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Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

• WisNorCan 5y ago
  Intuit is consistently one of the least ethical actors in tech. They have a monopoly position in many of their products and take advantage of some of the poorest people through misinformation and lobbying. Facebook & Uber have received most of the heat over the past few years. Intuit has strangely avoided the same level of scrutiny.
  • dhosek 5y ago
    Around 2009 my taxes grew complicated enough that I could no longer do them by hand and had to start using tax software for them. I've consistently refused to use TurboTax because the company is so evil. H&R Block is not necessarily a more ethical company, but at the very least, there's not more unethical. (And I'm vaguely aware of there being some open-source tax software of some sort out there, but when I looked it was kind of janky and didn't seem to give me much of an improvement over filling out the forms myself. I'd love to learn that things have changed.)
    • shadilay 5y ago
      Last I checked state governments have links for the free tax software that taxpayers are already paying for but the companies so desperately hide.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    • throwawayboise 5y ago
      I still do my taxes manually. I've looked for open-source software to assist. I've tried OpenTaxSolver, it is OK for what it does (basic 1040 and a few schedules like SE income and Schedule C). It does not come close to handling all possible scenarios. It's possible that you could write your own modules to handle any mising forms, in fact I tweaked one calculation that wasn't handling some edge case properly. But that's more than most people would want to do, and would certainly be more work than just doing those forms manually with pen and calculator. But like any open-source project, it relies on individual efforts like that to build something that's useful to more people. The UI itself is extremely minimalist and would not be regarded as "user friendly" by a user from the general public. Edit: it also only attempts a few state returns. Mine is not one of them, but fortunately in my state the tax forms are pretty easy assuming the Federal return is done.
    • lvspiff 5y ago
      does H&R Block handle investments and cost basis year over year information? That's the only tripping point im finding with whatever product I look to in comparison to Turbotax. Once your tax situation starts down that path I'm noticing getting a product that can pull from multiple investment accounts and keep track of cost basis correctly really narrows it down to Turbotax so far for me.
      • throwawayboise 5y ago
        At that point why not engage an accounting firm? Yes it would probably cost more, but you're supporting your local economy and have a human being to discuss any questions with (as well as be responsible for any mistakes).
        • lowercased 5y ago
          agreed. it's "more" money, but generally less headache, you can ask questions, and get answers specific to your situation, especially questions that may include state/local tax concerns as well.
        • ryandrake 5y ago
          There's still a big jump in cost between, for example TurboTax Premier tier ($90 federal + $50 state = $140) and a CPA (where I've been quoted $400-$600). I don't think the level of service justifies the cost. I tried a professional once in my life, and he basically just asked me all the same questions the software would have asked me, and typed them in to his system for me. 3X-4X the cost for the services of a typist doesn't seem like a good deal.
          • jbluepolarbear 5y ago
            A CPA takes a risk doing your taxes. They are responsible if something goes wrong. That is probably $400 an hour. If you are paying less than that make sure it’s actually a CPA doing your taxes. There may be a CPA at the firm, but unless they sign and do your taxes you aren’t protected by their liability.
    • cbhl 5y ago
      Is H&R block actually an independent code base? The last time I opened it, it looked like a page-for-page copy of TurboTax, which made me wonder whether it was just a white-label reskin of the same.
      • verall 5y ago
        I've went through both H&R block and turbotax's flows this previous year, and although heavily inspired, it did not seem like a reskin. Certain info was organized differently, etc. After being completely ready to spend $40 or whatever it was for the "Basic Premium" offering of each, BOTH H&R and turbotax silently upgraded me to "Self-employed" (I am not) and said I was free to pay the ~$100 or delete my account and make a new one. "TaxSlayer" finally let me file for like $30 or something.
  • cmckn 5y ago
    For sure. The IRS needs to offer a tax preparation platform, the grift in this industry is astounding. I've always had decent experiences with TurboTax, but they've gotten extremely good at making your taxes hell if you want to avoid giving them $89.99.
    • toomuchtodo 5y ago
      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... https://www.propublica.org/series/the-turbotax-trap https://www.propublica.org/series/the-turbotax-trap “ProPublica has long detailed how Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, and other companies have worked against making tax preparation easier and less costly. They have lobbied to ban the IRS from offering free, simple tax filing. And they have deceived customers who should qualify for the Free File product.”
      • KorematsuFred 5y ago
        I find this criticism somewhat weird. It is very common for companies or even individuals to promote and support policies that benefit themselves. Intuit is seeking self interest here. But why would IRS and our elected representatives cave in ? Are these people so clueless or unethical that they do not care about their constituents anymore ? And if that is the case I don't see how anyone can bell the intuit's cat.
        • WisNorCan 5y ago
          It is a simple bargain. US representatives are dependent on fundraising and endorsements for re-election which lobbyists are happy to offer in exchange for help with their agenda.
        • commandlinefan 5y ago
          > why would IRS and our elected representatives cave in? money.
  • bingidingi 5y ago
    i reckon people hate filling out tax forms by hand more than turbotax… and within good reason, even if you’re educated it can be frustrating to simply read tax regulations (which turbotax translates to simple english), and there’s a lot of anxiety around messing it up unfortunately turbotax is also one of the major players trying to prevent tax simplification… so they’ve got a great scheme going anyway there are more and more free options every year so let’s hope that can start hurting them… I’ve used creditkarma for a couple simple years and it’s great
    • alkonaut 5y ago
      I really don't get the money side of US politics. How do these companies use money (presumably) do sway politicians? Just openly contribute to individual politicians/think tanks/PACs? How do they launder the money Is that what the PACs do? Make sure Joe Politican can get the money, but isn't seen handed a bag of cash from a company? Or is it simply that accepting campaign donations from corporations isn't seen as corruption by voters, so politicans can do it in the open?
