5 ms·

Good, but the situation is so much worse than just this. Most Americans could just use the IRS Free File system, which the article mentions, instead of ever giv

Good, but the situation is so much worse than just this. Most Americans could just use the IRS Free File system, which the article mentions, instead of ever giving money to Intuit or H&R Block ever again. But we don’t heavily advertise that system, because that would encourage people to use it, and if you’re going that far, you might as well let the IRS build its own tax software with all your information prefilled like they do in civilized countries. As long as the job of Congress is to kiss the ass of every powerful industry lobby, we won’t have good things.

lelandfe 5y ago
TurboTax and H&R Block aren't part of Free File as of 2021, so the supported software under the program are now things most Americans wouldn't recognize, either. The problem truly is advertising, like you said. The government just cannot out-advertise companies that are doing $9 billion in revenue.
- dboreham 5y ago
  Of course the government could out-advertise them. It'd be like Google advertising its own products on its search engine -- the government controls all end-user tax related communications. They just don't want to because someone bribed them to not do so.
  - lelandfe 5y ago
    Everyone uses Google. How many more people see TurboTax's ads vs. government "tax related communications?"
    - notwedtm 5y ago
      Every single tax payer when they get paid, or when they pay their tax bill each year.
      - lelandfe 5y ago
        The years in which I've had a refund, I have had the amount directly deposited. The years in which I've paid have been through a software portal that supports credit card payment. I, personally, have no idea what the government's "communications" have been regarding taxes outside of news articles. Either way, though, this is no competition for a year's worth of massive advertising campaigns.
itslennysfault 5y ago
.... and just to be completely clear, this is only the way it is because of HUGE lobbying spends by Intuit.
- saddestcatever 5y ago
  IMO: The mind blowing element, is that in the grand scheme of things It's not actually that much money. I'm not sure if anyone knows the true amount, but estimates put the number spent on lobbying around a few million dollars. Opensecrets.org estimated ~$3.2m lobbying in 2021. https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2021&id=D000026667 https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary... For a company that makes $2 BILLION dollars a year, the amount they actually spend lobbying and otherwise influencing governments is shockingly small.
  - _jal 5y ago
    Politicians are surprisingly cheap, so long as you're talking about topics that don't get a lot of press. And thanks to Citizens United and similar decisions that have driven up the cost of US elections, US pols are very expensive compared to their counterparts in other countries. It does make me wonder about the efficacy of standing up a lobbying fund to lobby to Do The Right Thing about something. This would be a prime example - I would happily pay $100 to compete with Intuit's lobbying here. I'm also certain there are 31,999 other people in the US who feel the same way. I just don't have the energy to do the work of learning how to set up the corporate structure around that to make it legal.
    - l33t2328 5y ago
      > standing up a lobbying fund to lobby to Do The Right Thing about something. This would be a prime example - I would happily pay $100 to compete with Intuit's lobbying here. I'm also certain there are 31,999 other people in the US who feel the same way. Congratulations, you just independently invented the concept of a Political Action Committee.
    - glenstein 5y ago
sillysaurusx 5y ago
