18 ms·
California tried to save the nation from tax filing, then Intuit stepped in
- theshadowknows 5y agoSo you know in the Hunger Games when the guy was like “what if just once no one watched?” .. what if there were a truly massive protest (millions of people) who just said fuck it and didn’t pay their taxes and instead wrote in that they demand proper tax reform
- 0x0nyandesu 5y agoThis is why I always pirate TurboTax and deleted my Mint years ago. Fuck intuit. Oh and before someone asks me why I feel comfortable doing that security wise...I do it on an airgapped machine and print the return out and mail it in. Ezpz
- sseagull 5y agoAlso why I was disappointed when Intuit bought Credit Karma. I will never use Turbo Tax, just out of principle. I cannot support a company like that.
- micromacrofoot 5y agoCredit Karma was really disappointing for me... their tax service is quite good for simple filing.
- divbzero 5y agoI try to avoid QuickBooks and will avoid Mailchimp for the same reason.
- burkaman 5y agoFYI the DOJ wouldn't let Intuit buy the tax preparation part of Credit Karma, so that service is owned by Square now.
- sseagull 5y agoI didn’t know that. Sounds reasonable. I had never used Credit Karma’s tax service anyway, but good to know.
- footlose_3815 5y agoThis just reminded me to go back and delete my Mint account. The process wouldn't complete in Firefox, I had to use Edge.
- coldpie 5y agoI just do it by hand on paper. For folks with just some W-2s and maybe some light investing stuff (no, this isn't everyone, but it is a lot of people), it only takes an hour or two to do by hand and the instructions are actually pretty decent.
- PennRobotics 5y agoImagine the productivity boost if an automated system handled the W2 + light investing case for "a lot of people"
- teekert 5y agoThe US is such a stressful country, tax filing, healthcare, none of these basic things just work. Add to that the lawyers culture and you get a good basis for emotion filled Netflix dramas, but not really for real life.
- frockington1 5y agoTax filing takes me a few hours and ~ $100 each year and I have multiple properties and businesses. For most people it's not that big of a deal but it's easy to jump on the anti-IRS bandwagon
- Boltgolt 5y agoImagine paying $100 just to be able to pay your government and thinking that's "not that big of a deal"
- rc2634 5y agoYou’ll pay one way or the other. If the government does all the calculations for you, they will either have to pay the person who calculates it by hand or pay the people who maintain the automated systems to calculate it for you. The government doesn’t have the greatest record of this efficiently spending tax dollars, so if the government charged you to calculate how you much you owe the government, you’ll probably end up paying more.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y agoThere are actually less lawsuits per capita in the US than in most OECD nations. The "lawyers culture" is a false idea created, it seems, by popular media (films, TV, etc.)
- shagmin 5y agoWas curious about this, and from some quick Googling the US isn't much of a contender for lawsuits per capita, but a lot more of our GDP goes to law firms and litigation than any other country and we have one of the highest lawyers per capita.
- brainwipe 5y agoAnyone got a tldr for a Brit staring at a paywall?
- Macha 5y agoReader mode works, in Firefox at least. It's nothing new for a frequent reader of HN. California ran a trial of automatic tax filings in 2005, Intuit persuaded the IRS to adopt no such system, the government mandated a free file system run by the commercial providers for eligible people, the providers used dark patterns to direct free file eligible users to paid options. Current democrats and former california republicans are quoted as being for actual automatic filing, some anecodotes from people who had been pushed by the software companies to paid options.
- Closi 5y agoBasically, as a fellow Brit you will know that for most people your tax just happens automatically (typically through the PAYE system, so tax is taken before you get your paycheck, and we never have to even think about it). Then in the UK if you have more complex tax affairs, then you have to fill in a self assessment on the government portal (where it already knows most of your tax information, and you are pretty much just making disclosures). And it's VERY rare that people have to hire an accountant (only for people who own businesses, or individuals with the moxt complex tax affairs). Well in the USA they don't have any of that, and everyone has to file their own taxes. The USA has the capability to do automated tax like in the UK, however the companies who sell the tax software petitioned the government to make sure that they didn't implement it so they can continue to get $$$ out of everyone else.