      • bingidingi 5y ago
        Here's one example: I've called my congressman to complain about his support for the Taxpayer First Act (which enables Intuit), his campaign received $16k from Intuit and H&R block. They spent a combined $6 million or so on lobbying to get it passed. The act, among other things, removed the requirement for the IRS to report on their development of return-free tax filing. Direct PAC donations are allowed up to $5k. Super PACs are meant to be independent, can't work directly with politicians or campaigns... and therefore have to such limits. They're very often used for "indirect" lobbying. It's a scam and everyone knows it. The people empowered by the scam are the only ones who can change it.
      • SamBam 5y ago
        It's utterly insane. It's insane how much influence money can have on politics, when it's basically entirely spent on election campaigns. (And some fancy fund-raising dinners, and stuff, but I think that is less important.) It's insane that election campaigns are such an important and expensive part of politics. Accepting millions of dollars, and for what? To keep your job for another few years. Where the biggest part of your job is getting more money for the next campaign to keep it for another few years. Real campaign finance reform could do so much.
  • rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
    It's even worse - if you don't opt-out of the data sharing, they have an absolute field day with all your financial data. They soak up a lot of the tech talent in San Diego, and every person I've met that works there on the TurboTax team has admitted to me that they feel ethically torn about what they do.
  • fooey 5y ago
    We compete with a business Intuit acquired, and the Quickbooks online API is blatantly hamstrung to make sure you can't get that kind of data in and out of their systems. They had published spec'd out endpoints before the acquisition that just never happened. It's outright abuse, and harms their customers, but there's nothing we can do about it.
• macspoofing 5y ago
  >Many of the people eligible for CTC don't file tax returns There is a level of pragmatism that calls for better communication of programs and help with tax filings ... but ... as a citizen, you do have a responsibility to file tax returns. Why is it always hard to make the argument from both sides, namely: we should make tax filing as easy as possible AND the citizen has a responsibility to file their taxes regardless. It seems we, as a society, have a hard time with the latter part.
  • kaiju0 5y ago
    Most every other country has the government send a tax sheet to you. If you disagree you go to appeal. If you do nothing your done. So much easier.
    • barbazoo 5y ago
      While I agree that that would be nice, I'm not sure that this is really as common as you say it is. Do you have examples?
      • andrewaylett 5y ago
        The UK is a good example of this -- if you're a regular employee and earn under the higher earnings threshold then you're very unlikely to be required to fill in any kind of tax return, as all your income will have been taxed at source and we don't tend to _do_ deductions. You'll get a P60 from your employer and you've got until October to notice if you either want to or need to fill in a self-assessment (hint: you don't). If you earn more, it may well be worthwhile filling one in because schemes like gift-aid assume basic rate tax and you can claim back the difference between basic and higher rate. But even then, as an employee you can often ask for any pension contributions or charitable donations to be given directly from salary pre-tax which means less paperwork later. Having to fill out self-assessment -- or at least complaining about doing so -- is a bit of a humble-brag as it's an indication that the person complaining earns enough (or has sufficiently complicated tax arrangements) to need to.
  • TFortunato 5y ago
• willio58 5y ago
  Add this to the reasons I would never consider working for Intuit. This and making taxes harder to do for everyone in the US.
• slg 5y ago
  I wish people in the US would stop blaming specific bad actors in a system for acting in their own best interest and start blaming the system that empowers them. ExxonMobil and Intuit lobby the government in their own best interest just like FAANG companies and basically everyone else that has the size to do it. That is how our system is designed. It isn't Intuit's fault this works, but since it does work, they would be stupid not to do it. Blame the legal and political system for allowing what they do to work and/or go unpunished. Don't blame individual actors for responding to systemic incentives.
  • jakelazaroff 5y ago
    How do you propose to garner support to fix the system without drawing attention to the bad actors? "A multi-billion dollar company has been lobbying the IRS so it can steal money from the most vulnerable taxpayers" is far more compelling than "poor people pay more taxes than they have to".
    • slg 5y ago
      >How do you propose to garner support to fix the system without drawing attention to the bad actors? Is there any evidence that drawing attention to bad actors actually garners political support to fix this? Look at the comments here, almost everyone is talking about the problems with Intuit and not how to fix this systemically. What we need is grassroots political change. This specific issue regarding tax prep is a symptom of larger systemic problems caused by two main issues. First-past-the-post voting means that people generally only have two viable choices when voting. Anyone who is a single issue voter and their single issue is the tax prep industry is extremely rare and frankly in my opinion crazy. This means that no one has any incentive to change the status quo. The second problem is how US's free speech laws (or perhaps more accurately the current interpretation of these laws) basically create a near free-for-all in terms of campaign financing. Since there is almost no strong motivation for change, the only people involved in the discussion about tax prep are the people who are already invested in the industry. They obvious have a huge incentive to lobby against the death of their industry. So you have an issue in which we have little public motivation for change versus an entire industry that would be willing to dedicate all their profit to fighting change. It isn't surprising we see the results we see. >A multi-billion dollar company has been lobbying the IRS so it can steal money from the most vulnerable taxpayers" is far more compelling than "poor people pay more taxes than they have to". I am not making the second argument. I am generalizing the first argument to "multi-billion dollar companies have been lobbying the government to steal money from everyone, let's adjust our system to stop that".
