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Intuit pouring money into lobbying amid push for free government-run tax filing
- mochomocha 4y ago... To the surprise of no one. That's what regulatory capture + corrupted democracy (ie "lobbying") looks like.
- peteforde 4y agoThis has been going on for a very long time, and IMO the scale of the impact firmly lodges this in the Evil category. Another reasonable framing is that Intuit is the primary reason your taxes aren't automatically filed for you (with an opportunity to provide corrections later, if necessary).
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- arcticbull 4y agoHonestly they're terrible people, but their software is okay. If they're going to continue to undermine the IRS' efforts - and the IRS wants to provide clean modern tax filing software - they should just buy the business off Intuit. You heard it here first folks: I'm calling on the US government to nationalize TurboTax. It's the pragmatic choice.
- RC_ITR 4y agoI'm all for better public services, but the Federal Government making the software that states use to collect taxes would be a disaster, purely for petty political reasons.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoCan't reward this extreme rent seeking behavior, even if that means it would cost more for IRS to rebuild what Intuit provides. It's not about the money. You have to send a message. Otherwise you'll just encourage future poor behavior. Intuit has been up to this fuckery for two decades [1]. We build the public goods, then we defend the public goods. I would rather donate directly to the IRS project to replace Turbotax [2] before giving Intuit another dollar. [1] 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... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34764952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34764952
- warning26 4y agoThis can be fixed; just make the nationalization a forced affair for a fixed price (far below what the company is “worth”), with no option to turn it down. The same should be done with ETS (Educational Testing Service) as well.
- jackson1442 4y agoWas honestly shocked to learn ETS is a third-party vendor and that our government isn't producing the (oft poorly-designed) standardized exams used in various states. Absolutely no reason these exams shouldn't be designed in-house.
- germinalphrase 4y agoAs a former educator, I actually believe the ETS/college board/etc. moats are less durable than they seem. Lots a vague but oh so serious testing security concerns. Low frequency raises stakes unnecessarily. Big teams doing a lot of brute force development work. All of this paradigm is predicated on a lack of trust in the accuracy of classroom assessments. I believe that is a solvable problem with the development of an assistive assessment tool that monitors instruction and continuously creates/curates assessment items for immediate deployment by instructors. Focus initial development on the tool as an instructional utility and build broad trust in the data through frequent/low stakes/longitudinal assessment over time. Assuming broad adoption, attack their moat from below.
- programmarchy 4y agoI don't disagree with you, but doesn't the IRS already know most of the information you're putting into the forms?
- gowld 4y agoIt doesn't know your deducations.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago"Do you have deductions? Click here for wizard or form."
- JamesSwift 4y agoAnd its even more likely that people just click "standard deduction" to make it even simpler.
- andrekandre 4y agothats exactly how it works in japan, same with "any additional income you'd like to report" function
- JohnFen 4y agoMost people are covered by the standard deduction. For those that aren't they'd still file as normal. This doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing. The IRS can send you a statement of the tax they've computed for you, and you can review it. If you don't accept their computations, then file your taxes like you always have.
- kelnos 4y agoThe majority of American taxpayers don't itemize, and take the standard deduction. For those who do itemize, I expect the IRS does actually know all of the deduction for some people, and most of them for others. The very small percentage of taxpayers who aren't covered by that can click the hypothetical "I want to add more information to my tax return" button.
- noodlesUK 4y agoI actually think this might be a great solution. Buy the shareholders out at a fair price, stop the damn lobbying, get some pretty good tax software in the process.
- kelnos 4y agoI'd say buy the shareholders out at a rock-bottom, unfair price. Doing otherwise would perpetuate perverse incentives. It would tell people that it's a great business model to build a for-profit company around providing a service that the government should provide, lobby hard to prohibit the government from providing that service for free, and then eventually strong-arm the government into buying your company for much more than it would cost the government to build and operate a workalike product.
- izzydata 4y agoI don't see the point in the IRS running TurboTax themselves. The IRS should simply keep track of everyone's taxes and automatically send refunds or bills accordingly. Spend any extra money they have on auditing the rich.
- RileyJames 4y agoThis is how it works in New Zealand. It’s not impossible.
- WesternWind 4y agoIn a lot of countries yes. At the very least the IRS could let you login and see the information they have about your earnings.
- sokoloff 4y agoYou can: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript https://www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y agoData for previous year are not available until well past April 15.
