14 ms·

60M Americans have taxes so simple the IRS could do them automatically

• codeddesign 4y ago
  I other words, 18% of the population. This also means 82% do not fall under this category. Obviously 60M sounds better than 18%, but horrible misrepresented title.
  • JauntTrooper 4y ago
    It's 62 million households, not people. 41% of households. And that's their conservative estimate.
    • zubiaur 4y ago
      Correct. The article’s title is horribly written though. After reading it, I had the same skepticism as the parent commenter. The article does have the important facts that you summarized. Somebody screwed up with that terrible terrible title.
      • zubiaur 4y ago
        It gets worse, the numbers on article’s summary of the paper do not even match the paper’s abstract. Not off by much, but these people are writing as if numbers are subject to stylistic reinterpretation.
      • Teever 4y ago
        You know what's horribly written? The tax law in America so that rent seeking entities like Intuit and HR Block can take advantage of people. Let's overlook the terribly written article for a second here and focus on the real issue.
    • codeddesign 4y ago
      Read the title.
  • Rebelgecko 4y ago
    If you check out the article, it has some interesting stats about that. Turns out not everyone files taxes, and many people file together, so it's actually closer to half than 18%!
• olliej 4y ago
  The majority of people who couldn’t be handled automatically currently are that way pretty much entirely due to corporate lobbying. The vast majority of things that could be automatic aren’t, specifically due to legislation prohibiting it. For example stock trading companies provide all your trades to the IRS, banks provide info to the IRS, etc and yet the IRS is prohibited from using that to even just provide you a prefilled tax return.
  • refurb 4y ago
    Its not corporate lobbying, it’s the complexity of the tax code. So much information you need for a moderately complex return isnt sent to the IRS. A good example is cost-basis for RSUs. I have to calculate that myself or i get taxed with a cost-basis of $0.
    • bluejekyll 4y ago
      Of course it’s lobbying. If you are dealing with RSUs you are not part of the 60 million that could be done automatically.
      • bpodgursky 4y ago
        > The majority of people who couldn’t be handled automatically currently are that way pretty much entirely due to corporate lobbying. You're replying to the wrong comment. This is about the people who are not in that 60 million.
      • refurb 4y ago
        All you have to do is look at the 1040 to see that it couldn't be done automatically for a lot of tax payers - hence lobbying may be a factor, but the tax code is a bigger issue because the government doesn't have the information it needs to complete the return. Are you a dependent [see instructions for criteria]? Are you blind? List all dependents [see instructions for critera] and whether or not they qualify for Child Tax Credit. Tip income not reported. It goes on, and on and on. Unless you have the most basic return possible - W2 income and nothing else, the tax code requires information from the tax payer that the IRS does not have access to. I've lived in countries that automatically complete tax returns for you. It works great because it's simple - all your income is added up, then you get a couple deductions based on information automatically shared with the government and that's it. The US tax code would either: a) have to be radically simplified and/or b) more information would need to be collected by parties and shared with the government.
• HonestOp001 4y ago
  Great, now do the part where i do not trust the federal government to do them correctly. see previous successes as: social security, Medicare, Medicaid, transit, and any other items that get obfuscated.
  • hactually 4y ago
    what do you mean? outside of the US, this is the standard operating model. Gov says we think you owe this much, you say "sure" or you do your own from prefill. are you guys ok?
    • starkparker 4y ago
      God, no, we aren't.
  • 1_1xdev1 4y ago
    What, is your monthly social security check less than you’re owed? Does your Medicare insurance not actually provide the benefits they claim? Come on dude
  • worstestes 4y ago
    Ah of course! Let’s get the private sector to make solutions to problems we shouldn’t even have.
  • zamalek 4y ago
    That's exactly the propaganda that the likes of TurboTax/H1B spread, and you're falling for it. Here's a thought, what if you could decide to do them yourself? That's basically how it works elsewhere in the world, the government sends you your taxes and you return them signed if you agree. If you disagree or don't trust the government, then shred them and do it yourself.