• azinman2 5y ago
  Intuit is a perfect example to me of the flawed reality in a libertarian ideology. We know they’re terrible, we know their products aren’t great… yet where are all the meaningful competitors? People who are at least meeting their bar if not substantially exceeding it? It’s not like this is a new industry that takes time to bake. Where are the YC startups trying to take them on? Meanwhile they continue to make live expensive and complicated for the rest of us just so they have a guaranteed revenue stream!
  • runawaybottle 5y ago
    I think their software is good and I usually have a very easy time filing taxes. In comparison, I remember filling out my FAFSA application and that being long ordeal. I don’t think government has the willingness to create a seamless tax-filing experience. Who is stopping the IRS from making a competing easy to use tax filing website? Are people suggesting Intuit is stopping a good product team from operating within the IRS?
    • krferriter 5y ago
      They're a corrupt, profiteering company that does everything it legally can to stop people from filing taxes for free. 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...
      • runawaybottle 5y ago
        But listen to my argument, I’m willing to pay to have an easier time filing my taxes. I’m not going to use IRS’s tool if it doesn’t make it a painless process like TurboTax. So I ask again, will the IRS make a painless tool? If the answer is yes, but Intuit is lobbying them not to, then I understand your point. If it’s just about free vs non-free, I could care less. Filing taxes or filling out anything for the government is usually an awful experience and I’m willing to pay to not have to deal with it.
        • 5y ago
• krferriter 5y ago
  Given how much H&R Block and Intuit have unethically and corruptly leeched from the government and the taxpayers directly, I think the should literally be nationalized and have their tax software platforms absorbed into the IRS. Their company activities over the last few decades are so flagrantly, indisputably bad for the country. There's literally no upside, none at all. They have intentionally sabotaged tax filing and leeched off the people by corruptly inserting themselves as middlemen. At least the tax prep portions of the companies.
  • SaltyBackendGuy 5y ago
    I wish that our government (the people who allowed them to be the middle man) would take some accountability. But I guess that would be uncharacteristic.
    • toomuchtodo 5y ago
      Citizens voted these people in, the blames lies with the electorate.
      • akira2501 5y ago
        The citizens without the ability to directly recall the elected are to blame? There is a serious power and attention imbalance here, and the laws to do not leave the power in the hands of the citizens outside of a single day every few years. It's hard for me to believe they are the source of the problem, particularly with such a shabby fourth estate.
        • x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
          The citizenry elects the people who could overturn the laws preventing a recall. It's just not that important to the citizenry.
      • thatguy0900 5y ago
        The citizens cannot police the federal electorate. At best, they can police local politicians and maybe a few big ticket federal items. They have too much going on in their own lives to police federal politicians passing hundred page bills every week.
• randomhodler84 5y ago
  Consider using credit karma tax (run by good guy Jack Dorsey); it was forced to be split out from CK when they were bought by intuit. It’s free, it supports nearly everything you would need these days.
  • aceazzameen 5y ago
    This was the first year I used Credit Karma Tax. I found it easier than Turbo Tax in some ways. Turbo Tax has these wizards that ask various questions. In some edge cases, I needed to research how a question applies to my scenario. Credit Karma basically just wants raw data. Searching about a form number is much easier than an obscure Inuit question. Both systems output the same result, so I used CK.
  • crysin 5y ago
    I know you're getting downvoted but I was hoping to get more context around the ownership situation of specifically Credit Karma Tax? Are there articles anywhere discussing how it will be spun off from CK or will it stay within their services just run by a different company?
    • twostorytower 5y ago
      It has already spun off. Square currently operates it under the "Credit Karma Tax" brand but it's probably going to move under the Cash App branding eventually.
  • Rebelgecko 5y ago
    At least for me, it is a huge pain in the add to have to manually type numbers instead of automatically importing from my 1098s, 1099s, etc. Until the competitors can do that, I'm sticking with TurboTax (even if their software was broken last year for anyone who refinanced a home worth more than >$350k)
• vlovich123 5y ago
  How do we know that this is actually Intuit itself & not the IRS trying to reduce CTC payouts. After all, their enforcement budget keeps getting squeezed & they keep struggling to prosecute high dollar issues. Reducing their tax credits is a good way to improve the balance of the federal government.
  • greedo 5y ago
    Reducing the tax credit disbursements won't help the IRS budget. They have no incentive to do so.
    • vlovich123 5y ago
      I didn't mean to imply it would somehow help the IRS budget directly. I was saying it helps the Federal Government's overall deficit. The IRS isn't some body immune from political pressure. The leadership is appointed by POTUS & confirmed by the Senate. Regardless of which political party is responsible, the Federal government has a lot of benefits programs that have a lot of roadblocks to actually take advantage of. That isn't an accident. You could look at it as the GOP tending to send up roadblocks (e.g. they famously forced the IRS to strike a deal with Intuit) OR you can look at it as a class divide where the GOP are just the "baddies" everyone can scream about without actually needing to hold the government accountable.
