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We've had electronic filing for probably as long as any country, but in the US, no corporation gets left behind so financial services companies get to rip us of

We've had electronic filing for probably as long as any country, but in the US, no corporation gets left behind so financial services companies get to rip us off when we electronically file.

ndriscoll 3y ago
There's been a free e-file since 2009 according to archive.org. Looks like this was the selection of forms at the time: https://web.archive.org/web/20090418011703/http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=202713,00.html https://web.archive.org/web/20090418011703/http://www.irs.go... I've used it for years. It's just the paper forms with some auto-calculation built in. I've never had a company do my taxes for me so it's a little hard for me to even imagine the value-add for simple taxes. Presumably they ask for the same information that's on the form. I imagine Intuit is still ripping us off behind the scenes even if it's free at point of use, but maybe they don't get a good deal and are happy to do it free/cheap as long as they can make it have a scary enough UX to get you to pay them instead.