all that is very difficult. The IRS offers standard forms but there is often more than one way to select them or fill them out. For example, on an 1120S, the accountant might place an expense in one of the standard categories or in a table of other expenses. But even more difficult, every user might have different ways of categorizing their income and expenses, and the people sending them forms might do it one way or another. Such a service would have to be opinionated and convince each reporting entity to adopt the system in place of the home-built one they're already using.
• anonu 6y ago
  Why not kill TicketMaster or eBay? I actually dont mind TurboTax - they make it easy and they remember what happened last year. Could competition make it even better - sure. But where near monopolies really exist is with eBay and TicketMaster. Sure there are 1000s of auction sites and ticketing sites - but none have quite the power as these two.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• rafaelgarrido 6y ago
  In Brazil there's a software provided by the government for tax reporting (free service): https://www.gov.br/receitafederal/pt-br/assuntos/irpf/2020/download/download-do-programa https://www.gov.br/receitafederal/pt-br/assuntos/irpf/2020/d...
• webinar 6y ago
  I've been using excel1040.com for the last few years. It's an excel spreadsheet calculator, in the same format as all the tax forms. You still have to know "how to do your taxes", but it takes away a lot of the busy work, and will flag certain things you may otherwise miss.
• dang 6y ago
  This is such an ongoing theme on HN that we could maybe use a bibiliography. If I missed any big ones let me know. In reverse chronological order: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26138446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26138446 - Feb 2021 (219 comments) TurboTax Tricked You into Paying to File Your Taxes (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26102695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26102695 - Feb 2021 (306 comments) TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26060414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26060414 - Feb 2021 (199 comments) FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24409093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24409093 - Sept 2020 (194 comments) IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21923220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21923220 - Dec 2019 (448 comments) IRS Tried to Hide Emails That Show Tax Industry Influence over Free File Program - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21393758 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21393758 - Oct 2019 (188 comments) TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21281411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21281411 - Oct 2019 (447 comments) TurboTax to charge more lower-income customers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20461169 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20461169 - July 2019 (81 comments) Congress Scraps Provision to Restrict IRS from Competing with TurboTax - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20119916 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20119916 - June 2019 (18 comments) TurboTax Uses a “Military Discount” to Trick Troops into Paying to File Taxes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19994118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19994118 - May 2019 (42 comments) Listen to TurboTax Lie to Get Out of Refunding Overcharged Customers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19870242 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19870242 - May 2019 (44 comments) TurboTax and H&R Block Saw Free Tax Filing as a Threat - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19810981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19810981 - May 2019 (143 comments) TurboTax Hides Its Free File Page from Search Engines - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19758126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19758126 - April 2019 (262 comments) TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19718284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19718284 - April 2019 (274 comments) Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19613725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19613725 - April 2019 (696 comments) How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19392673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19392673 - March 2019 (253 comments) H&R Block and Intuit Lobby Against Free and Simple Tax Filing (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18956883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18956883 - Jan 2019 (190 comments) Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17751383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17751383 - Aug 2018 (424 comments) Why I'm boycotting TurboTax this year - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16844458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16844458 - April 2018 (23 comments) H&R Block and Intuit Lobbying Against Simpler Tax Filing (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16841449 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16841449 - April 2018 (232 comments) H&R Block and Intuit Are Lobbying Against Making Tax Filling Free and Easy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13922482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13922482 - March 2017 (234 comments) How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13853150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13853150 - March 2017 (439 comments) TurboTax Takes Aim at Smaller Rival in Fight for Filers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11150694 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11150694 - Feb 2016 (87 comments) Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9381437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9381437 - April 2015 (150 comments) Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9380232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9380232 - April 2015 (124 comments) Filing taxes: It shouldn't be so hard - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5488084 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5488084 - April 2013 (56 comments) How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5443203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5443203 - March 2013 (330 comments)
• paulpan 6y ago
  The great irony in all this is that TurboTax has become the villain it was trying to fight, aka "adding a tax to filing tax returns". "Tax" not just in monetary terms of purchasing an annual software but also in the time spent in filing. Why were they allowed to acquire a competitor (CreditKarma) again? Until we have stronger regulatory bodies, better funding for IRS, and just the will to fight corporate encroachment, this "tax on tax" will remain. (As a side note, I suspect TurboTax software is designed to be complicated and obstruct the filing process so that you feel like you got your moneys worth after spending 2-3 hours using it.)