- fighterpilot 5y agoDo private tax prep companies have an argument they advance about why automatic filing is a bad idea? Or is it just pure behind scenes lobbying?
- mcherm 5y agoThe argument that they advance is that if we allowed government supported automatic filing, then people would no longer be able to take advantage of the free filing program that Intuit offers to low income households. What they don't mention is that this free filing offer is used by significantly less than 5% of the eligible taxpayers. Probably because Intuit advertises it very little and within the product very heavily hints that you should switch to a paid product instead.
- junon 5y agoIntuit is such an evil company. Now that I've moved to Germany, I know what it feels like not to have to file every year (I still have to for the US but it's trivial now due to FIEC). There's nobody hounding you here, no stress regarding your taxes unless you're filing for a return or have extenuating circumstances, and even then there's a government-provided online portal for direct communication with the Finanzamt (finance department). Every American should be upset with Intuit.
- tromp 5y agoWhy assign all the blame to Intuit? > They persuaded the Internal Revenue Service for more than a decade to pledge in writing not to adopt California’s innovation or develop any other offerings that threatened their business model. I think the IRS deserves much of the blame for yielding to Intuit's persuasion. Every American should be upset with both Intuit and the IRS.
- iammisc 5y agoI'm just upset with the IRS. The IRS officers hold a position of public trust. Intuit does not.
- Maarten88 5y agoIsn't the IRS just executing the policies that elected politicians decide? It seems the IRS wanted to do the right thing 20 years ago, but they were stopped by politicians who were corrupted by lobbyists. Maybe US people should elect politicians that represent them instead of business. And stop buying the incredible amounts of double-speak that is always present in discussions like these.
- iammisc 5y agoYes. I should restate... I'm not mad at low-level IRS employees. Rather the ones nominated and approved by Congress, who ultimately make these decisions.
- atarian 5y agohttps://archive.md/v2lhW https://archive.md/v2lhW
- dpweb 5y agoAt the risk of being a non-popular opinion, I don't find tax filing to be particularly difficult. Maybe its because my job is to solve pretty hard problems all day. But the average person/family who doesn't itemize have a Sched C, it's quite easy. The thing to understand about filing is that (particularly for W2 wage earners) you're not telling the Government how much you made and how much you owe. They know that already. If you make a mistake in your filing, good or bad, they will send you a friendly letter correcting your mistake. The filing is just acknowledging the debt to them.
- _jal 5y ago> I don't find tax filing to be particularly difficult. That's nice. You still might care that we collectively waste an enormous amount of time doing it, unnecessarily, for the benefit of Intuit (and some cranks who want people angry about taxes). If you still don't care, I'll be taking a few hours of your labor per year for my around the house work. It isn't particularly difficult work, no big deal, right?
- dpweb 5y agoI won't argue that the whole system is stuck in the 20th century, but there is a little bit of "big companies and taxes are evil and I'm oppressed!" going on here. I understand not everyone has an easy time with it. But today, 70% of Americans can file for free. Some version of optional auto-filing I have no problem with. As far as a private company trying to protect it's revenue, there are far more egregious examples of that, out there right now.
- merrywhether 5y agoIntuit is just really easy to understand as a cut-and-dry example of regulatory capture. They basically maintain the need for themselves entirely through laws that create the problem they solve.
- jcheng 5y agoThe Free File program may as well not exist. The fact that it was mostly delegated to companies whose success depends on its failure, means that its lack of adoption should surprise no one. 70% are eligible but only 2.4% use it: https://amp.freep.com/amp/4679338002 https://amp.freep.com/amp/4679338002 Here’s just one example of Intuit kneecapping its Free File offering: https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-deliberately-hides-its-free-file-page-from-search-engines https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-deliberately-hid...