- sokoloff 4y agoTrue, but you also don’t really have to file until mid-Oct. (You have to pay a reasonable estimate by the mid-April date, but the practical filing due date is 6 months later than that. See form 4868.)
- WesternWind 4y agoThere's no reason for the delay though. They get you your refund sooner, so they have the past year's data.
- xboxnolifes 4y agoThe problem isn't that the US government is incapable of making a better system than TurboTax. The problem is that TurboTax only exists because they lobby to prevent the government from doing so. From that perspective, TurboTax isn't worth buying for anywhere close to what someone may evaluate it on the private markets. The US government should buy it for $3.5MM, since that's what Intuit values it at through lobbying.
- kelnos 4y agoHell, the IRS must already have a system that does nearly all of what TurboTax does, because they also know, ahead of time, what the vast majority of taxpayers owe. I'm sure they don't have a nice web UI on top of it all, but it's possible that building something on top of it would cost less than nationalizing and operating TurboTax. They'd still have to write a bridge between TurboTax and their systems in that case, anyway.
- JohnFen 4y agoNow this is an idea I could get behind!
- kristopolous 4y agoThey wouldn't though. It would instead be industry capture as intuit is grossly compensated through a back channel that never gets allocated a budget to run an audit of. Then with a guaranteed revenue base, all the developers would get sacked as they coast. You'll need actual real socialist* legislators who are well educated in actual real socialism* in order to pull that off without some wacky neoliberal private-public bait and switch nonsense. * - as opposed to the legislators accused with the label "socialists" who actually work towards regulated free market structures as advocated for by Friedman and Hayek.
- remote_phone 4y agoThey’ve been doing this for decades now. This isn’t a surprise in the least nor do I expect them to stop unless someone speaks up for our rights. I have a very simple tax situation. I get a paycheck twice a month and sometimes I buy and sell shares. The idea that I have to go through a multi-hour exercise when all of this should be accomplished via computers automatically is stupid to me. It’s companies like Intuit that are trying to protect their moat and hurting us when it should be a quick payment or refund form we get once a year like a Costco rebate check.
- ilamont 4y agoHow has Intuit avoided antitrust investigations? I'm not talking about TurboTax. Intuit's Quickbooks is basically a monopoly in the U.S. with all of the attendant characteristics of a monopoly ... poor performance, huge price increases, taking advantages of SMBs and sole proprietors that are forced to use it for their businesses.
- throwaway12245 4y agoSounds like an opportunity for some competition.
- colordrops 4y agoSounds like an opportunity to get rid of unnecessary regulation and eliminate the system that is built to support tax filing companies. There's no good reason that taxes aren't automatically calculated for basic returns and you just need to sign a document. It's done in other countries. But their monopoly and lobbying have led to the government making the system more rather than less byzantine.
- nielsbot 4y agoAnd even if the government "filed" your taxes for you, I'd imagine people could always file their own returns if they wanted to.
- colordrops 4y agoexactly.
- wardedVibe 4y agoBecause the reigning ideology of anti-trust until the last year has been consumer welfare [0], where a monopoly is basically assumed ok unless you can demonstrate definite harms to consumers. [0]: https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/peeing-in-the-economists-pool https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/peeing-in-the-economists-...
- programmarchy 4y agoSad that politicians can be "bought" for a measly 3.5 million. Especially considering the cost to Americans is probably in the ballpark of hundreds of millions, if not more.
- cheriot 4y agoIf Intuit can get results with < $4m in lobbying that's an incredible rate of return. They made $2,066m in net income last year. For the influence they've clearly had there's got to be other money flows.
- Ericson2314 4y agoLobbying is surprisingly cheap. We should probably pay our politicians way more, uncomfortable as that sounds to many.
- gowld 4y agoOr we could put them in jail for corruption, for much cheaper.
- dangwhy 4y agolobbying isn't corruption.
- firebaze 4y agoCould you educate me about the difference? As far as I know, commonly lobbying means funding the whole party instead of an individual person. Also, lobbyists are usually required to register somewhere, which seems to be mainly a ceremonial thing. Until now, having looked up on that quite a few times, I haven't spotted a to-the-point summary of what's really the separating line other than these two points.
- nielsbot 4y agoIt absolutely is a form of corruption: paying money to influence our government. Being charitable: it definitely looks like corruption and we should avoid even the appearance of corruption.
- __derek__ 4y agoMaybe. A public corruption trial would likely take a few years and cost seven figures, then the Federal Government's cost to imprison someone is ~$36k per year.[1] [1]: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/09/01/2021-18800/annual-determination-of-average-cost-of-incarceration-fee-coif https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/09/01/2021-18...