• liopleurodon 6y ago
  > What it will take to defeat TurboTax Get rid of the income tax and the irs
• Vaslo 6y ago
  “Jesse Wilson said to me” Who?
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• the_arun 6y ago
  Note that - Tax business is not scalable if you are looking for a year long activity in business. Tax season is from Jan to April 15th. After Apr 15, your teams & infrastructure have to scale down.
• u678u 6y ago
  I use HR Block application after TT put it its price and works great. $29 bucks.
• squid_demon 6y ago
  If they could only import cryptocurrency information from Coinbase... https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/taxes/discussion/re-how-can-i-import-the-csv-file-generated-from-coinbase-error-no-headers-found-in-this-file/01/1990521 https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/taxes/discussion/re-how-ca...
• jijji 6y ago
  taxes can be e-filed, and it seems like the government purposefully prevents average citizens from filing basic tax forms -- previous stories showed evidence of Intuit lobbying the IRS for this specific reason.... I think the real reaaon the federal government (IRS) prevents a simple web interface for tax prep is because it would immediately put out of business a whole cottage industry created around this purpose. For business filers, it is important to have a CPA to certify the preparation of the results before submission, and I can understand the need for this industry. However, for the vast majority of people getting paid on W-2 with various allowances, it would have been fairly trivial to design a web interface to handle these submissions. It is strange that the web has been around since 1990 and yet no such web site exists within the IRS....
• DogOfTheGaps 6y ago
  After using TurboTax for years, I switched to using one of the alternatives and it worked just fine. Maybe even better than TurboTax.
• xyst 6y ago
  The way to kill turbo tax is by getting rid of the entire industry. If other countries are able to automatically fill out these forms for you and determine your tax liability then that should be done. If you get a refund, then the IRS will send you a check or direct deposit it into your account.
• ketamine__ 6y ago
  This guy has built a lot of the future judging from his bio.
• Sophistifunk 6y ago
  Every time this comes up, people seem to be missing the reason tax codes are as complicated and loophole-filled as they are, because they approach the problem from the wrong place. The tax codes of all modern nations are not about revenue. They're about control. The entire purpose of the machinery is to punish some behaviours and incentivise others without having to go through all the trouble and checks and balances of passing specific new laws. The overall income from taxes isn't how the government funds their spending, it's simply a means to control (but never enough to eliminate) inflation.
• xyzelement 6y ago
  Taxes are a complex topic, and I believe that "TurboTax sucks" or even "the US tax code is too complex" are insufficiently insightful. WHY TAXES IN THE US ARE COMPLEX The US governing mindset accepts that people follow financial incentives and disincentives (capitalism.) Thus the government can encourage or reduce certain activities via tax code treatment. Some examples of activities that the government encourages via the tax code are: marriage, having children, taking care of aged relatives, donating to charity, driving a low emission vehicle, home ownership, getting an education, and investing for the long term. And these are just the simple ones that most people encounter, there are many others. Further complexities stem from attempts to make the code fair. For example, if your work requires you to spend money on things like uniforms and certifications, the code has provisions to exclude that from taxable income. Likewise, you don't get double-taxed on foreign income you had already paid taxed on abroad. Finally, the US is a diverse country with diverse values. Each state and municipality has a different philosophy on taxation and what the tax code encourages and discourages. People to some extent migrate towards tax regimes that align with their values, but of course this is another source of complexity. The bottom line is that the US tax code is complex because it tries to do more and has to account for more variability than perhaps other tax codes out there. ARE TAXES HARD? The answer is: it depends. For the simple person who draws a salary and that's all, they can fill out their taxes in a few minutes, for free online - or even by hand in a form with no problem. I did this when I was a college student and early in my career. I often hear foreigners brag how their tax form is 3 lines - that's great. For many in the US, it's not much more than that. But, as you get into more advanced scenarios and want to take advantage of government incentives (or the government wants to make sure you pay your fair share in some otherwise tricky cases) you have to put in more work. DOES TURBO TAX SUCK? It's easy to find faults with most software, but the bottom line at least in my experience is it has scaled very well as my tax situation grew in complexity in different ways. The fact that one can rely heavily on this program for a workflow that has implications of tens of thousands of dollars every year is pretty meaningful. CAN IT BE REPLACED? Good luck. For very simple cases I mentioned above, sure - and there are already lots of cheap and easy ways to file in those cases, including trivially on paper. But once people have complex situations and many factors intersecting, your software needs to account for all of those factors well. That takes tremendous work year after year - to understand, encode, and test all of these things. In my opinion that's exactly the kind of project that benefits from commercial investment and wouldn't do well as open source.