- LurkingPenguin 5y agoIntuit is the worst kind of company, but anyone who has dealt with the tax authorities in California would probably tell you to take the state's stated intentions with a grain of salt, or 1000. The California FTB would love to tell you how much money it thinks you owe them, have you not question them, and make your life hell if you think they messed up. While it's fair to say that lower-income W2 taxpayers are probably easier to calculate for, don't assume that the California FTB would go out of its way to help taxpayers. Just a sample of the nastiness and incompetence that is the FTB: https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2017/11/21/franchise-tax-board-flaw/ https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2017/11/21/franchise-tax-boa...
- Macha 5y ago> The California FTB would love to tell you how much money it thinks you owe them, have you not question them, and make your life hell if you think they messed up. Isn't this already the case? They know how much they think you owe. The only difference now is if you will out the form differently and they disagree they can also accuse you of intentional defrauding them.
- LurkingPenguin 5y agoYes it already does this, in error for many people. Example: https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/state-taxes/discussion/why-did-i-get-a-request-for-tax-return-california/00/824881 https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/state-taxes/discussion/why... The FTB and Intuit exist on the same plane of hell.
- bogota 5y agoI hate wasting at least a day if not more of my life every year filing. As time goes on and i have more assets the time to file goes up as well and gathering all the required documents with every bank having different timelines is a nightmare. But what can I do about it? I would imagine if it went to a vote overwhelmingly people would say no I don’t want to file like this every year. But here we are and honestly I don’t have much energy left these days to be mad about anything as it’s wearing on my health.
- nightski 5y agoIf you have all these assets and your time is valuable I imagine you can cough up a few $ to pay a local tax accountant. I do this for my single member company, it costs $150 each year. Very worth it and a small price to pay. They even do a quick review of my books. At this point I am familiar enough with all the forms that I could probably do it myself in less than an hour. But I don't mind supporting the accountant, it's fun to chat with him each year.
- groos 5y agoI've always done my own (US) taxes but have been mulling hiring an accountant this year. But "doing" the taxes is the easy part with software. It's collecting all the needed information that is painful. Will I just be paying an accountant to use their software? Or is there a real difference in using software like Intuit's and a real accountant for individual returns? (I have investments, retirement funds, etc.).
- harikb 5y agoMy tax person charges several times that amount and I still have to scramble to get all the documents to then. Remember, all the above mentioned issues still exist. If I forget a certain item, it is still my fault
- ericbarrett 5y ago$150 is a stunning bargain. I think my accountant is up to ~$500 just for personal filing.
- 5y ago
- dmos62 5y agoNot a great comment, but I misread the title and was really interested in what the Inuit people had against easier taxes. Edit: I love how this is getting downvoted really fast. I feel like everyone is skimming and misunderstanding what I said :D
- failrate 5y agoIntuit's business model is making tax preparation easier. If tax preparation wasn't so deliberately complicated in the US, they would no longer have a viable business model.
- dmos62 5y agoWell you made the reverse mistake...
- ols 5y agoI made the same mistake reading the title and felt a rare emotional mix of being enraged and puzzled at the same time.
- mring33621 5y agoWelcome to Reddit...er, Hacker News
- mettamage 5y agoDutchie here, never had an issue with tax returns in my country. You just go to the website, fill it in, done. I don't get the context at all. Is the ELI5: CA wanted to create their own tax return software. Intuit said no, and now they use Intuit or something? Normally I understand context and such, but in this case: isn't it the obvious thing to do? Does the USA not have the back of their citizens? I'm sorry to say it so charged but this seems desperately simple on what ought to be done here.
