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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 natio

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.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      I don’t know what to tell you. A small minority of politicians can prevent progress, and there is little recourse for the rest of us. The buck has to stop somewhere.
      - thatguy0900 5y ago
        Unfortunately that seems to be the case. Outside of a few changing hot button topics they have basically free reign,and 99.99% of people will never hear about their actions.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      > The citizens cannot police the federal electorate. I thought the citizens are the federal electorate?
      - thatguy0900 5y ago
        You seem to be right, I understood that to mean the elected when it's the opposite. Though considering how heated politics is becoming I would say the sentence was still correct :)
  - hanniabu 5y ago
    They get elected on one thing and do another. They should be held liable for misleading their base at the very least. Also misinformation and propaganda is rampant so it's very difficult to make educated decisions, now more than ever.
minikites 5y ago
I agree wholeheartedly and I think health insurance companies should receive the same treatment, they act in the same way and cause the same problems. The incentives of these companies are at odds with the interests of society and they should be run by society, not for private profit.
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> should literally be nationalized Political note: calls for nationalisation, in American politics, is a gift to the other side. It lets one paint the opposition as extremists without grounding in U.S. Constitutional law or the economic history of countries that regularly expropriate property. I get the impulse. But literally any other phrasing—massive fines, criminal prosecution, open-licensing requirements, et cetera—is more productive for any aim other than blowing steam.
- maxmamis 5y ago
  > Political note: calls for nationalisation, in American politics, is a gift to the other side. Perhaps you should rephrase this as "calls for nationalization run counter to my own free-market ideology" rather than a) assuming you know what everybody else thinks, and b) suggesting that conventional wisdom should dictate the bounds of acceptable discourse. Not to mention, plenty of countries — the US included — have successfully nationalized companies and entire industries.
  - Miraste 5y ago
    Unless you go back to FDR, the US has only "nationalized" (bailed out) companies when they were on the verge of collapse with catastrophic economic consequences, and because of 9/11. Nationalizing a functioning company, no matter how evil, would be unprecedented and immediately fail after being labeled communist. I'm not commenting on the merits of the idea here, only the political reality.
    - tmp_anon_22 5y ago
      > labeled communist Its so crazy to me that some Americans label abstract ideas as evil. Communism == evil. Socialism == evil. Many welfare programs == evil. Immigrant labor == evil. High minimum wage == evil. Some languages, religions, cultures == evil. Stop subverting the English language because you're too lazy to check a thesaurus. None of those things are evil.
  - tyre 5y ago
EamonnMR 5y ago
Every weird tax rule that makes your tax filing harder is a tax break for someone and that person will fight to keep it.
- usaar333 5y ago
  Not really. All of the investment tax pain I deal with yearly exists to prevent some sort of loophole someone exploited in the past.
RC_ITR 5y ago
This is the group you think will defend the little guy? "IRS: Sorry, but It’s Just Easier and Cheaper to Audit the Poor"[0] [0]https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-easier-and-cheaper-to-audit-the-poor https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-ea...
jeffrallen 5y ago
Corporate death penalty. If corporations are people, and the USA insists on keeping the barbaric death penalty, at least they should use it on companies. Exxon would be another nice target.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > Corporate death penalty Corporations are legal fictions. If you're wiping out shareholders and creditors, who do the assets go to? If you aren't wiping them out, what are you doing? Corporate death penalties are ultimately meaningless without an expropriation component. Better: massive fines and/or pulling critical licenses. Arthur Andersen and Enron were felled through these mechanisms. They are legal. They are proven. They are precedented and they work. If you wantonly break the law, you should not be a going concern. But "nationalization" and "corporate death penalty" are political hot potatoes. (I'm entirely sidestepping the argument as to whether that's reasonable.) If you want these companies shut down, or fearful of being shut down, credibly threatening to break them up, fine them into bankruptcy or suspend their licenses (e.g. for Intuit, their tax preparation license) is more effective.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > > Corporate death penalty > Corporations are legal fictions. Then they shouldn't have the same rights as real people. If they're just fictions, then it stands to reason that at least when they behave so egregiously that their fictional life has to be ended, their worth and value also turns out to be fictional. > If you're wiping out shareholders and creditors, who do the assets go to? If you aren't wiping them out, what are you doing? Corporate death penalties are ultimately meaningless without an expropriation component. Exactly. And since the whole point of a limited-liability stock company is that a single entrepreneur shan't be liable with all he owns, but each shareholder only with the value of his investment, then it is precisely that investment that will turn out to have no value: After creditors are paid off, any remaining value goes to the state, which is the entity that hitherto, through the contract and other laws it maintains, has upheld the fiction that this kitty of money is a separate thing capable of exerting a legal will and intent; for this particular kitty, that fiction has now come to an end. As for "wiping out" shareholders (not creditors, as per the above)... Yes and no, and above all: So what? As mentioned, their investment is exactly what they are willing to risk; that's the whole idea. Three points on this: 1) They could just as well lose it all if the company goes bankrupt some other way, so pretending that this is some new and unique possible outcome is disingenuous. 2) If they're "wiped out" because they've put all their life savings into any one company, the poor bastards should have looked up "diversifying". Again, not unique to this. 3) Wow, great -- finally some incentive for shareholder activism, to try and rein in old / appoint better new boards and CXOs and curb some of the evil shit corporations do, eh? > Better: massive fines and/or pulling critical licenses. Arthur Andersen and Enron were felled through these mechanisms. They are legal. They are proven. They are precedented and they work. Bullpucky. Two corporations, out of the myriad that had deserved it, that's ridiculously ineffective. > If you wantonly break the law, you should not be a going concern. Exactly. Then the fiction should end. > But "nationalization" and "corporate death penalty" are political hot potatoes. (I'm entirely sidestepping the argument as to whether that's reasonable.) Maybe they're such hot potatoes precisely because people, like you here now, keep sidestepping the argument. > If you want these companies shut down, or fearful of being shut down, credibly threatening to break them up, fine them into bankruptcy or suspend their licenses (e.g. for Intuit, their tax preparation license) is more effective. Sure, that too... But it seems imbalanced to limit yourself to only that, as long as you still have the death penalty for real people. (And, hey, if you're fine with "fin[ing] them into bankruptcy" -- what happened, all of a sudden, to those poor shareholders and creditors; is wiping them out suddenly OK now?)
KorematsuFred 5y ago
> I think the should literally be nationalized and have their tax software platforms absorbed into the IRS. This is an extremist view and basically advocating theft. I do not think IRS has competence to build and run a complex software system. > Their company activities over the last few decades are so flagrantly, indisputably bad for the country That is debatable. > 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 They have not inserted themselves anywhere. You are free to use CPA or do all the paperwork yourself and save yourself $70 bucks.