    • refurb 4y ago
      So if you have even a moderately complex tax return, what you're saying is you'd be stupid not to do your taxes yourself and compare to what the government autofilled in the form? So basically it would just say me the time of typing in some numbers but otherwise all the work is the same?
• BigCryo 4y ago
  [flagged]
• sumedh 4y ago
  Doesn't Australia do it automatically for most of the people, you just have to check the numbers and if they are correct just submit.
  • perfectstorm 4y ago
    yep. same in UK i believe.
    • nicky0 4y ago
      No, in the UK the vast majority of individuals never fill in a tax form in their whole life, not even a pre filled one. The UK uses the PAYE (Pay as you earn) system whereby the employer withholds tax from your wage on your behalf and pays it to the government automatically. There’s no “pre filled form” to check. It’s just paid already. At the end of each tax year you get a P60 slip telling you how much you earned and paid in total. Sometimes HMRC writes to you tell you oops you paid too much, here’s a refund. If you have more complex tax affairs you can request to do Self Assessment and fill in a form each year.
      • rcarr 4y ago
        Yeah this is one of the things the UK actually gets right. If you end up overpaying for the year it ends up getting sent back to you automatically as a cheque or bank transfer about 6 months after the end of the tax year. Some people aren’t happy that you have to wait that long though e.g a year and a half if you overpay tax in the first month of the tax year.
      • sgt 4y ago
        South Africa also uses PAYE. The South African Revenue Service (SARS) is one of the best run government agencies, so it works pretty well whether it's automatic or if you do self assessment.
      • perfectstorm 4y ago
        i stand corrected. this is still 100x better than what we do in the U.S.
• aktuel 4y ago
  Germany does taxes automatically in many cases. If you are just a regular employee you don't have to do anything. You usually only fill out a tax form if you have some extra expenses to declare for which you would like to get some money back.
  • acifani 4y ago
    Same in Italy, tax report is actually not needed if you're a regular employee and don't have anything else to declare. If you do, each year you get a pre-filled form on which you only need to add your deductible expenses and/or additional income outside the regular employment.
  • Ekaros 4y ago
    Finland too. They even know that I bought apartment(shares for it). And I didn't report that to anyone. I only went online added some deductions for using my home for remote work, half of the internet and some equipment I paid with my own money. About 5-10 minutes of work for some tax-money back. I really see no reason why make life complicated for your average worker.
• whitemary 4y ago
  I'm struggling to see the profit potential in this.
  • aww_dang 4y ago
    I wouldn't call it a profit, but the IRS has little to no incentive to minimize the tax burden on the tax payer, so there is a potential for them to reduce deductions and increase their collections.
    • 58028641 4y ago
      Private tax preparation companies lobby to keep the IRS from doing it automatically. https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free/amp https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...
    • DoreenMichele 4y ago
      Wow, that never occurred to me and I hope most civil servants genuinely do not think in terms of trying to line the pockets of the federal government as if it exists as a separate entity in its own right and not merely a means to make a functional country of which Americans, presumably including most civil servants, are citizens and theoretically would like it to be an economically healthy country that can pay government employees, cover the cost of services etc but there really shouldn't be a profit motive.
      • leoqa 4y ago
        From working and talking to folks at the IRS, the have much more first hand knowledge of how the federal government fails in spectacular ways (try going through the hiring process). They lament the government and it’s problems more than any other population in America.
      • aww_dang 4y ago
        There's a false dichotomy here. The claim isn't that IRS officers would individually increase collections via incentives like a commissioned salesman. It is that tax accountants do have an incentive to reduce their client's overall tax burden. I hope you can appreciate this distinction. Take care.