- user3939382 4y agoI can't wait for Intuit to go the way of the phone book and telemarketing companies. Disappear overnight without so much as a whisper and not a single tear would fall. They are a blight on the public. Their existence is a good litmus test/proxy for determining if or whether the complete capture of our so-called democracy by corporations has receded.
- swamp40 4y agoThey are already connected to the IRS. I forgot to add in an Economic Impact Payment when I filed with TurboTax last year. 5 minutes later, the corrected 1040 came back to me. They already know everything, I don't know why they make us do all the work. Maybe in case THEY miss something?
- peteforde 4y agoIn the meta, this article reminds me of what I perceive as a surreal disconnect between the amount of influence lobbyists have in government(s) vs the objectively small amount of money that actually is changing hands. If Intuit spends (just) $3.5M to significantly impact decisions that are worth Billions to them and potentially hundreds to every taxpayer (!), I think I'm frustrated that corrupt politicians aren't doing more to leverage their corruption. This kind of illegal influence should cost... at least $100M? Selling everyone out for fractions of a penny on the dollar is frankly just kind of embarrassing. Crime harder, elected reps, if you're going to get out of bed.
- pessimizer 4y agoPoliticians are very cheap, but the $3.5M is what was spent legally and openly. Most of the iceberg is hidden underwater. For example, this: > In 2022, several members of Congress called for investigations into the company’s practice of hiring “revolving door” lobbyists who previously held government positions is also bribery.
- SturgeonsLaw 4y agoThe fact that it's legal is also part of the problem
- JohnFen 4y agoExactly this. Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's not corrupt.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y agoNot that I think this change should happen but it's amusing to consider a seeming lack of ambition from people in such positions.
- jmoak3 4y agoMany engineers reading this make a larger salary than these lawmakers. Maybe if the people deciding our laws made enough to not be woo’d by practically a $300 gift card we’d at least make corruption more expensive.
- VWWHFSfQ 4y agoIf turbotax was better than the free gov site then I would still use it. Good to have a free option though.
- ortusdux 4y agoWe just need to go to prefilled tax forms.
- slg 4y agoI wish more people would blame the government officials for being so susceptible to lobbying and refusing to enact policies to curtail the behavior rather than be angry at individual companies for lobbying. As the old saying goes, don't hate the player, hate the game. Intuit is just operating in the best interest of their stockholders and employees. It isn't their job to operate in the best interest of society. That is the government's job. This situation is a governmental failure not any problem with Intuit specifically and it happens in plenty of other areas besides tax reporting.
- thewildginger 4y agoThey are players in this game too. They could "lobby" Congress to change the laws to allow them not to be shitty. But they won't. Part of stopping the game is shitting on ANYONE who wants to play that wah
- slg 4y ago>They could "lobby" Congress to change the laws to allow them not to be shitty. You are expecting a publicly traded company to lobby the government on behalf of a change that will negatively impact the company's financial viability? That seems disconnected from reality.
- px1999 4y agoI'm really curious how lobbying for something like this works in practice. I work with (non-us) government and while I don't doubt some background level of corruption, in experience there's always been an emphasis on documented probity and making defensible decisions. How does that $3m of lobbying actually work? Do lobbyists provide arguments to lawmakers (are there any except the tenuous one that the taxpayer money could be better used elsewhere?), or is it literally just spent on wining and dining the right people and asking them to block specific legislation?