• xivzgrev 6y ago
  I used to work on a tax product. I 100% agree with the premise: to unseat TT, you need a auto-assembler of tax, like other countries have. I’m not sure why the author didn’t delve into it, but essentially if you have payroll integrated, you can enable this for a LOT of Americans. They work 1 job and take standard deduction. Don’t go after the complex 1% tax filers, do 1 job and do it well. Imagine you get an email. “Hey it’s tax time. Looks like you’re due a refund of $1000. Click here to confirm and file.” That would be really powerful. For many Americans the tax refund is the biggest paycheck of the year. Anything that makes that easier is going to do well.
• throwbigdata 6y ago
  How do I invest?
• spyckie2 6y ago
  I really don't get why people want to kill turbotax. I get the following: 1. the tax system in the US is broken 2. It needs to be simpler ... 3. kill turbotax??? For many people, such as myself, turbotax is doing exactly what most people want to kill it for... simplifying US taxes so I don't have to think about it. Am I missing something? Do people just think oh, if turbotax dies, a free open source version of it is going to be as usable, consistent, bug free, and adopted? Or tax code itself is going to be as easy to use as turbo tax currently is? I'd bet the cost of killing turbotax is probably greater than the entire net worth of turbotax as a company, with lifetime future revenues discounted to today, 10 times over.
  • pfranz 6y ago
    TurboTax is preventing the government from offering a solution and I wouldn't be surprised if they promote complicating the tax code. It's incredibly common for companies to promote additional regulation to prevent competition. ReadyReturn[1] was a 2005 California Tax prep program. It mailed you a prepopulated tax form. It was incredibly popular during the pilot program and TurboTax spent $1.7 million lobbying against it. Most people don't have complicated taxes, but I find even collecting all the forms from employers and institutions and filling out the forms a pain. I'm confident it's the most error prone part. I honestly don't think capital gains or HSA complicate things all that much if you're automating things. I don't care how complicated the tax code is. I have personal opinions on what they should incentivize, but don't care how it's calculated. Most countries offer prefilled or tax software to cover basic needs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyReturn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyReturn
  • masklinn 6y ago
    > Am I missing something? Turbo tax and friends literally lobby against tax code simplifications, as well as the IRS providing tax prep or return-free filing. They encourage and contribute to the problem so they can keep selling the solution.
• zerocrates 6y ago
  No doubt that TurboTax is pretty dominant, but that Google Trends comparison doesn't look as bad if you use H&R Block's actual name. Of course, H&R Block has essentially all the same perverse incentives as TurboTax does, so it's not like it matters that much.
• dustymcp 6y ago
  As a non American i cant beleive this is a thing..
  • lukeramsden 6y ago
    I know, I'm a Brit and my girlfriend doesn't even remember her login to HMRC Gateway - if she pays too much tax she gets a rebate automatically, other than that its not even something we think about.
• kellyrose019788 6y ago
  I'm available for sex, Please just follow my link https://rebrand.ly/sexygirls007 https://rebrand.ly/sexygirls007
• exabrial 6y ago
  Law of Unintended consequences: I pay an absurd amount of taxes, enough to fund several countries. Making it easier to pay them isn't going to make the fact that we subsidize high ranking government employee's lives and donors any better.
• toddh 6y ago
  My wife is a tax accountant. From a software perspective taxes are a nightmare. I made a service BasisCalc (https://basiscalculator.com/ https://basiscalculator.com/) to automate just one little part of the big multi-dimensional elephant that is the tax code and it was terrifically hard to implement. I can't imagine doing the entire tax stack. There's local, state, federal, and international. The code changes all the time. The dates change all the time. There are real substantial penalties for being late. There are so many data sources to integrate. She spends thousands a year and many hours of her time simply on tax code updates. She has serious legal liability for her work. So will your software. I would pick an easier target, like solving world hunger or world peace. Taxes will be simpler when politicians want them to be simpler and there's no profit in that.