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It may be apocrypha, but supposedly Intuit years ago realized that people don't think the system "worked hard enough" if results returned immediately. (These ki

It may be apocrypha, but supposedly Intuit years ago realized that people don't think the system "worked hard enough" if results returned immediately. (These kind of calculations are what computers do well and generally return immediately.) Supposedly Intuit has been A/B testing for decades how many artificial delays to give people the impression that the system is "working harder" for them. They intentionally want their interface to be worse and "slower" because of the idiot dark pattern that our dumb monkey brains think that "serious things" like taxes need lots of "calculation time".

jandrese 5y ago
It wasn't even the stupid "spinning numbers" thing that slowed us down. Mostly it was being locked into wizards asking us one question at a time. Dialog: Do you have foreign bank accounts? Y/N Next dialog: Do you have foreign investments? Y/N Next dialog: ... For every single damn thing. FreeTaxUSA put them all in a list so we just clicked on the applicable ones. It was much more efficient. And if you have to go back and double check/change something TurboTax makes you go through the whole damn wizard again. TurboTax is supposedly able to import my W2 automatically (I work for a large corporation that use a large professional third party company to do W2s), but this has never worked. I always have to enter the information by hand.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  I always go to the forms and ignore the interview. I haven't found any other software that is practical to use in this way and has all the forms I need. I tried H&R Block's free software one year, I think, because I was mad at Intuit, but it was useless because there were big gaping holes in the functionality.
  - mypalmike 5y ago
    I'm curious what the big gaping holes are. I've used H&R and its predecessor, TaxCut, to do my returns for like 20 years (minus 1 or 2 years where I hired a CPA due to complicated investments and tax credits). I find it very straightforward and fast to use.
    - perl4ever 5y ago
      Well, I've never had employee stock options or RSUs; my needs probably differ from the typical HN commenter. Using the word "big" may be misleading. The point is, if anything isn't quite right, it's "gaping" because what's the fallback? And as I said, I go directly to the forms, and the free option I tried was only interview-style. I could've predicted it wouldn't work, but I did give it a try to make sure. I'm sorry I can't be more specific, but I don't think your experience relates to mine, because I was using the free version. I imagine there is a very hazy line between the free version being designed for typical users without sophisticated taxes and "dark patterns" designed to frustrate someone into paying. The pay version may be better, but I wouldn't have any motivation to try it, assuming that the wizard/interview is required.

jandrese 5y ago

It wasn't even the stupid "spinning numbers" thing that slowed us down. Mostly it was being locked into wizards asking us one question at a time. Dialog: Do you have foreign bank accounts? Y/N Next dialog: Do you have foreign investments? Y/N Next dialog: ... For every single damn thing. FreeTaxUSA put them all in a list so we just clicked on the applicable ones. It was much more efficient. And if you have to go back and double check/change something TurboTax makes you go through the whole damn wizard again. TurboTax is supposedly able to import my W2 automatically (I work for a large corporation that use a large professional third party company to do W2s), but this has never worked. I always have to enter the information by hand.

perl4ever 5y ago
I always go to the forms and ignore the interview. I haven't found any other software that is practical to use in this way and has all the forms I need. I tried H&R Block's free software one year, I think, because I was mad at Intuit, but it was useless because there were big gaping holes in the functionality.
- mypalmike 5y ago
  I'm curious what the big gaping holes are. I've used H&R and its predecessor, TaxCut, to do my returns for like 20 years (minus 1 or 2 years where I hired a CPA due to complicated investments and tax credits). I find it very straightforward and fast to use.
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    Well, I've never had employee stock options or RSUs; my needs probably differ from the typical HN commenter. Using the word "big" may be misleading. The point is, if anything isn't quite right, it's "gaping" because what's the fallback? And as I said, I go directly to the forms, and the free option I tried was only interview-style. I could've predicted it wouldn't work, but I did give it a try to make sure. I'm sorry I can't be more specific, but I don't think your experience relates to mine, because I was using the free version. I imagine there is a very hazy line between the free version being designed for typical users without sophisticated taxes and "dark patterns" designed to frustrate someone into paying. The pay version may be better, but I wouldn't have any motivation to try it, assuming that the wizard/interview is required.