• itake 4y ago
  My employer multiple times misreported my w2 income to the IRS, claiming they paid me 1.2 and 1.8x what I actually received by sending an extra undisclosed w2. The w2 they gave me was accurate. They sent an extra one without telling me with extra pay they never gave me. I only caught the mistake the following year when I performed my annual ssa.gov inspection. In Singapore, they pull your taxes directly from your bank account. What happens if the gets the calculation wrong?
  • unlikelymordant 4y ago
    It can never be completely automatic, because people may want to add deductions etc. In australia the my process was just going to the mygov website, looking at all the prefilled numbers and clicking ok. I think thats a good balance between automated and me having to look for numbers the tax department already knows.
    • charcircuit 4y ago
      Why can't it be automatic, but you can manually apply deductions. To get a refund or have them take less.
      • unlikelymordant 4y ago
        Perhaps automatic after a cutoff date or something might work. Im just saying that forcing people to approve the tax departments figures by clicking a button before amounts start getting deducted from bank accounts seems like an easy and agreeable process.
  • lmm 4y ago
    > In Singapore, they pull your taxes directly from your bank account. What happens if the gets the calculation wrong? Same thing as if your electricity/water/internet/etc. provider bills you wrongly. This is not a novel problem.
    • pclmulqdq 4y ago
• 1101010010 4y ago
  But then, what would instill the fear of government authority in them?
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• Brendinooo 4y ago
  >This isn’t a purely hypothetical proposal. Countries like Denmark, Belgium, Estonia, Chile, and Spain already offer such ”pre-populated returns” to their citizens. Spain is the largest of these by far, with a little under 50 million people. Quick search says about 19 million households. Did the researchers do their work in a way that could scale up to 60 million and beyond well? Just because the IRS has the data doesn't mean it's easy to do stuff with it. (Thinking about how the ATF has gun databases that are non-searchable.)
  • rqtwteye 4y ago
    “ Thinking about how the ATF has gun databases that are non-searchable.” That’s a bad example. As far as I know congress sabotaged them on purpose.
    • asynchronous 4y ago
      Definitely a intentional limit not a technical one.
    • Brendinooo 4y ago
      My point was that just because the IRS has the data doesn't mean it can realistically use it.
      • wsatb 4y ago
        I get the feeling they already do? My return was accepted in precisely 31 minutes this year. Not super complex but there were multiple things they had no idea about.
  • maxerickson 4y ago
    Wouldn't the scaling often be favorable? Like if you have a system and make an improvement that simplifies 10 million returns in a big country and 1 million returns in a small country, it's worth more in the big country.
  • Spooky23 4y ago
• malloc2048 4y ago
  In the Netherlands our IRS equivalent does prefill the majority of the requested information automatically as in many other countries, I noticed in other comments. Obviously this means they are able to gather lots of data from different other government agencies (e.g. annual income is usually prefilled) and banks (so bank account / savings numbers are prefilled) For the majority of people the convenience will probably prevail over any thoughts about the data collection going on in the background. Also, for us, at least in the Netherlands and maybe also in many other countries, we are usually happy about all this data sharing, because it saves us filling in many forms / bureaucracy. If you move to another city, you hardly have to do a thing, the old/new city will automatically inform many government agencies about your new address. I personally also consider this as very convenient, I am pretty much accustomed to all this data sharing also because the data has to be provided to whomever needs it, and is legally accustomed to receive it, anyway. However, after reading the linked article, it made me think. I now wonder,are there people who read what happens in my country and who gets the shivers? E.g. from a privacy perspective?
  • lmm 4y ago
    The IRS already has that information (and one could argue that they need it to enforce that tax is paid correctly, though that's a separate debate). Preventing them from using it for citizens' benefit doesn't improve those citizens' privacy at all, it just props up the tax prep industry.
  • nemo44x 4y ago
    It also means you aren’t thinking about what you’re paying so often. Of course they do the magic work of taking your money from you, for you. People probably don’t even notice it, how nice. Taxes, although necessary, should be painful to pay. Every last bit should be accounted for and legit. If anything governments should send you a receipt detailing where all your tax money was spent.
