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Intuit, Owner of TurboTax, Wins Battle Against America's Taxpayers
- dmart 1y agoI used Direct File this year. Super fast and simple, no upsells or bullshit. Feels like every little thing just gets worse and worse lately.
- cardamomo 1y agoFeels like every big thing just gets worse and worse too.
- rootsudo 1y ago$240,000 is really inexpensive in the end. Makes you wonder why most Companies aren’t; If not already are doing the same.
- hrldcpr 1y agoThe article does also mention other bribes they've given recently, including $1 million to Trump
- Jtsummers 1y agoThat's just 2025 Q1 lobbying money. They've been at this for quite a while and spent a lot more than just $240k. They just finally got an administration in office that's openly willing to make the government less efficient and less cost effective.
- cortesoft 1y agoThat’s what I was thinking… I would expect the lobbying to be way more of their budget, since their entire business model depends on keeping the status quo.
- astrange 1y agoBecause that's not why it happened. There's just an assumption in American politics that whenever anything bad happens it's because of "corporations" and not ideology. Republicans are against easy tax filing because Grover Norquist makes them all sign pledges against it, not because of lobbying.
- dragonwriter 1y agoCorporations and ideology are not orthogonal concerns. The Republican small government ideology is about moving power out of democratically-accountable public institutions into accountable-only-to-their-owners private ones.
- gjsman-1000 1y agoNo; the Republicans argue that it is not in the IRS’s interest to do a good job, or offer the best tax strategies with their own tools. (Additionally, should the IRS tool contain a bug, does the IRS have the right to collect against their own mistake?) This is a particular sore spot, as Republicans have still not forgiven the IRS in 2013 for admitting deliberately harassing conservative nonprofits without cause. Call it a stupid argument, but at least it’s not a strawman like the above comment.
- paulryanrogers 1y agoDefine "best strategies". Best for whom? The rich to further snowball their wealth at the expense of those they bowl over?
- gjsman-1000 1y agoWell, to quote the Appellate Court Justice Learned Hand from the 1930s (at the time, he was often called the “10th Supreme Court justice”): “Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.” Gregory v. Helvering (2d Cir. 1934)
- alephnerd 1y agoMost companies do lobby - they just prefer donating to industry coalitions, because it helps reduce the chances of negative press one way or the other. That said, ime the RoI isn't that hot for the amount of time and effort spent, as relationships do matter more than money as some point political donations have diminishing returns.
- tmshapland 1y agoyes, so true! Even if they've been spending around that much every year, it's still an amazingly good ROI for Intuit to pay off lawmakers.
- deadpeople12e 1y ago[dead]
- stevenpetryk 1y agoFreeTaxUSA only cost me like… $20? in California this year and had very little upsells. Highly recommend!
- ativzzz 1y agoSame, been using it for years. $15 for state tax, free if your state has no income tax
- j_bum 1y agoAnother +1 for FreeTaxUSA. This is my second year using it, and I think they do a great job. It’s more “hands on”, but I think they offer a strong value.
- aaomidi 1y agoThey don't give you fake loading screens and that's all I want.
- IG_Semmelweiss 1y agosame. +1 here. 3 years happy customer. Tried paper, turbotax, and a few others. Staying with freetaxUSA
- linsomniac 1y agoI've used it the last couple years and I've been happy with it.
- fracus 1y agoThat's a strange name for something that cost money.
- TJSomething 1y agoI paid nothing because I live in Nevada. They charge for state income taxes, but federal taxes are free.
- redfern314 1y ago
- ghiculescu 1y ago[flagged]
- trhway 1y ago1) - you can and should just firewall the departments 2) - by that argument it was easier to just give a $10M dollars to each Al-Qaeda member
- selimthegrim 1y agoThis sounds like the time one of the wanted Al Qaeda people in Pakistan said in a speech that he would tell the Americans where he was himself if they gave him the reward
- Jtsummers 1y ago1) It wasn't mandatory so it's hard to take this argument seriously. If there was a concern about it being made mandatory, that could have been addressed by Congress and/or the courts (if there was a legal/Constitutional basis to make it only optional). 2) Amortized cost, it's still under development so the costs are going to be relatively high and has many restrictions which reduce who can use it to file (also publicity, it's still less well-known). Given 1-3 more years the cost per filing would likely have been much cheaper as the annual spending would have likely decreased (as the system matured) and the number of filers would have increased. EDIT: > Cheap open source tax assessment & preparation seems like an extremely good use case for AI Agents. Please no. Why would you use AI agents for something that's really a complicated spreadsheet? Make the complicated spreadsheet that gives you the same results for the same inputs instead of an "AI" that might give different results on different runs.
- wrs 1y agoIf the IRS disagrees with how you prepared your taxes, they don’t just say “oh well, we’re not the preparer, we’ll have take your word for it”. They write you a letter and you have to convince them they’re wrong. The fact they don’t have enough funding (or functional enough systems) to do this for everybody doesn’t change who has the final authority on how much tax you owe.