- foruhar 4y agoThere must be a myriad ways. This was on the front page today https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34835096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34835096
- dang 4y agoTax season is tax lobby rage season! Related: IRS builds task force to explore running its own free e-file system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34764952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34764952 - Feb 2023 (199 comments) IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34462122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34462122 - Jan 2023 (247 comments) IRS will look into setting up a free e-filing system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32753099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32753099 - Sept 2022 (408 comments) The IRS could be on the verge of changing the way Americans file their taxes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32550841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32550841 - Aug 2022 (17 comments) IRS will study free tax filing options - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32502321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32502321 - Aug 2022 (25 comments) TurboTax’s fight against free tax filing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31072202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31072202 - April 2022 (394 comments) Filing taxes could be free & simple. H&R Block & Intuit lobby against it (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30856968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30856968 - March 2022 (114 comments) FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30846071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30846071 - March 2022 (587 comments) Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30409523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30409523 - Feb 2022 (122 comments) Why do Americans have to pay much to file their tax returns when the IRS knows? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30267361 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30267361 - Feb 2022 (22 comments) Filing Taxes Could Be Free and Simple. But H&R Block and Intuit Lobby Against It (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30185484 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30185484 - Feb 2022 (18 comments) California tried to save the nation from tax filing, then Intuit stepped in - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28944200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28944200 - Oct 2021 (283 comments) The IRS has a big opportunity to fix the way Americans file taxes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28177289 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28177289 - Aug 2021 (12 comments) UsTaxes – open-source tax filing web application - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27998452 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27998452 - July 2021 (53 comments) Good Riddance, TurboTax. Americans Need a Real ‘Free File’ Program - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27902380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27902380 - July 2021 (248 comments) Intuit will no longer be a part of IRS Free File program - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27865625 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27865625 - July 2021 (140 comments) Killing TurboTax - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26330584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26330584 - March 2021 (662 comments) Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26138446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26138446 - Feb 2021 (219 comments) TurboTax Tricked You into Paying to File Your Taxes (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26102695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26102695 - Feb 2021 (306 comments) TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26060414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26060414 - Feb 2021 (199 comments) FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24409093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24409093 - Sept 2020 (194 comments) IRS stops firms like TurboTax from hiding free tax-filing products in searches - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21948935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21948935 - Jan 2020 (25 comments) IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21923220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21923220 - Dec 2019 (448 comments) IRS Tried to Hide Emails That Show Tax Industry Influence over Free File Program - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21393758 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21393758 - Oct 2019 (188 comments) TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21281411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21281411 - Oct 2019 (447 comments) TurboTax to charge more lower-income customers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20461169 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20461169 - July 2019 (81 comments) Congress Scraps Provision to Restrict IRS from Competing with TurboTax - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20119916 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20119916 - June 2019 (18 comments) TurboTax Uses a “Military Discount” to Trick Troops into Paying to File Taxes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19994118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19994118 - May 2019 (42 comments) Listen to TurboTax Lie to Get Out of Refunding Overcharged Customers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19870242 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19870242 - May 2019 (44 comments) TurboTax and H&R Block Saw Free Tax Filing as a Threat - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19810981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19810981 - May 2019 (143 comments) TurboTax Hides Its Free File Page from Search Engines - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19758126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19758126 - April 2019 (262 comments) TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19718284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19718284 - April 2019 (274 comments) Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19613725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19613725 - April 2019 (696 comments) Filing Your Taxes Is an Expensive Time Sink. That’s Not an Accident - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19572917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19572917 - April 2019 (155 comments) How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19392673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19392673 - March 2019 (253 comments) H&R Block and Intuit Lobby Against Free and Simple Tax Filing (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18956883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18956883 - Jan 2019 (190 comments) Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17751383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17751383 - Aug 2018 (424 comments) IRS electronic filing system breaks down hours before midnight deadline - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16860086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16860086 - April 2018 (97 comments) Why I'm boycotting TurboTax this year - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16844458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16844458 - April 2018 (23 comments) H&R Block and Intuit Lobbying Against Simpler Tax Filing (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16841449 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16841449 - April 2018 (232 comments) Stanford Professor Loses Political Battle To Simplify Tax Filing Process - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13990391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13990391 - March 2017 (386 comments) H&R Block and Intuit Are Lobbying Against Making Tax Filling Free and Easy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13922482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13922482 - March 2017 (234 comments) How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13853150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13853150 - March 2017 (439 comments) US Senator Warren Introduces Bill to Simplify Tax Filing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11492025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11492025 - April 2016 (155 comments) TurboTax Takes Aim at Smaller Rival in Fight for Filers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11150694 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11150694 - Feb 2016 (87 comments) Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9381437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9381437 - April 2015 (150 comments) Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9380232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9380232 - April 2015 (124 comments) TurboTax Maker Intuit Funnels Millions to Lobby Against Easier Tax Returns - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7595440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7595440 - April 2014 (182 comments) Filing taxes: It shouldn't be so hard - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5488084 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5488084 - April 2013 (56 comments) How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5443203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5443203 - March 2013 (330 comments) Intuit lobbies against California's free tax filing service - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1569169 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1569169 - Aug 2010 (29 comments)
- 1270018080 4y agoI have yet to see anyone defend Intuit's bribery and corruption on any forum. I'm sure there are plenty of Intuit employees on HN. Do any of you want to defend the other side? Or maybe a non-Intuit employee can play devil's advocate?