I tried to make this point in the other thread, so let me take another stab at it here. You say this like it's just a thing that people can do. But the people you're telling to "Just do this" have already been trained to be terrified of the IRS. Many of them are currently paying huge fines due to missing their returns in prior years. Any small mistake can hang you when you're impoverished, precisely because you don't have any room for error. "Most Americans" is an umbrella that contains mostly service workers. The people that serve you food, bag your groceries, drive your amazon purchases, and so on. If you've spent a lot of time with people like this, I encourage you to ask them "Hey, do you pay someone to do your taxes, or do you do it yourself? Why?" I'm pretty sure the conversation will go "I pay. I just don't want to worry about it." And that "worry" is because they've been hit hard in the wallet, because the (American) government is not friendly when it comes to messing up your taxes. If I am mistaken about this, I would like to know. But this is true of my extended family, and I'm pretty sure it's true for most of their friends.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > But the people you're telling to "Just do this" have already been trained to be terrified of the IRS. Many of them are currently paying huge fines due to missing their returns in prior years. Any small mistake can hang you when you're impoverished, precisely because you don't have any room for error. Why do you say that? I've never encountered people who were terrified nor have I read about it. How many people are paying "huge fines"? AFAIK, the IRS's audit capacity is greatly underfunded.
  - sillysaurusx 5y ago
    My wife and her parents. Not her sisters though, admittedly. It's possible that I'm just reacting to a biased sample of people. But my impression was that this is a common mindset for a nontrivial subset of the population. Being afraid of doing something wrong on your government forms isn't really an irrational fear. Anyone who's owned a car in Chicago will tell you that the city's goal is to extract as many thousands of dollars from you as possible – it was still one of my worst financial decisions of all time. And that wasn't even taxes. The broader point is that "dealing with the government" is a big messy bucket that people usually want to pay a janitorial service to dispose of. Even things like "being reminded to file your taxes right now" is valuable in that situation. Most people don't have a clue what day they need to file by. They don't learn it in school, and their parents either don't know or didn't bother to teach them.
judge2020 5y ago
Isn’t the free file system simply asking e-file companies to offer a free program to qualifying customers? I thought that the IRS didn’t actually run their own filling system/website for citizens.
- WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
  Yes, here's the list -> https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/browse-all-offers/ https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/browse-all-offers/ However, those options aren't advertised and these companies like to do "Free" but then upgrade you as you fill out options.
ericmcer 5y ago
I was not allowed to use the free file because I made >70k if I recall correctly. It seems really stupid and arbitrary to not allow people above a certain income to access software that helps them fill out govt. forms. Only lower income people deserve help filling out their taxes??! Bizarre.
- manholio 5y ago
  > Bizarre Follow the lobby money.
- smordistan 5y ago
  *edited for flagging
  - thebean11 5y ago
    What's your point though? Does the free file system not work correctly or something?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- bityard 5y ago
  People who make more than the median tend to have more complicated tax situations due to investing, owning business, owning a house, and so forth, and generally have more complicated finances. So it's not totally arbitrary, but I certainly agree that the US tax system is messed up.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  free file fillable forms is available to you (I use it). It's not a hand-holder, but it does get the job done (and it does quite a bit of the math for you).
  - peter303 5y ago
    Its possible to miss a form or worksheet with FFFF. A good guess uses the previous years forms.

