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The 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 pr
by xboxnolifes 4y ago
The 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.