- woeirua 4y agoThe real solution to all of this is to just get rid of the overly complicated tax code. No more deductions or credits. Everyone just pays some % of their gross income. Stop using tax policy as a way to pick winners and losers. The tax code is grossly stacked in favor of the wealthy. If you want to redistribute money to the needy then do so using direct payments.
- WesternWind 4y agoI mean, if you make 10k a year your fixed costs leave less money for taxes than if you make 100k or 1m a year, so doing it on a simple percentage of gross income (rather than gross revenue) is likely to accelerate poverty, which is very much picking winners and losers. Anyway the reason why we have deductions and tax breaks as such a big component is in large part because it is one of the things you don't need 60 senators to pass.
- foruhar 4y agoNot only is it not getting simpler the tax code seems to keep growing as more exceptions and exemptions get added. I guess it's like so many legacy code bases that just keep growing with lots of patches for special cases. According to the Public Law 117-154(06/23/2022), the U.S. Tax Code is 6,871 pages. When you include the federal tax regulations and the official tax guidance, the number of pages raises to approximately 75,000. This zip file (pdf) is 181MB [0]. [0] https://uscode.house.gov/download/download.shtml https://uscode.house.gov/download/download.shtml
- notch898a 4y agoI can't think of a single person who wants taxes to become more complicated. How on earth does this happen? This overwhelmingly defies the democratic consensus, thus absent some special constitutional protections shouldn't be possible in a democracy.
- fragmede 4y agoGiven that the more complicated taxes are, the easier it is for billionaires to hide what they're doing, pay less in taxes, and even get money back out from the IRS, along with giving accountants a job, is it really that much of a surprise?
- bastard_op 4y agoThis is the same thing they've been doing for the past 20-30 years now to stay at all relevant as a business. The only reason taxes still cost to file is Intuit and the other scab companies that sell software to everyone. Cheaper to pay off politicians in "lobbying" them vs. getting a modern business model.
- renlo 4y agoWhat's a viable alternative to TurboTax for those who are unable to self-file? I know Intuit is an evil company, but whenever it's tax season and I'm confronted with either (a) learning how to file my own taxes or (b) kicking the can down the road and paying Intuit $100, I choose (b). I had an accountant for a couple years because my taxes were complicated due to changing states. My accountant charged me $1000, which I did not mind paying because my taxes were complicated. When my taxes became substantially less complicated last year, he still charged me $1000, which I _did_ mind paying. So no more accountant! The unfortunate reality is that Intuit's software works well and they've priced it at a point where most people just accept the fee and move on. As we get nearer to Tax Day 2023, I feel that I'm just going to accept their fee and move on with my life, even knowing how problematic they are. Is there a viable alternative (cheap tax software)? Is there a simple source of information where a person can learn everything they need to know about filing their taxes in an hour or two? Taxes seem to be kept intentionally arcane because so many make a living from understanding it without allowing me to understand it.
- fragmede 4y agoIf the fee is a flat $1,000, the other way to get more value is too complicated the hell out of your situation. Have you ever thought of starting a nonprofit foundation?
- cantaloupe 4y agoI’ve used FreeTaxUSA and recommended it to many friends. Federal is free and state is $15 (if your state has income tax). For W-2 plus investments and house, it was a breeze. And they cover many more forms than just that: https://www.freetaxusa.com/supported_forms.jsp https://www.freetaxusa.com/supported_forms.jsp
- valarauko 4y agoI'd seen recommendations on here in the past for FreeTaxUSA so used that for the first time this year - already got my refund as well! It's free for federal filing, and $15 for each state filing. The interface is easy enough to understand, and I appreciated the many options - it does help to know what deductions apply to you, so at least a cursory understanding of your old filings is probably necessary. I believe it can import your old TurboTax filings and figure stuff out from that, but it's not something I did and was easy enough to set up and finish in the span of an evening. The various deductions are laid as a questionnaire, and I appreciated that they were marked as rare deductions that most people don't need - but there in case you need it.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y agoThis year I tried Free File Forms and run into issues ... then tried TaxAct for $35 and run into issues ... then TurboTax for $139 did the job. There were issues but a live agent helped with that. At least I can tell that I didn't resign to evil Intuit without some struggle.
- cpursley 4y agoIt's time for a no-return flat tax. If Russia and Estonia can do it, we (USA) can too.