- epistasis 5y ago> Does the USA not have the back of their citizens? In the US, at least one party requires its members to have the party's back, but not the other way. Which is why we have mass delusions about vaccines being bad, or COVID-19 not being a big deal. The party has decided its members need to provide blood sacrifices and the party members obliged. This is the same party that says that government can do no good, then asks for your vote. For a less partisan example, for the past ~3 years, people with US phone numbers have been bombarded by spam phone calls, making the phone system nearly useless, and congressional action has been nonexistent. When I see what is going on with national media and with federal inaction, I feel that the US is far past its peak years. We have chosen bad governance, and if we can't get a majority of people to even want to advocate for themselves, there's no way to get that back.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- failrate 5y agoCalifornia offers the typical international option: they'll send you your estimated annual taxes, and you just jave to correct them if there's a discrepancy. This was supposed to be the default option for Californian state taxes. Instead, Intuit's army of lobbyists managed to almost get rid of it. It is now an opt in for people that is not advertised or easy to find on the gov website. Intuit's business model is making tax preparation easier. If tax preparation wasn't so deliberately complicated in the US, they would no longer have a viable business model.
- 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- elmerfud 5y agoCalifornia tried to save the country from gasoline cars, then Ford and Chrysler stepped in and ended up bankrupting General Motors. This is a common theme with big businesses. Instead of complying with "make people's life easier" initiatives they just pay off the politicians.
- nightski 5y agoOr maybe it's a common theme with California's draconian politics being ineffective.
- golemotron 5y agoThe nation is pretty tired of California and NY trying to save it.
- jjulius 5y agoAre you speaking for everyone? I feel like this needs a citation.
- charwalker 5y agoThe nation is pretty tired of people rejecting reality like this.
- s5300 5y agoPretty sure California and New York are tired of paying billions of dollars to the Federal government that gets re-distributed to all of the failing Federal welfare states. If they're so tired, I'm sure they'd be happy to give back the billions of dollars they receive any time now. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/donor-states https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/donor-state...
- golemotron 5y agoIt's because of inequality. California and New York have a higher GINI coefficient than most countries. If high net worth people from those states moved to other states, the transfer payments you are talking about wouldn't happen.
- boringg 5y agoAnd intuit is California company - not lost on anyone. Im also annoyed the intuit bought Mint -- which I like but now feel like it is a risky to have them access all my accounts / purchases etcs.
- e_commerce 5y agoIntuit is one of the most evil companies on the planet.
- pwned1 5y agoI for one am fine with taxes being a pain in the ass. That forces people to see what they're paying. If you think they're a pain in the ass, advocate for simpler taxes.
- jcranmer 5y agoExcept that I suspect the average taxpayer doesn't see what they're paying but instead sees the size of the refund check they get at the end of the process, which has relatively little correlation to the amount they paid.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago> If you think they're a pain in the ass, advocate for simpler taxes. Intuit would lobby against that too.
- Frost1x 5y agoNot if simplifying taxes was as easy as paying Intuit the $89/yr toll to not deal with taxes. Intuit just wants money, they really don't care about taxes or complexity of the tax system. The only reason they care about complex tax code is that they can make money from it. These large businesses of today don't have visions or value creation goals, they have markets, competitors, and revenue streams. Everything else they do is tangential. If Intuit could continue to make their money or make more money by advocating for simpler taxes they would. We should pass the Intuit Tax Toll bill where everyone is required by law to just throw money at Intuit every year until they go away, except they'll only come back for more... because this is what Intuit and a mountain of existing businesses would foam at the mouth for, a world where they were just handed money.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago> Not if simplifying taxes was as easy as paying Intuit the $89/yr toll to not deal with taxes. That's not what "simplifying taxes" means. That's paying Intuit to deal with the complexity for you, which is the status quo. They need the complexity or there's nothing for you to pay them to do. Compare this with, say, replacing federal income tax with VAT+UBI. You get a progressive tax system (because of the UBI) with zero individuals having to file income tax returns. Actual simplification. You also solve the problem of people not realizing how much tax they're paying because they see the VAT on the receipt every time they buy something.