lelandfe 5y ago

TurboTax and H&R Block aren't part of Free File as of 2021, so the supported software under the program are now things most Americans wouldn't recognize, either. The problem truly is advertising, like you said. The government just cannot out-advertise companies that are doing $9 billion in revenue.

dboreham 5y ago
Of course the government could out-advertise them. It'd be like Google advertising its own products on its search engine -- the government controls all end-user tax related communications. They just don't want to because someone bribed them to not do so.
- lelandfe 5y ago
  Everyone uses Google. How many more people see TurboTax's ads vs. government "tax related communications?"
  - notwedtm 5y ago
    Every single tax payer when they get paid, or when they pay their tax bill each year.
    - lelandfe 5y ago
      The years in which I've had a refund, I have had the amount directly deposited. The years in which I've paid have been through a software portal that supports credit card payment. I, personally, have no idea what the government's "communications" have been regarding taxes outside of news articles. Either way, though, this is no competition for a year's worth of massive advertising campaigns.

itslennysfault 5y ago

.... and just to be completely clear, this is only the way it is because of HUGE lobbying spends by Intuit.

saddestcatever 5y ago
IMO: The mind blowing element, is that in the grand scheme of things It's not actually that much money. I'm not sure if anyone knows the true amount, but estimates put the number spent on lobbying around a few million dollars. Opensecrets.org estimated ~$3.2m lobbying in 2021. https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2021&id=D000026667 https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary... For a company that makes $2 BILLION dollars a year, the amount they actually spend lobbying and otherwise influencing governments is shockingly small.
- _jal 5y ago
  Politicians are surprisingly cheap, so long as you're talking about topics that don't get a lot of press. And thanks to Citizens United and similar decisions that have driven up the cost of US elections, US pols are very expensive compared to their counterparts in other countries. It does make me wonder about the efficacy of standing up a lobbying fund to lobby to Do The Right Thing about something. This would be a prime example - I would happily pay $100 to compete with Intuit's lobbying here. I'm also certain there are 31,999 other people in the US who feel the same way. I just don't have the energy to do the work of learning how to set up the corporate structure around that to make it legal.
  - l33t2328 5y ago
    > standing up a lobbying fund to lobby to Do The Right Thing about something. This would be a prime example - I would happily pay $100 to compete with Intuit's lobbying here. I'm also certain there are 31,999 other people in the US who feel the same way. Congratulations, you just independently invented the concept of a Political Action Committee.
  - glenstein 5y ago

sillysaurusx 5y ago

I tried to make this point in the other thread, so let me take another stab at it here. You say this like it's just a thing that people can do. But the people you're telling to "Just do this" have already been trained to be terrified of the IRS. Many of them are currently paying huge fines due to missing their returns in prior years. Any small mistake can hang you when you're impoverished, precisely because you don't have any room for error. "Most Americans" is an umbrella that contains mostly service workers. The people that serve you food, bag your groceries, drive your amazon purchases, and so on. If you've spent a lot of time with people like this, I encourage you to ask them "Hey, do you pay someone to do your taxes, or do you do it yourself? Why?" I'm pretty sure the conversation will go "I pay. I just don't want to worry about it." And that "worry" is because they've been hit hard in the wallet, because the (American) government is not friendly when it comes to messing up your taxes. If I am mistaken about this, I would like to know. But this is true of my extended family, and I'm pretty sure it's true for most of their friends.

wolverine876 5y ago
> But the people you're telling to "Just do this" have already been trained to be terrified of the IRS. Many of them are currently paying huge fines due to missing their returns in prior years. Any small mistake can hang you when you're impoverished, precisely because you don't have any room for error. Why do you say that? I've never encountered people who were terrified nor have I read about it. How many people are paying "huge fines"? AFAIK, the IRS's audit capacity is greatly underfunded.
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  My wife and her parents. Not her sisters though, admittedly. It's possible that I'm just reacting to a biased sample of people. But my impression was that this is a common mindset for a nontrivial subset of the population. Being afraid of doing something wrong on your government forms isn't really an irrational fear. Anyone who's owned a car in Chicago will tell you that the city's goal is to extract as many thousands of dollars from you as possible – it was still one of my worst financial decisions of all time. And that wasn't even taxes. The broader point is that "dealing with the government" is a big messy bucket that people usually want to pay a janitorial service to dispose of. Even things like "being reminded to file your taxes right now" is valuable in that situation. Most people don't have a clue what day they need to file by. They don't learn it in school, and their parents either don't know or didn't bother to teach them.

judge2020 5y ago

Isn’t the free file system simply asking e-file companies to offer a free program to qualifying customers? I thought that the IRS didn’t actually run their own filling system/website for citizens.

WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
Yes, here's the list -> https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/browse-all-offers/ https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/browse-all-offers/ However, those options aren't advertised and these companies like to do "Free" but then upgrade you as you fill out options.

ericmcer 5y ago

I was not allowed to use the free file because I made >70k if I recall correctly. It seems really stupid and arbitrary to not allow people above a certain income to access software that helps them fill out govt. forms. Only lower income people deserve help filling out their taxes??! Bizarre.

manholio 5y ago
> Bizarre Follow the lobby money.
smordistan 5y ago
*edited for flagging
- thebean11 5y ago
  What's your point though? Does the free file system not work correctly or something?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
bityard 5y ago
People who make more than the median tend to have more complicated tax situations due to investing, owning business, owning a house, and so forth, and generally have more complicated finances. So it's not totally arbitrary, but I certainly agree that the US tax system is messed up.
PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
free file fillable forms is available to you (I use it). It's not a hand-holder, but it does get the job done (and it does quite a bit of the math for you).
- peter303 5y ago
  Its possible to miss a form or worksheet with FFFF. A good guess uses the previous years forms.