    • kiba 4y ago
      Trust me, nobody's thinking about what they're paying for. More often, they're just stressed. If you want to educate the taxpayer to be more well informed, there's way better mechanism than inflicting pointless bureaucratic misery and anxiety.
• randerson 4y ago
  There are also Americans whose taxes are so complicated that not even the most expensive accountants know what the answers are. The system is broken on both ends.
• nemo44x 4y ago
  Filing taxes is good because it’s a reminder you pay taxes. Everyone who earns money should gave to go through this if only to remind you to hold government accountable. It’s not that taxes are bad, but that they should be justified. A government that just does them for you might sound nice but in the end just makes people even more complacent and subdued. Every tax paying person should be conscious of this. A paycheck withholdings isn’t enough. It’s internalized too much. The yearly reckoning (and massive bill in a year you managed to have sone luck) is a great bit of clear headedness.
  • LynxInLA 4y ago
    You still have to pay your taxes, including writing a check or getting a return at the end of the process. This just cuts out the billions of wasted hours of busywork along with the billions of dollars spent on unnecessary tax prep. Plus, most people end up with a return, and many think they are getting money back from the government. Doesn't that counter your reminder/pain of actually filling out the forms?
    • nemo44x 4y ago
      No because the day will come when each individual is not getting a return. I have more than a couple friends that were very pro taxes until the day came they were real payers. Their attitudes changed very quickly.
      • LynxInLA 4y ago
        Okay, did they change their attitudes because they owed money or because they spent 20 hours filing their taxes?
        • notch898a 4y ago
          My attitude changed a lot more once I had a kid. I was never a big tax fan, but once you have a kid and realize 1) You pay the daycare 2) You pay the birth 3) You pay the food 4) You pay the healthcare .... basically the list goes on, and all along society tells you to get fucked. Society isn't there unless maybe you let your kid walk alone to the park so they can have the slightest shred of confidence and then they arrest you for "neglect." It's not "we're a society we'll work together" -- no its "on your own you dumb fucker, by the way dont abort or you'll be in jail for murder." As soon as you raise the kid, suddenly society says "Look we need to take 30% of the kids stuff, including for retirement of everyone else" no matter that society straight up told you to get fucked for the costs of raising the child up to become someone who can pay the taxes. It's that way with everything in the US. We pour money straight into Israel and get nothing in return. Blow up brown kids with drones only to have the world hate us. Taxes are theft. I'd rather live with McScrooge evilCo that requires a toll every time I enter the road than this fucking dystopia where my tax money goes to blowing up innocent people around the world and the world's highest prison rate.
• rootusrootus 4y ago
  This is not due to lobbying by Intuit. Their money isn't worth that much. What keeps this from happening in the US is Grover Norquist.
  • bandofthehawk 4y ago
    > This is not due to lobbying by Intuit. Do you really believe this? There seems to have been quite a bit of lobbying by Intuit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalFile https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalFile
    • rootusrootus 4y ago
      > Do you really believe this? Yes. Go look up Grover Norquist. Intuit could give millions of dollars to the coffers of politicians and still not be anywhere even approaching the influence of Norquist.
  • lettergram 4y ago
    [flagged]
    • nonethewiser 4y ago
      I’m not sure most people know the history of income tax in the US.
      • lettergram 4y ago
        Indeed, for discussion around the income tax is 2:55 is when this gives the briefest description I can find https://youtu.be/IEXD8i8u-fY https://youtu.be/IEXD8i8u-fY Note: this is meant to be an introduction, each claim is debated all over the place. What’s not up for debate is the 5th amendment.
    • returningfory2 4y ago
      I agree that there is sometimes tension between tax filing and the 5th Amendment. But aren't federal income taxes legally rock solid given that Congress is explicitly authorized to levy them in the 16th Amendment?
• mrtweetyhack 4y ago
  [dead]
• eointierney 4y ago
  All taxes are so simple as to be computational and therefore susceptible to automation Anyone who says otherwise is corrupt
  • rcme 4y ago
    What about itemized deductions? How can you automate that?