- 1cvmask 5y agoSo we should continue to vote for the politicians who do the public such a service. I fail to see Intuit as the evil company. The politicians that the public votes for are not even responsible. It is the public that votes for them that is at fault. That is the real harsh truth. No one to blame but “ourselves”. I would always be baffled by friends who would decry outcomes but continue to vote for those who created the outcomes. So the politicians are rational as there is no cost to it at least in California and the Bay area.
- silexia 5y agoPoliticians are directly controlled by special interests. This is why we have John Deere using copyright laws to stop farmers from repairing their tractors, Intuit using tax law to protect it's expensive software, and patent trolls using abusive patent laws to extort entrepreneurs.
- AnthonyMouse 5y agoThe real problem here is structural. We need approval voting/range voting, and for more of the "executive branch but really still regulatory" positions to be elected rather than appointed. Right now you say "vote for politicians who do good things" and then every politician is found to be doing some good things and some bad things with their opponent doing the opposite, and someone doing a higher proportion of good things can't get on the ballot because first past the post voting results in a two party system.
- ClayShentrup 5y agoAgreed
- glitcher 5y agoThis feels like a bit of an oversimplification to me. Big lobbying money works, and it seems to me it tends to work no matter who you voted for the vast majority of the time. Finding politicians to vote for who can't be bought for any price are probably rare, and we have a lot of offices to fill across the country. I agree that taking a hard, sober look at how we ourselves vote is a good thing, but I doubt it is the magic silver bullet to our problems.
- mwint 5y agoSince I’ve not seen it mentioned yet, https://www.freetaxusa.com/ https://www.freetaxusa.com/. Used it the last few years to do my taxes, which include investment and self employment income. No complaints. Intuit’s stuff would charge quite a bit for my “complex” taxes. They charge a couple bucks to file state taxes, which gives me a bit of confidence they’re not making money by selling my info to someone.
- toomanyrichies 5y agoJust added a calendar event for April of next year to check these folks out. Thanks for the suggestion!
- ezfe 5y agoYup - I used this last year and it was great. They also charge a few dollars to file amendments, which is fine.
- jpalawaga 5y agoFTU is great, though startupees should be warned that it does not support ISO exercises in the AMT calculation, and you probably won't find that out until you get that far through your taxes.
- astura 5y agoI've been using them for more than a decade on their other domain https://www.taxhawk.com https://www.taxhawk.com. I think their software is great and there's no dark patterns, you can even submit your federal taxes for free without paying to do your state taxes. I also really like that I can review my filled out 1040 before e-filing. The price for state taxes is $15 where TurboTax would cost me over $100 (I have business income).
- alecco 5y agoNo mention of politicians? Let's search... https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/intuit-inc/summary?id=D000026667 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/intuit-inc/summary?id=D0000... That's the first result for https://www.opensecrets.org/search?q=intuit https://www.opensecrets.org/search?q=intuit
- dartharva 5y agoI don't understand what kind of mental gymnastics it takes for policymakers to impede paying taxes. How absurd is it that the government would rather make it difficult for its citizens to give it money!? ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
- double_nan 5y agoThere is absolutely no problem to give money to the government. Filing in taxes with extra is fast and easy. Filing for the exact sum is hard.
- rland 5y agoThere is a self-aware viewpoint among the libertarian right that if the government makes it a pain to pay taxes, then people will hate doing taxes, which will in turn direct them to push for a smaller government. It's called "starve the beast."
- xyzzy21 5y agoI have "simple enough" taxes that I don't need software. I recently found out that California has the third WORST average IQ as a state (95.5) and that only confirms that 1) I made the right decision to leave California, and 2) ANYTHING California comes up with is almost certainly NOT a good thing by definition that it came from California!!!
- rafale 5y agoWe don't mention IQ around here. It explains too much. Too much to handle. Enjoy your downvotes.