• recursive 5y ago
  That warning is terrifying. > Do NOT use this online form if you're required to file a tax return. Use of this online form creates a simplified 2020 tax return. If you're required to file a tax return but file a simplified return instead, you won't be able to e-file your 2020 Form 1040 or 1040-SR tax return. This will delay the IRS processing your return and issuing any tax refund. So... what? Do not use this site if I'm required to do the thing that this site does? If I use this I won't be able to e-file Form xyz? No information what those are, or why it would matter?
  • majormajor 5y ago
    My reading is that if you aren't required to file a tax return, this thing creating a dummy simplified one won't hurt you. But if you are required to file one, you are likely to need a real one, and the dummy one will conflict with it. But it sounds like if you file a real one, you don't need this form, and this form is only for people who wouldn't otherwise file. But the gist of the article - that the website is implausibly bad - seems correct.
    • recursive 5y ago
      That would require that a "simplified tax return" is not a "tax return". If that's the intention, it seems to fly directly in the face of the common use of the English language. Generally {ADJECTIVE} {NOUN} is a specific category of a {NOUN}. If they're using some domain-specific jargon that violates that, it strains credulity that they would expect anyone to understand it.
      • bruckie 5y ago
        Even if you're not required to file a return (e.g. because you have no income), you are still allowed to file. I think the site helps you file (to claim a credit) even if you're not required to file.
  • mattb314 5y ago
    Free fillable forms is hard to use for taxes in general, but this page is specifically for people who want the CTC without having filed taxes (presumably you otherwise would have gotten the CTC when you filed takes). You can see the screenshot says "non-filer sign up tool", where as the main page of the website (for people who want to actually use it to file taxes) has no such warning: https://www.freefilefillableforms.com/#/fd https://www.freefilefillableforms.com/#/fd
• kerkeslager 5y ago
  Yet another case where letting the free market handle things results in bad outcomes.
  • mike_ivanov 5y ago
    Lobbying has nothing to do with free market.
    • AlexandrB 5y ago
      That's a weird thing to say considering how lobbying is justified: As the free expression of speech by companies towards their elected representatives. So is limiting corporate speech necessary for a free market? Most free-market backers I've heard would say otherwise.
      • nybble41 5y ago
        Lobbying consists of influencing either elected officials or bureaucrats to take actions on the lobbyists' behalf which no actor in a free market would be permitted to take. What needs to be limited here is not corporate speech but rather government power.
    • vkou 5y ago
      This kind of lobbying is just paid free speech driven by market incentives. So, yes, having a society-critical service provided by a for-profit market actor, that then uses that money to pay for speech that results in a worse situation for everyone is a market failure.
  • avalys 5y ago
    This is not the free market, it’s a perfect example of what’s wrong with government. The fact that the IRS rules are set by politicians and bureaucrats, not accountable to market forces, are what allows this corrupt situation to persist in the first place. You can’t say “the IRS makes this too complicated in order to funnel money into Intuit’s pocket so I am going to pay my taxes elsewhere.” And it's a perfect example of why accepting broad government power provides an avenue for this sort of corruption to exist, especially in areas that people don't care enough about to spend time influencing government policy. In a free market, it requires very little effort for you to make your opinion felt - you give your money to the people you think have the best product. Done. Those people see that they are making money - the people with lesser products see they are losing money. This requires very little effort on your part other than forming an opinion on what product you want to use. In the government, what can you do if you think the IRS is doing a shitty job? Write a letter to your Congressmen? Vote for another Congressman in 2 years (what if you agree with their position on the IRS, but disagree on something more important, e.g. guns?) Run for office yourself? The result is that relatively little attention is paid to public policy around tax preparation. There are no single-issue voters around IRS Free-file policy. There is too much else going on in national politics that is inarguably more important. And because no one really cares about this other than the tax preparation industry, the tax preparation industry is left largely unchallenged in pushing government to enact regulations that favor them.
• caseyross 5y ago
  What's telling is that TurboTax's UX is really, really, good, deceptive pricing aside. Like, so good I almost enjoy using it to do my taxes. The very fact that Intuit has clearly invested money into making a beautiful interface for a tax program, a program that people use once a year, just goes to show how profitable the current arrangement is for them, and how determined they are to keep the average taxpayer from switching to any competing tax filing ecosystem.
  • minikites 5y ago
    >TurboTax's UX is really, really, good It's really not. It's hard to keep track of where you are in your return and easy to get lost. You can't paste into any credential field for fetching information from your bank or other outside data source.
  • readflaggedcomm 5y ago
    I disagree that their interface is good, even in the simplest tier. I get absurd cosmetic delays and animations, text that's tweaked to be so pale and thin that it disappears in some browsers, and tedious wizard-style workflow that you have to traverse half a dozen times when the vague language doesn't match the data on your forms. And don't get me started on confusing between "activities" (that's the official term, not Intuit's fault) because there's no way to see where you are in the process or show an overview until the end, and the final result is in a different format that I can't reconcile with what I filled in.
  • throwawayboise 5y ago
    Their other big (maybe bigger?) cash cow for Intuit is Quickbooks. It's the system most small businesses use, because their accountants are integrated with it and push all their clients to use it.
    • ilamont 5y ago
      Yep. Accountants don't want to try anything else. And it's shocking how bad some of the QBO integrations are, especially for newish technologies. Intuit even screwed up PayPal in a way that some accountants don't want to use it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT5zKWBXtQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT5zKWBXtQU), forcing a labor intensive manual process.
• hydroxideOH- 5y ago
  What should I use to file my taxes if I want to move away from TurboTax?