    • Caligatio 4y ago
      The number of people that itemize has dropped significantly after the 2017 tax changes. A quick search shows that it used to be around 30% of filers itemized, now it's 11%. It would be easy for the government to send you its automatic, non-itemized calculations and give you the option of itemizing.
    • kelnos 4y ago
      Some of them you can. Tax-exempt orgs that take tax-deductible donations will usually give you a donation receipt. It wouldn't be unreasonable to require that they also fire off a copy (well, in a standardized form) to the IRS as well. Mortgage lenders already send a standardized form 1098 for the mortgage interest deduction. Things like out-of-pocket medical expenses and business expenses would have to be done manually. But that's fine! Automating 80% of the work is still better than automating none of it. And it would be 100% for the people who don't itemize (which, as I understand it, is the vast majority).
  • fisherjeff 4y ago
    I am not corrupt and I say otherwise. The US tax code has a massive amount of complexity and tons of corner cases and grey areas. I wish that were not the case but politics being politics, here we are.
    • csomar 4y ago
      It is true, however, when you are an employee and don't have any side dealings (like freelancing or trading stocks).
• poink 4y ago
  The IRS disproportionately audits people who are eligible for the EITC. These people almost uniformly don't have assets worth hiding, but they still wind up paying fines in many cases because tax law is intentionally complicated. Much hay is made about how Intuit et al prevent this stuff from happening, and that's true, but the government itself has a very real incentive here. This is the easiest money they can get, as evidenced by the fact it's what the IRS goes after when it's "chronically underfunded." Why would they willingly give it up by making compliance easier?
  • sbelskie 4y ago
    Why is “chronically underfunded” in quotes?
    • gtop3 4y ago
      I don't know. I don't think the IRS keeps any of the money it collects.
    • poink 4y ago
      Because if the IRS maximized its "let's automatically do your taxes for you" ability, it would eliminate all the inadvertent violators, reducing the enforcement requirements. If the government really got on the stick and stopped trying to reduce every issue to the correct set of tax incentives/penalties, we could make the tax code something regular people (or, at least, less than a suite of specialized accountants) could understand. This would simplify both compliance _and_ enforcement. I want the IRS to have enough resources to do its job thoroughly, but we give them $13.7b/yr already. I have a hard time believing we couldn't do the job for that if the policy were sane.
      • enraged_camel 4y ago
        >> Because if the IRS maximized its "let's automatically do your taxes for you" ability, it would eliminate all the inadvertent violators, reducing the enforcement requirements. It would also drastically reduce IRS's own costs, though.
• esturk 4y ago
  It occurred to me the other day that if someone owes unpaid taxes, it is probably cheaper to wait for the IRS to send you an unpaid bill than to pay Turbo Tax. According to the IRS collection procedure [1], the interest on the unpaid amount is only 3% and the penalty is 0.5% per month. Unless the owed amount is really high, exceeding 10,000$, the bill due is still less than what they would pay for service at Turbo Tax which costs over 100$ easily nowadays. [1] https://www.irs.gov/faqs/irs-procedures/collection-procedural-questions/collection-procedural-questions-3 https://www.irs.gov/faqs/irs-procedures/collection-procedura...
  • liveoneggs 4y ago
    they wait ages to bill you. I had a pretty minor mistake once and got billed two years (iirc) later so interest was high.
  • jliptzin 4y ago
    No, you let the amount accumulate over a decade until it gets so high until you call one of those late night infomercials and end up settling with the IRS for 10% of the bill.
  • Hello71 4y ago
    that's basically equivalent to the official option to have the IRS figure your tax (https://www.irs.gov/faqs/irs-procedures/general-procedural-questions/general-procedural-questions-1 https://www.irs.gov/faqs/irs-procedures/general-procedural-q...), except your implementation also pays a bunch of penalties ("5% of the unpaid taxes for each month or part of a month that a tax return is late, [up to] 25% of your unpaid taxes").