- cpursley 4y agoI'm sure the downvotes are for the Russia comment. Okay, fine. For the adults in the room - let's look at Estonia. They are known for getting rid of the post-soviet corruption and being at the forefront of tech-enabled government. All while providing great government services (free healthcare and university - at a low taxpayer cost). Why can't America mimic that? - https://e-estonia.com/ https://e-estonia.com/ - https://investinestonia.com/tax-competitiveness/ https://investinestonia.com/tax-competitiveness/
- valarauko 4y agoOut of curiosity, how does a flat tax country like Estonia manage incentives? It's the main thing that balloons the US tax policy - not by design, but for whatever convoluted quirks of history the US has settled on using tax incentives as a means of placing the thumb on driving public behavior, especially when dealing with a federal structure and 50 differing opinions of how things should be run. Want to encourage more children? Increase the child deductions. Want to encourage household solar energy production? Tax deductions.
- cpursley 4y agoA very intelgent question void of political bias (rare these days on HN). Thank you for that! My other alternative suggestion to a flat income tax is a progressive sales tax based on what you want to incentivize. Gas guzzlers? First class flight? Tax the shit out of them. Solar roof? Basic groceries? No tax. Used/preowned goods? Zero tax (a loophole for opting out). Etc.
- rapht 4y agoMeanwhile, in normal countries: - salaried income is automatically submitted to tax authorities - capital income going through financial institutions is automatically submitted to tax authorities - the deductions that concern most taxpayers are managed automatically And so it for 80% of taxpayers, tax prep is exactly 5 minutes, and for the next 10% it is 2 hours. And then, Americans explain that bureaucracy is quite worse elsewhere.
- fffernan 4y agoConsidering Inflation its actually a reduction in spending.
- arthurofcharn 4y agoWhy do they even bother? Intuit has skilled coders, that could be put to more productive work. Like rewriting our tax code in Python. (Ha Ha only serious.)
- MattDemers 4y agoYou gotta love the usage of social justice vocabulary with this. Find a way that it'll "impact low-income taxpayers" and suddenly it's morally correct to keep things from being more convenient for the vast majority of people.
- jl2718 4y agoThe Soviet people endured 70 years of this. I'm sure they all thought it was just a fad.
- pmulard 4y agoFor anyone looking for alternatives, freetaxusa and CashApp are both great. I used the former for one year after I couldn’t get TurboTax for free anymore. Federal is free and state is $15 per. Switched to cashapp for the past two years because it is completely free. Both are a smooth experience.
- Scoundreller 4y agoDisappointed nobody has yet pointed out that it was Sam Bankman-Fried’s dad, Joseph Bankman, pushed for a free gov-run tax filing in California: > In 2005,[22] Joseph Bankman worked with the state of California to create ReadyReturn, a pilot study with a completed tax return prepared by the state (not an individual or tax professional) that was available to single, no-dependant, standard-deduction, one-employer, wages-only taxpayers for the 2005 filing season.[23] > When the FTB launched the ReadyReturn website, Intuit sued and lobbied California legislators to kill the program. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalFile#ReadyReturn https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalFile#ReadyReturn
- 1_1xdev1 4y agoWhy is that significant? If not significant, why are you disappointed? Are you a part of SBF’s rep management crew?
- Scoundreller 4y agolol, no, SBF should be in prison holding. Just an interesting coincidence that the father of the guy who was in the news non-stop tried to create a thing that everyone (except Intuit) agrees with. But more seriously, 17 day account holder, are you a part of SBF’s rep management crew?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- 1_1xdev1 4y agoI think my questioning of your intention makes a lot more sense than your question, when you actually read (I have like 5 comments and no they aren’t about sbf or cryptocurrency or anything related)
- eat 4y agoReally surprisingly low number here. $3.5 million doesn't seem like a lot to spend considering what I imagine they'd lose if they lost this tax-prep business. Did we lose a zero somewhere?
- jimt1234 4y agoThere was a bribery scandal at my college years ago. But, what was more shocking than professors and teaching assistants accepting bribes, was how small and seemingly insignificant the bribes were. I recall one professor elevated the grades of an entire fraternity because they sent pizzas to his office after midterms (when the exams were being graded).
- jl2718 4y agoFlag on the play: illegal move of the goalposts. Not government-run filing software. Fully-transparent and zero burden.
- smitty1e 4y agoTake off and nuke the entire tax code site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. The U.S. tax code is as inexcusable as the budget deficit/national debt. Down with all of this folly, and let us replace it with something that is not a colossal dirty diaper.
- Cas6767 4y agoI would prefer if they just steal the right amount of money from me in the first place and leave me alone
- euroderf 4y agoSearch for "return on investment of lobbying".