  • 4d66ba06 5y ago
    I like TaxAct
  • niij 5y ago
    A local, independent, tax preparer. There's plenty of individuals who are partially retired that help file simple tax returns for ~$50 during tax season.
  • organman91 5y ago
    If you are willing to do ALL of the leg work yourself, https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-forms https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...
    • commandlinefan 5y ago
      > ALL of the leg work yourself Every year, I go ahead and self-prepare my taxes, and then type all the data into Turbotax to see if they find something I missed, and every year they do, and it's in my favor (and always worth more than the Turbotax fee). OTOH, I've seen suggestions that Intuit themselves have had a hand in making the tax preparation process so complex that humans can't possibly get it right without them.
  • cableshaft 5y ago
    I've had great luck with freetaxusa.com, personally. I've been using them to file taxes for like, 10 years now. E-filing the federal tax form is free, and state tax form is only like $14 I think, really cheap, and the website does a good job taking you through it step by step in an easy to understand way.
    • jwond 5y ago
      Yeah, I use FreeTaxUSA also. It doesn’t have all the integrations that Turbo Tax et al. have, so you have to spend a bit more time manually entering your figures, but I had no issues. You can also double check the numbers if you want by going through another service like Turbo Tax but stopping before the payment step.
• specialist 5y ago
  TLDR?: IRS can't feasibly inform beneficiaries of CTC. Because it doesn't have a relationship with them. Because Intuit cock blocks. Right? Doctrow always baffles me. By the end of any article, I can't remember what we're talking about. Where's the call to action? Doctrow had me at "Intuit sucks". Just tell me where to shoot.
• boublepop 5y ago
  They put the company who wants the built the bypass in charge of storing the building plans, and nobody is surprised they put a “beware the leopard” sign up in front of it.
• whoisjuan 5y ago
  Already said in this thread, but I think it's ridiculous that when people think about abusive big tech, they never think about Intuit. Their business is literally the idea of creating friction in federal and local tax systems so they can extort people in exchange of removing some of those synthetic frictions (emphasis on "some"). A sinister business model in every possible way.
  • Nicksil 5y ago
    >I think it's ridiculous that when people think about abusive big tech, they never think about Intuit. I don't know why you think people don't think that. I imagine that most people who have been informed will think along similar lines. Those who don't think it are likely not yet informed.
    • whoisjuan 5y ago
      If you talk to people outside of tech circles and you bring up Turbotax into the conversation, you will notice that people have a relatively positive view of it. Most people think of TurboTax as something that’s helping them to comply with their tax duties and navigate a complex tax system. They think of it as a helping hand when it comes to dealing with government bs. Not surprisingly, most people think the complete opposite about the government. So where Intuit is diabolically good, it’s at arbitraging those colloquial narratives and embedding itself in the middle as the savior. The good guy who is here to help. They screw you, so they can later come and help you. As I said before, a sinister business model.
  • birdyrooster 5y ago
    People need to stop calling companies “big tech” because every large cap company uses technology in a way that used to be exclusive to one tech industry.
    • boringg 5y ago
      "Big tech" is such a catchall that it almost completely devoid of value.
• literallyaduck 5y ago
  I have a hardtime taking an article seriously that makes wild claims such as "But the IRS has been starved for decades by anti-tax extremists". Show me the evidence.
  • callmeal 5y ago
    >https://www.atr.org/trump-budget-cuts-irs-funding-239-million https://www.atr.org/trump-budget-cuts-irs-funding-239-millio... President Donald Trump's 2018 budget blueprint is out, and it wisely cuts IRS funding by $239 million. Compared to pretty much any metric where increasing their budget will increase tax collection. Mainly because most tax fraud happens where no one is looking. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/want-to-shrink-deficits-or-fund-bidens-spending-plans-give-the-irs-more-money/2021/03/25/2959bcd8-8d90-11eb-9423-04079921c915_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/want-to-shrink-defic... The number of IRS revenue agents — the auditors qualified to examine complex returns — has plummeted 43 percent over the past decade, according to a report from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Audit rates of those filing these complex returns have also sharply declined. For example, the number of millionaires who were audited in fiscal 2020 was about a quarter of the number from fiscal 2012. Accordingly, these IRS audits turned up unreported tax bills of $1.2 billion last year, about a quarter of the $4.8 billion found in fiscal 2012.
    • literallyaduck 5y ago
      That doesn't show decades. The tone of the article sets up to divide readers. IRS spends 11 billion, 300 million is barely a speed bump, is the money being spent correctly? IRS has been used as a tool of intimidation and oppression to target political enemies of the ruling oligarchy. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/irs-scandal-fast-facts/ar-BB19jlV0 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/irs-scandal-fast-fac... They have deep corruption, the tax code needs reform, and justice deferred is justice denied. Gas lighting and blaming the victims of political intimidation is not acceptable.
      • jhgb 5y ago
• mike_ivanov 5y ago
  This year I paid TurboTax extra to get their "professional advice". I didn't get any. Had to find a real accountant to solve the problem. This was my last year of using TT.
  • nrmitchi 5y ago
    I did this once. The "professional" they connected me with turned out too not actually be a CPA, and was an IRS "Enrolled Agent" instead, and did all of my taxes wrong. I don't mean "the math was a little off", I mean "used all of the wrong forms" because he was was unaware of the criteria to be considered a Resident Alien for tax purposes. Further, when I tried to contact this individual again (through Turbo Tax), Turbo Tax had shut down the program and was blackhole-ing all of the email without notice. It cost me thousands of dollars after-the-fact to get fixed.