  • zaphirplane 4y ago
    What if u over inflate all the income numbers. Basically increase you tax, they will fix it for you to be accurate ?
    • newjersey 4y ago
      If you claimed you got USD 10 million in bribes, how would the IRS verify that you actually got the money? It isn’t like the people giving you bribes will claim that as an expense… actually I’m not sure how it works. If you own a restaurant and let’s say you bought a kilogram of tomatoes for a dollar and it spoiled but you don’t claim it as a loss. How can the IRS know this automatically and refund you? I mean I agree they can for simple people like me who just have a w2 though…
• diogenescynic 4y ago
  I've been reading about how crappy our government is my entire life and barely anything changes or improves. Realistically, things are getting worse, more expensive, and I don't see anyone who really votes for things not on an emotional level so we don't ever address real problems. I don't think anything will change about this for another 20 years.
  • Mathnerd314 4y ago
    Well if you read https://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/ https://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/ he is saying that we are in the "Turbulent Twenties" and compared to the recent past there is significant political and social upheaval. Essentially the US is in a "chaotic period" where a spark could start a civil war or government collapse. But on an absolute scale, though, I guess this trend is easy to miss. The riots have only involved a few thousand people, and they haven't been incredibly violent or anything, a few people dead but not a lot. If you don't follow the news closely you could probably miss everything but the Capitol riot.
    • notch898a 4y ago
      99.9% of people won't do anything so long as the tele and McDonalds is available.
    • anticrymactic 4y ago
      > [The riots] haven't been incredibly violent or anything, a few people dead but not a lot. This is unimaginable to me. I can only speak for Germany here, but there was a single death[1] in the last 25 years on a protests. I'm so sorry for everyone living in America. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Todesopfern_bei_Demonstrationen_in_der_Bundesrepublik_Deutschland https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Todesopfern_bei_Demo... ( excluding accidents )
• lettergram 4y ago
  [flagged]
  • bberrry 4y ago
    That's quite the extremist position you have there. Would you like zero government services? For profit police and fire departments?
• jjtheblunt 4y ago
  Isn’t the IRS doing everyone’s taxes automatically, or they’d not know if people try cheating?
  • mmis1000 4y ago
    But gov won't tell you the correct number, they only tell you when you do it wrong and they want to fine you. lol
    • bandofthehawk 4y ago
      Right, that's kind of the point of the article. The government should tell us that number with a pre-filled form. Then we can either accept it as is, or make whatever corrections are necessary.
      • mmis1000 4y ago
        In Taiwan, this is how it currently works. It used to be like US and you need to fill everything manually. But now you only need auth your id card into gov website, fill additional reduction that is not on list and click accept. Probably just a 15 min task. I guess it is also possible for US to do this if they are ever willing to?
    • snotrockets 4y ago
      Work both ways: last year I got a letter notifying me I was wrong about my taxes, and that a refund to me is due.
  • polalavik 4y ago
    It's statistical. They are not calculating everyones taxes, they are saying "well you act like a duck and quack like a duck earning this much, is what your paid/what you purchased within some confidence interval of normal?" No? audit.
    • macinjosh 4y ago
      Where is the IRS getting data on my purchases?
• m3kw9 4y ago
  The tax code will change to take care of that 60m! (So it can’t be done automatically)
• whenanother 4y ago
  [dead]
• insane_dreamer 4y ago
  This feels like such a no brainer in terms of reducing resource burden on the IRS, it's shocking that it hasn't yet been done.
• rcpt 4y ago
  I just don't understand why some president hasn't done this. It would be hugely popular.
  • kccqzy 4y ago
    A presidential candidate once tried to simplify the tax system so much that it can be explained in one sentence: 9% flat personal income tax, 9% federal sales tax, 9% corporate income tax. I didn't even agree with the candidate's rest of the policies but it was refreshing.