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.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    I don’t know what to tell you. A small minority of politicians can prevent progress, and there is little recourse for the rest of us. The buck has to stop somewhere.
    - thatguy0900 5y ago
      Unfortunately that seems to be the case. Outside of a few changing hot button topics they have basically free reign,and 99.99% of people will never hear about their actions.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > The citizens cannot police the federal electorate. I thought the citizens are the federal electorate?
    - thatguy0900 5y ago
      You seem to be right, I understood that to mean the elected when it's the opposite. Though considering how heated politics is becoming I would say the sentence was still correct :)
- hanniabu 5y ago
  They get elected on one thing and do another. They should be held liable for misleading their base at the very least. Also misinformation and propaganda is rampant so it's very difficult to make educated decisions, now more than ever.

minikites 5y ago

I agree wholeheartedly and I think health insurance companies should receive the same treatment, they act in the same way and cause the same problems. The incentives of these companies are at odds with the interests of society and they should be run by society, not for private profit.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> should literally be nationalized Political note: calls for nationalisation, in American politics, is a gift to the other side. It lets one paint the opposition as extremists without grounding in U.S. Constitutional law or the economic history of countries that regularly expropriate property. I get the impulse. But literally any other phrasing—massive fines, criminal prosecution, open-licensing requirements, et cetera—is more productive for any aim other than blowing steam.

maxmamis 5y ago
> Political note: calls for nationalisation, in American politics, is a gift to the other side. Perhaps you should rephrase this as "calls for nationalization run counter to my own free-market ideology" rather than a) assuming you know what everybody else thinks, and b) suggesting that conventional wisdom should dictate the bounds of acceptable discourse. Not to mention, plenty of countries — the US included — have successfully nationalized companies and entire industries.
- Miraste 5y ago
  Unless you go back to FDR, the US has only "nationalized" (bailed out) companies when they were on the verge of collapse with catastrophic economic consequences, and because of 9/11. Nationalizing a functioning company, no matter how evil, would be unprecedented and immediately fail after being labeled communist. I'm not commenting on the merits of the idea here, only the political reality.
  - tmp_anon_22 5y ago
    > labeled communist Its so crazy to me that some Americans label abstract ideas as evil. Communism == evil. Socialism == evil. Many welfare programs == evil. Immigrant labor == evil. High minimum wage == evil. Some languages, religions, cultures == evil. Stop subverting the English language because you're too lazy to check a thesaurus. None of those things are evil.
- tyre 5y ago

EamonnMR 5y ago

Every weird tax rule that makes your tax filing harder is a tax break for someone and that person will fight to keep it.

usaar333 5y ago
Not really. All of the investment tax pain I deal with yearly exists to prevent some sort of loophole someone exploited in the past.