• lowbloodsugar 5y ago
  Further evidence of the "Conspiracy Practice" discussed yesterday on HN.
• vmception 5y ago
  Tl;dr Intuit made a bad outreach website, so here’s a bunch of other stuff we don’t like about Intuit unrelated to the Child Tax Credit outreach
  • grayhatter 5y ago
    Well yeah, if you're trying to prove it wasn't a simple mistake from ignorance, you want to prove they have a pattern of making this mistake. That's when it turns from accidental to intentional malfeasance.
    • vmception 5y ago
      except it reads more like "I could have made that website, grrr I didn't apply for the government contract (or I lost the bid)!" It could read that and say "by the way Intuit has a history of poor performance" it doesn't really say they sabotaged it. when I read that headline, I think that their flagship software is miscalculating it. But thats not what this article is about at all. The article is about how a tax credit has always failed to address the needs of those eligible for the tax credit, and Intuit has only made a small dent in that in a contract that hoped it would make a bigger dent. People can still have gotten that tax credit for free before, can get it for free after, can use Intuit's poorly crafted free system, or not. They can also use Intuit's paid systems the whole time. The article then points out that Intuit always crafts circumstances to make their paid system the desired path. The Child Tax Credit is fine, its the people you are worried about.
• lokar 5y ago
  I know Intuit has legislators at the federal level in their pockets, but I would think that in a place like California it would be harder. Has there been any progress to have simple automatic filing for state taxes?
  • Spooky23 5y ago
    Lol. No. State Legislators are really cheap. Donate <$500 and you’ll be able to get in-person meetings.
  • Rebelgecko 5y ago
    California has its own tax website fairly similar to TurboTax called CalFile. One of the devs is even here on HN. Unfortunately CalFile seems to be intentionally gimped e.g. only usable if you're under a certain income threshold and technically you're not supposed to use it if you have capital gains or loses (but since cap gains are treated as regular income in CA it works fine if you still use it)
  • prattmic 5y ago
    ReadyReturn was a pilot program in California that provided pre-filled tax forms. Unfortunately, lobbying by Intuit helped kill it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyReturn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyReturn
• haltingproblem 5y ago
  I often help my friend who is also my accountant with his systems. He has to use various Intuit Pro Tax products. These are straight out of 90s boxed software land. Installing and using them in this day and age of polished software is like taking a step back into a timemachine especially when networking is involved. He pays thousands of dollars /year for these products and the technical issues with data sharing, networking, printing are just incredible. Another thing that is jarring is the regard that Scott Cook, the founder of Intuit is held in the valley. He was apparently a mentor and coach to many founders Jobs? Page/Brin? and others. But the disconnect with his sterling image as a coach and leader and the general dark patterns/crappiness of Intuit products is something that is interesting.
• vfclists 5y ago
  If the article is right the people most affected by this don't read Hacker News or pluralistic.net for that matter. The readers on Hacker News are also less likely to follow up the issue with their representatives. So why don't the authors find a way to directly target the most affected people and get them to complain to their representatives? PS. Why do some people tend to blame corporations for the corrupt behaviour of their congressmen and senators? If lawmakers are corrupt they should be the ones who should be targeted. Companies are simply doing what they can do within the law to gain an advantage. They deal in "legality" not "morality".
• MarkusWandel 5y ago
  We had the completely free "click here for a default tax return" situation here in Canada, at least in Ontario. As of last year (in my case) finally the tax authority had all the information slips you need to file already in their database. The freely usable tax software (Studio Tax) was able to download and autofill them to generate a valid (as far as the government knows) tax return that could then be e-filed. The only thing that changed was that the donation-based model of Studio Tax wasn't enough, so now you have to pay CAD $15 per installation (not per return) in order to actually file - but you can still try it out and see what your refund will be before you pay. It would still be better if the government had all this on a website, but $15 per household is not the end of the world and won't ever fund consumer hostile political lobbying.
  • pesfandiar 5y ago
    You still need to do the cost basis calculation yourself, because a single financial institution can't calculate that for you (you may have the same securities with another institution).
    • alkonaut 5y ago
      A different institution from what? If all banks, employers and other institutions are required to send the info to the tax authority, the only "other" things you need to fill in is basically income made abroad. But most people obviously don't have foreign income or assets, so a tax calculation should be 100% correct and simply a matter of accepting? The Tax authority should also have a very good guess of all possible deductions/credits, so that can be filled automatically too.
  • MisterSandman 5y ago
    Canada also has SimpleTax which is enough for the majority of young and poor Canadians filing taxes and is completely free (donation-based). Literally took me 30-45 minutes and I did most of it on my phone. I'm not sure if it's enough for people with homes/children/foreign income, but I do know you can make it work. I was a bit sad that they were bought out by Wealthsimple, but Wealthsimple has been a largely ethical and transparent company with all the services they provide, be it their investing platform during the GME debacle or their SimpleTax buyout. Hopefully it stays that way.
• sundarurfriend 5y ago
  > When I say "sabotaged," I'm not speaking hyperbolically. The tax-prep industry, led by Intuit, led the fight for 20 years, with their cultlike leader Brad Smith at the forefront of a bribery and intimidation campaign. I just finished reading the Snowden article about conspiracy practice, and this is a stark example of it. A group of people acting against the democratic interest, subverting the legal and political system to their interests, and leaving the public feeling powerless.