• macinjosh 4y ago
  If you want to ease into UBI a good place to start is just eliminating all income taxes below a certain income, say $40k to start.
• IncRnd 4y ago
  This is from 2022, almost a full year ago.
• andrewstuart 4y ago
  I'm no tax expert but I think the Australian tax department automates much of the tax collection and companies are obligated to meet fairly stringent payment requirements as they go. All of which maximises tax receipts. Seems odd that the Americans leave much of it as a self service system. Most salaried employees do almost nothing to manage their tax.
• dang 4y ago
  Uh oh. Lobbyists begin chipping away at Biden’s $80B IRS overhaul - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35381701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35381701 - March 2023 (214 comments) Intuit pouring money into lobbying amid push for free government-run tax filing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34840039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34840039 - Feb 2023 (178 comments) 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)
• stuckkeys 4y ago
  Shhhh. Dont let intuit see this post. They will go apeshit.
• jghn 4y ago
  More than once I've had the IRS settle up years later. Either checks or bills. They 100% know the correct amount. We just go through the song & dance due to Intuit's presence.
• TheAceOfHearts 4y ago
  Someone should organize a movement where these 60 million Americans refuse to file taxes in protest so lawmakers and the IRS are forced to update the law. The way taxes should work is you get a letter with your tax information for verification, and you mail it back as confirmation. Death to paperwork and the TurboTax industry stranglehold. Automate this bullshit away.
• deafpolygon 4y ago
  Taxes have not improved, not because the IRS hasn't had the budget, but because H&R Block, TurboTax, et. al. have successfully lobbied against improving it over and over. They were supposed to make it easier for everyone to file taxes, and instead.. we have what we have today.
• nikolay 4y ago
  This is how it's done in many countries - if you like 80% of the population, you don't need to file taxes as your HR essentially has done that for you. Or if you are retired and like 80% of the other retired people, you don't have to file taxes either.
• sub7 4y ago
  We've actually known this for decades and Intuit has hard lobbied and prevented sensible laws being passed and killed (so far) a "government option" tax filing website. I've always thought they were on borrowed time for TurboTax but here we are 10-15 years later and nothing at all has changed.
• BrandoElFollito 4y ago
  I wonder why only 60MM? In France where this is the norm I guess that 90% of people do not modify they pre-filled declaration. Starting from this year, if you do not do anything the taxes are automatically filed for you.
  • kolinko 4y ago
    Similar in Poland. It's not automatic, but there is a neat and modern webapp and you confirm with 4-5 clicks (including login). Since the app is mobile friendly, me and my friends did our yearly taxes during a party recently, while discussing how awesome their ux is - took each one of us literally 2 minutes :)
  • ac29 4y ago
    The article clarifies later this is not 60 million people, but "62 million tax units, could have accurate returns pre-prepared by the IRS in this fashion. (A tax unit could be a single person, a single parent-headed family, a married couple and their offspring, etc. — whoever’s represented by the tax return.)" So, quite a bit more than 60 million people.
    • BrandoElFollito 4y ago
      Ah, thank you for the clarification. This is still twice less than in France (relatively), I wonder if the "reference" payer is different (a normal job, simple family - the kind of situation easy to pre-fill in the system).
• atkailash 4y ago
  [dead]
• 2008marketcrash 4y ago
  [flagged]
  • 2008marketcrash 4y ago
    This also leads to an interesting dynamic in the government where they're forced to trust what you say. However, if they do decide to check you out, your ducks better be in a row.
  • nowalmart 4y ago
    This is incorrect in the case of the 60 million simple returns. These are returns that most definitely use the standard deduction. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/standarddeduction.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/standarddeduction.asp
• Mizoguchi 4y ago
  Intuit: over my dead body!
• BlackjackCF 4y ago
  The first year I lived in Ireland I was baffled that I could do my taxes by going online and clicking a single button. I was paranoid I was missing something. Nope. It was that simple.