RC_ITR 5y ago

This is the group you think will defend the little guy? "IRS: Sorry, but It’s Just Easier and Cheaper to Audit the Poor"[0] [0]https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-easier-and-cheaper-to-audit-the-poor https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-ea...

jeffrallen 5y ago

Corporate death penalty. If corporations are people, and the USA insists on keeping the barbaric death penalty, at least they should use it on companies. Exxon would be another nice target.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> Corporate death penalty Corporations are legal fictions. If you're wiping out shareholders and creditors, who do the assets go to? If you aren't wiping them out, what are you doing? Corporate death penalties are ultimately meaningless without an expropriation component. Better: massive fines and/or pulling critical licenses. Arthur Andersen and Enron were felled through these mechanisms. They are legal. They are proven. They are precedented and they work. If you wantonly break the law, you should not be a going concern. But "nationalization" and "corporate death penalty" are political hot potatoes. (I'm entirely sidestepping the argument as to whether that's reasonable.) If you want these companies shut down, or fearful of being shut down, credibly threatening to break them up, fine them into bankruptcy or suspend their licenses (e.g. for Intuit, their tax preparation license) is more effective.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > > Corporate death penalty > Corporations are legal fictions. Then they shouldn't have the same rights as real people. If they're just fictions, then it stands to reason that at least when they behave so egregiously that their fictional life has to be ended, their worth and value also turns out to be fictional. > If you're wiping out shareholders and creditors, who do the assets go to? If you aren't wiping them out, what are you doing? Corporate death penalties are ultimately meaningless without an expropriation component. Exactly. And since the whole point of a limited-liability stock company is that a single entrepreneur shan't be liable with all he owns, but each shareholder only with the value of his investment, then it is precisely that investment that will turn out to have no value: After creditors are paid off, any remaining value goes to the state, which is the entity that hitherto, through the contract and other laws it maintains, has upheld the fiction that this kitty of money is a separate thing capable of exerting a legal will and intent; for this particular kitty, that fiction has now come to an end. As for "wiping out" shareholders (not creditors, as per the above)... Yes and no, and above all: So what? As mentioned, their investment is exactly what they are willing to risk; that's the whole idea. Three points on this: 1) They could just as well lose it all if the company goes bankrupt some other way, so pretending that this is some new and unique possible outcome is disingenuous. 2) If they're "wiped out" because they've put all their life savings into any one company, the poor bastards should have looked up "diversifying". Again, not unique to this. 3) Wow, great -- finally some incentive for shareholder activism, to try and rein in old / appoint better new boards and CXOs and curb some of the evil shit corporations do, eh? > Better: massive fines and/or pulling critical licenses. Arthur Andersen and Enron were felled through these mechanisms. They are legal. They are proven. They are precedented and they work. Bullpucky. Two corporations, out of the myriad that had deserved it, that's ridiculously ineffective. > If you wantonly break the law, you should not be a going concern. Exactly. Then the fiction should end. > But "nationalization" and "corporate death penalty" are political hot potatoes. (I'm entirely sidestepping the argument as to whether that's reasonable.) Maybe they're such hot potatoes precisely because people, like you here now, keep sidestepping the argument. > If you want these companies shut down, or fearful of being shut down, credibly threatening to break them up, fine them into bankruptcy or suspend their licenses (e.g. for Intuit, their tax preparation license) is more effective. Sure, that too... But it seems imbalanced to limit yourself to only that, as long as you still have the death penalty for real people. (And, hey, if you're fine with "fin[ing] them into bankruptcy" -- what happened, all of a sudden, to those poor shareholders and creditors; is wiping them out suddenly OK now?)

KorematsuFred 5y ago

> I think the should literally be nationalized and have their tax software platforms absorbed into the IRS. This is an extremist view and basically advocating theft. I do not think IRS has competence to build and run a complex software system. > Their company activities over the last few decades are so flagrantly, indisputably bad for the country That is debatable. > 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 They have not inserted themselves anywhere. You are free to use CPA or do all the paperwork yourself and save yourself $70 bucks.