• dnautics 5y ago
  I'd love to see a turbotax alternative that 1. imports your previous turbotax years 2. charges $10 less than turbotax 3. offers a free version gated by income 4. squirrels away some percentage of profits each year to a big "F U" fund, half of which goes to lobbying for permanent income tax simplification, half of which goes to directly paying out the shareholders in the company on dissolution.
  • beambot 5y ago
    Sounds like a good project for Intuit. Create a new competitor to TurboTax for the low-end market. Upsell into TurboTax. And for #4, they could become the defacto IRS tool with perfect regulatory capture funded by government subsidies.
  • alexlmiller 5y ago
    This is basically https://www.taxact.com https://www.taxact.com, minus #4
    • dnautics 5y ago
      #4 is the key part! I mean maybe I have an irrational obsession with the idea of a corporation chartered with an expiration date, heh.
• throwaway98211 5y ago
  >The Child Tax Credit is a seriously good piece of policy... Maybe in intent, but certainly not in implementation. Fine if you want to give money to the poor / people with no income, but enacting that through our tax system (designed to collect tax dollars) seems like a particularly poor proscription to achieve the ends. Here's another take (that I'm sure will be unpopular)... 'In 2021, progressives cloaked an expansion to our entitlement programs through a tax cut to get the bill through Congress. This has been hard to implement, and company's like Inuit aren't helping as much as they could.'
  • jkhdigital 5y ago
    Just like Obamacare... income taxation is the foot in the door to basically allow the government to arbitrarily meddle in the personal finances of every single citizen.
• pyuser583 5y ago
  I pay a CPA several hundred dollars to do taxes … they do so much more than file the taxes. They create detailed financial records which are useful beyond filing taxes. I don’t know if Intuit is helpful in this regards.
• robertofmoria 5y ago
  Intuit is not without blame, but the IRS in genrral is at fault and allows these problems. One cannot go to or ask the IRS for help on taxes as the IRS is not responsible legally for anything they say. Which means the IRS can tell you how to fill out a tax form and then penalize you for filling the form out wrong. Here is a solution to the tax problems... no income tax.
• lazyweb 5y ago
  There's a very good Patriot Act episode [1] regarding devious patterns in the US tax industry. In fact the whole show is well worth watching. It's cancelled now, presumably because Netflix felt some heat since every episode stirred/kicked another wasp's nest. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xQQkzWhMOc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xQQkzWhMOc
• kregasaurusrex 5y ago
  I'd previously got about 3/4ths of the way through filing my taxes using TurboTax, only to find that I wasn't able to deduct student loan interest on the free product. Intuit also regularly deletes threads of people who go on to ask why an expected feature isn't in the free tier, advancing the dark pattern of needing to pay for the feature on both the federal and state level returns. This is likely a systemic problem- the self employed through platforms like GrubHub & freelancers have less simple tax structures and even if they're only making a modest wage; spending $80 just to fill out your own return definitely acts as a regressive tax that disproportionately affects lower-wage groups.
• throwaway413 5y ago
  All of the people supercritical of Intuit in this thread make me wonder, do they think the government would truly be providing a service on par with TurboTax? When has the government ever done Internet right…looking at you, Healthcare.gov. $90 bucks a year to ensure your taxes are right, with a streamlined interface that almost anyone can follow, that returns you back significant value in time and tax return… Intuit legally cannot sell your information like other companies can, because they are in the business of taxes. People here LOVE to tell founders, “oh, you should be charging for your product! Otherwise it isn’t sustainable!” I’m sorry, would you rather TT be free and them be slanging your data like Facebook and Amazon? Or alternatively, the government just in charge of replacing it with a congruent service? I didn’t think so.
  • stouset 5y ago
    The government literally already computes the number they expect you to owe. It's how they send you a letter if your own calculations come up short (or long, in which case they will in fact contact you to issue you a refund). If the government simply sends you their calculations (which they are already computing anyway) and you disagree, you would still be able to file an amended return with a company like TurboTax. Why do you think it is—specifically—that a multitude of other governments can manage to accomplish this feat, but the United States government shouldn't be able to?
    • throwaway413 5y ago
      To be honest, I don’t know much at all about how taxes work in other countries, including those at or greater than the population scale of the US. It’s a good point, I will learn more about it. Regarding the first point. You trust the government to do that for you? Genuinely asking. I have no stance formed on that yet.
      • failwhaleshark 5y ago
        Most Scandinavian countries compute taxes for you. If you approve of the government calculations, it's easy to finalize it.
• paulproteus 5y ago
  I work at Code for America on the Tax Benefits team, and we're working on a different website to apply for the Child Tax Credit. (See https://www.getctc.org/ https://www.getctc.org/ and https://www.getyourrefund.org/ https://www.getyourrefund.org/. ) From the original article: > Alas, all [People's Policy Project's website] can do is funnel users into Intuit's terrible [child tax credit] site. Today at work, I'm learning how to use the IRS's e-File SOAP API in the hopes that we can build a flow that is easier to use than Intuit's. Feel free to subscribe to our newsletter. :) https://info.codeforamerica.org/newsletter https://info.codeforamerica.org/newsletter See also https://www.codeforamerica.org/news/meet-code-for-americas-new-senior-program-director-for-tax-benefits/ https://www.codeforamerica.org/news/meet-code-for-americas-n... for how we're thinking about this work.