- NikolaNovak 5y agoHmm, I would actually love (genuinely) to hear more. My impression is that standardized testing of Intelligence Quotient explains way way less than popular imagination & movies think. Studies like these [1] [2] get a lot of newspaper time, but they're largely rebuked on methodological or overreach grouns, and honestly, there's sweeping generalizations and then there's saying "Anything from California is automatically bad due to low average IQ". As well, the spread across ALL states is barely 10% [3] edit: Though, by that logic, USA should start mimicking everything we canucks do! I look forward to you adopting our universal health care and bilingualism and Her Majesty The Queen! :-D [4] 1: http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Psychological-Science-2012-Hodson-0956797611421206.pdf http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Psyc... 2: https://theconversation.com/do-smart-people-tend-to-be-more-liberal-yes-but-it-doesnt-mean-all-conservatives-are-stupid-57713 https://theconversation.com/do-smart-people-tend-to-be-more-... 3: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/average-iq-by-state https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/average-iq-... 4: https://www.forbes.com/sites/duncanmadden/2019/01/11/ranked-the-25-smartest-countries-in-the-world/?sh=45b3f8fd163f https://www.forbes.com/sites/duncanmadden/2019/01/11/ranked-...
- rafale 5y agoI don't know about correlation between average IQ and a country/state performance (e.g. GPD performance capita) but there is plenty of research that show correlation between a person's IQ and expected income/wealth. It's also intuitive. The whole path to college, at least for hard sciences, partially select for IQ. And college education correlates with higher income.
- ashtonkem 5y agoGoing to paraphrase a quote from a podcast that stuck with me. > What (the left) needs to do is clear out rents. Not just housing rents, but rent seekers. The economy is riddled through with people who do nothing, but get paid because structurally that’s who gets paid. Intuit is one of those companies. They produce a few real products, QuickBooks for businesses and Mint, but overwhelmingly their money comes from the fact that they charge rent on filling your taxes. They’re a parasite on our society. Fortunately the podcaster wasn’t talking about the US; their country was worse off than America in this area by far. But unfortunately it seems like we’re on the same glide slope if we don’t do something about it.
- Clubber 5y ago>What (the left) needs to do is clear out rents. Unfortunately in the US the rent seekers have an easy hack to make sure that never happens: lobbying. The system will never change unless we vote out the current politicians, and then maybe it will change. We might have to clear out most, ideally all of the applicable congress every election cycle for a few years before we see any results. As long as we keep voting in the same people, nothing will change and it will most likely only get worse. The current political power structure is great at telling us what we want to hear, then conducting business as usual. The only political power the citizenry has is our vote, everything else can be ignored. Emails go unanswered, polls go unnoticed, protests get suppressed. Occupy Wall Street was 10 years ago. Thing are worse today than they were back then.
- landemva 5y agoThe federal system in regards to lobbying would change if we followed the constitution as written to allow House of Representatives to grow with census population count. And restore the not direct election of Senators. Then remove federal personal income tax. For icing on the cake, shut down the 3rd central bank known as 'Federal Reserve'. This would require a nationwide general strike to show the people are serious. Most people are not serious about anything beyond TV, social media, and more personal debt.
- 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sirtimbly 5y agoHow unsurprising that a government wanted to further obfuscate how much money they want to take from their citizens.
- tnli 5y agoFor most Finns (bar the self-employed, business owners, and the very rich) filing taxes is like 15 minutes per year when you want to add some deductions the tax man wouldn't already know about. It's literally 0 minutes, if you don't have deductions.
- mbostleman 5y agoI like finding approaches that don't necessarily "solve" a problem, but rather don't have the problem in the first place so that there's nothing to solve. In this case, I would suggest dropping income tax altogether, decommissioning the IRS, and using the state infrastructure already in place to collect an equal amount of revenue from sales tax. No filing. Broader tax base, including criminals and illegal activity. Everyone's checking account effectively becomes a 401k. Sales tax is regressive, yes. But proposals like the FairTax suggest the idea of an annual "prebate" or credit up front in the form of a check that effectively eliminates taxes on spending up to poverty level income.
- lbriner 5y agoI guess the argument against this is that some super-rich don't spent on th emainland or not even at all, just bank a tonne of cash. In that case, the overall income from tax would be lower than it is now. I don't necessarily agree but the idea is normally that "rich" people should pay a higher percentage of their income as tax because "they can afford it". I personally like the idea of a fixed rate from 0 to infinity like Russia iirc, which gives everyone skin in the game and avoids some of the tax avoidance that we see to avoid the thresholds.
- mbostleman 5y ago>>In that case, the overall income from tax would be lower than it is now.>> No, because it's a requirement of the design that the revenue be the same. So to the tax rate goes up until the result is the same.
- Boltgolt 5y agoThis would have consequences for wealth inequality. Households with lower incomes spend much larger percentage of their money on goods with sales tax than more wealthy households. This plan would increase tax for low income families and majorly decrease it for families with where a lot ad money flows into investments or savings.
- mbostleman 5y ago
- iammisc 5y agoIf you want to 'save the nation from tax filing', California should begin by simplifying its own tax forms. I'm sorry... you can't say you're trying to save us from tax filing while simultaneously having a tax form that would put a blank excel spreadsheet to shame. California and the federal government's willingness to write complex, byzantine tax rules, is ultimately what keeps intuit in business.
- iudqnolq 5y agoThat is exactly what Intuit stopped them from doing as described in TFA.
- runjake 5y agoI'll just mention https://freetaxusa.com https://freetaxusa.com at this point. I think about 100 commenters mentioned it over the years before I finally switched to it and I haven't looked back. It's a great product and way cheaper and way easier than TurboTax.
- frockington1 5y agoAny experience using it with multiple LLCs and/or properties?
- m463 5y agoRemember that automated tax filing will lead to easy and silent tax increases. This is something IMHO REALLY BAD, and is apart from red/blue or intuit's behavior.
- aidangrimshaw 5y agoPlug for ustaxes, an open source project aimed at helping tackle free and easy tax filing https://github.com/ustaxes/UsTaxes https://github.com/ustaxes/UsTaxes
- snihalani 5y agoSide issue: hate paywalls. pls use advertising to monetize
- yyyyyyyy111 5y agoIf IRS provides a portal to file taxes easily, who do you think will pay for the infrastructure, support and staff? Government? Absolutely but how does government get funds? From taxes. Bingo! Now the options are : 1. everyone in the country to start paying more Tax so IRS can build and support such system or 2. only folks who have higher income pay a private company to file taxes easily and low income folks file for free I’ll take option 2, thank you!
- alecco 5y agoWhy was this flagged out of the front page?!
- pharmakom 5y agoDon’t forget TurboTax… or is that also Intuit now?
- leotravis10 5y agoFor those who can't read it: https://archive.md/v2lhW https://archive.md/v2lhW
- djrogers 5y agoIt's all good to blame the private companies like Intuit here, but what really needs to happen is that the politicians and bureaucrats who took their money need to be outed. A market will always have rent seekers, and people will always look for shortcuts. It's the job of our elected officials to ensure that doesn't happen.
- musicale 5y agoThe linked Reagan proposal is remarkable: "We believe most Americans would go from the long form or the short form to no form. Comparing the distance between the present system and our proposal is like comparing the distance between a Model T and the space shuttle. And I should know -- I've seen both." Sadly the space shuttle suffered multiple disasters. And we're still stuck with form 1040.
- musicale 5y agoIt's one of those weird things where you have to ask: "Does the IRS not like money?" What's annoying is they often seem to calculate your return anyway, but they keep it a secret unless they think you made a mistake.
- rc2634 5y agoNo thanks California. Keep your nanny state proposals to yourself.