  • nimish 5y ago
    How did you get access to the SOAP api? Doesn't it need a bunch of verification and special dev accounts with IRS ? Would be great for the docs to be public. >To receive the distribution of schema packages, you must have an active e-services account and be listed on an e-File application with the provider option of Software Developer. Your role on the e-File Application must be Principal, Responsible Official, or a Delegated User with MeF authorities. If you are a registered user in e-services and are listed on a State e-File application, you will receive this distribution.
    • paulproteus 5y ago
      We followed the process with the IRS, doing a bunch of verification as you said, which gave us access to the API docs. We're only part-way through the full process of becoming an Online Provider per https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p3112.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p3112.pdf I wish it were simpler. I get why the IRS wants to verify who is submitting tax data to them, though.
      • javajosh 5y ago
        I was just about to suggest that rather than contract out for an end-user application that the IRS create a webservice and let people build front-ends for it. Too bad it's SOAP, but its not the end of the world. If you make you're app open source I'd contribute.
• modshatereality 5y ago
  Who approved that domain name?
• kaimorid 5y ago
  this is why we should burn all the money in a big pile and start fresh :/
• alwaysanon 5y ago
  I am an American ex-pat living in Australia. I had been using TurboTax for the last decade and this year it kept messing up the forms for my foreign tax credit so they were getting rejected by the IRS. I tried heaps of things, phoned their support, etc. for a total of 5 rejected returns. Finally, in desperation, I went and tried H&R Block's online offering and put in the same numbers and it not only was less expensive AND had me paying less tax but the forms it created were actually accepted by the IRS when I e-filed. To add insult to injury I paid TurboTax for the bad return (I tried for awhile to get them to refund it with this anecdote but it proved impossible and not worth more time trying) AND they sent me a nagging email every week for months telling me my return has been rejected and I need to refile it.
• pm24601 5y ago
  I know that this may be a shock to technical types here. Back in the stone age, we filed taxes with paper and pen. For most people, it really isn't that hard to use paper/pen/envelope/stamp method. I did this method of filing for decades. Take the time to learn the basics and you will never have to worry about random ass programs. My tax returns were never "simple" but filling out the forms was not hard - it never took me more than an hour or two.
  • invokestatic 5y ago
    It's not just a technical issue, but also the tax law itself has changed. For example, you used to be able to fill out a 1090-EZ for your taxes if all you had was W-2 income and bank interest. Anyone who meets that criteria could complete it in an hour. But that "EZ" form has been completely removed and replaced with a vastly more complicated one. If your tax situation is just ever so slightly unusual, things get real complicated, real fast.
    • pm24601 5y ago
      Lol. I have never been able to use the EZ version. I have always for a variety of reason used the 1040. It is in the interests of Intuit to make the tax forms seem so so scary. In reality, most spots get a 0 entered. Very simple math is involved. Before you made this comment, did you actually try looking at the 1040 form? * print out the pdfs * fill out * mail Takes less time and effort than installing magic software and trying to figure out "wizards"
• failwhaleshark 5y ago
  Intuit sabotages simplification of the tax code through corruption and regulatory capture.
• CRConrad 5y ago
  It's freaking hilarious to see exactly the same arguments played out as in the equally long and heated thread on exactly the same subject only a few weeks ago. Complete with the same lazy bastards who couldn't be bothered to read TFA before expounding on it, the same poor schmucks earnestly regurgitating it for them, and the same ultra-libertard arseholes praising this corrupt shitstain of a corporation. Sigh... Geroffmylawn.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• beprogrammed 5y ago
  Not really relevant to the Child Tax Credit, but I found a great free Canadian tax software https://www.genutax.ca https://www.genutax.ca has a pay what you want model. Great piece of software.
• slt2021 5y ago
  I use olt.com to file online taxes and they are much better than intuit and cost like $15 (compare to $100+ turbotax crap). they also provide free file
• naturalauction 5y ago
  I used freefillableforms (mentioned in the article) this year to file an extension. I submitted it and got the error "Issue : Business Rule FPYMT-051-01 - If IRS Payment Record is present and Form 4868 Line 8 checkbox or Line 9 checkbox is checked, then 'RequestedPaymentDt' in the IRS Payment Record must be on or before the extended due date but not more than 5 days prior to the received date." When you search this error in the IRS error search tool linked in the email I got from the IRS, nothing comes up. I carefully combed through my form until I saw the error - my "Date to make withdrawal" for my payment was a date in the past. Absolutely no mention of the "RequestedPaymentDt" mentioned in the error was present on the form. Googling was not helpful but perhaps I didn't Google the right thing. Why didn't the freefillableforms website catch this error, it can't be hard to validate the form to make sure the withdrawal date is not in the past? Why is the IRS description of the error nearly undecipherable (now that I know the error it makes sense - before I did I didn't know what it was talking about)? Why does the error not show up on the IRS search tool? I know when file my taxes I will definitely use a paid piece of software because the free stuff has shown itself to be useless (probably deliberately so).
• topherhunt87 5y ago
  Stupid question: Why would Intuit sabotage the CTC? What do they get out of all that effort? I can understand the massive profit interest in blocking simplifications to the tax system: if people have an easier time filing their taxes, they might not need to pay Turbotax for the privilege. But what's the profit interest in blocking the IRS from sending poor-people-who-dont-file-taxes-anyway free money?