- temporallobe 1y agoThis may be confusing as e-file is not the same as DirectFile and it should have little or no impact to most taxpayers since you can still always file your taxes for free. DirectFile is just an in-house “competitor” to software such as Turbotax and is only available if you made less than $250k jointly. BTW I’ve been using FreetaxUSA for about 10 years with no issues.
- pastage 1y agoThat is more than 85% of households being cheated by a non progressive tax.
- darthwalsh 1y ago> since you can still always file your taxes for free Are we talking about the free tax filing that the tax companies hid behind dark patterns? https://cd2.justice.org/resources/research/taxes-and-forced-arbitration-2022?hl=en-US https://cd2.justice.org/resources/research/taxes-and-forced-... > Intuit and H&R Block misled taxpayers into paying for a product that should have been free.
- atrettel 1y agoRegardless of what happens to Direct File, I recommend people learn how to do their tax returns by hand. I do it by hand every year. Yes, it is tedious, but I am not beholden to anyone and I don't need a "product" (paid or otherwise) to solve it for me. It takes me between 10 to 15 hours per year for both my federal and state tax returns. That is all. Once you get a hang of it, it is not that bad. (I recognize that not everyone can do this, but if you have the technical skill to handle the math, I do still recommend it.)
- SoftTalker 1y agoI do the same thing. There's a free spreadsheet that is a great help, you can search for it.
- em3rgent0rdr 1y agoThe government should just write its tax law as a spreadsheet.
- vel0city 1y ago10-15 hours? Turbo Tax usually costs me like $50 or so after discounts through my bank and I can nail out my taxes in under an hour with all it can auto-import in my situations. If it saves me 14 hours of labor its definitely worth $50 to me, and I'd say I'm massively overpaying compared to the free filing tools out there! It shouldn't be this hard.
- SoftTalker 1y agoThe cost of Turbo Tax is not the just what you pay for the service. The real cost is that they now have a very detailed financial picture of you and your family and they will market that to any willing buyer (I will never be convinced that they don't do this).
- atrettel 1y agoThis is one of the big reasons I keep doing it manually. Only the IRS and my state gets my info.
- yieldcrv 1y agoWhen DOGE is shutting every contract down, as well as programs within the federal government, as well as firing everyone or getting appointed agency heads to do so How much could any one program be attributed to lobbying?
- tmshapland 1y agoIt's amazing how little it costs to pay off lawmakers. I've seen this before in the first Trump admin where some private weather services paid a fairly small amount (tens of thousands) to get some NWS services shut down. Considering how much Intuit has to gain, they really didn't have to pay much. Great ROI. "A glance at Intuit’s 2025 first-quarter lobbying disclosures gets at this continued, quarter-century saga. The company shelled out $240,000 to lobby members of Congress on tax-related issues."
- jmward01 1y agoI believe companies should use every inch of leeway in existing laws to do business. It isn't evil, it is rational. However, I believe evil companies are the ones that attempt to change laws to do business. Businesses should not have a voice in law. Intuit is an evil company and they are making the lives of every person in the US worse in order to make a profit.
- chasing 1y ago> I believe companies should use every inch of leeway in existing laws to do business. No. You can do things that are immoral, harmful, predatory, and generally shitty while still being perfectly legal. And people who want fewer regulations hampering businesses need to realize that this only works if businesses work within ethical guidelines that are not mandated by law. Otherwise the government will need to step in and protect people. But to reiterate: Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's not evil.
- frontfor 1y agoCorrect. Not saying the OP is, but many people conflate morality and law. They are completely separate, except for a few laws that might be inspired by moral concerns.
- oblio 1y agoGuess what, all medium to big sized companies bribe their way to changing laws (lobbying). Corporations need to be redefined to serving society first, a sort of Prime Directive.
- smt88 1y ago> I believe companies should use every inch of leeway in existing laws to do business. So dark patterns are good? It was good for cigarette companies to discover tobacco is addictive and take advantage of that by selling cigarettes to kids? After all, this was legal until people fought a brutal grassroots war against tobacco companies to fix it.
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- krupan 1y agoMy dream is that the government puts Intuit out of business by massively simplifying tax laws, but I am most definitely not holding my breath
- blasphemers 1y agoThis is the way
- Ericson2314 1y agoIt is easier for them to do that after they put Intuit out of business with Direct File.
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoYesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43709008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43709008
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- beej71 1y agoOregon made its own turbo tax competitor and it's great, and getting better every year. I was really looking forward to Direct File. (I used an accountant this year so I didn't get my chance.) Back to filing my own returns by hand next year. Thank you, DOGE brainiacs who decided I had to keep doing it the inefficient way.
- adgjlsfhk1 1y agoMassachusetts also has a really good website for online filing (unfortunately state taxes only).
- mandeepj 1y agoJust found, after seeing this thread, IL also has a great (seems that way) State tax filing website. Good thing - it can import your Federal Return information. https://tax.illinois.gov/programs/mytax/il-1040.html https://tax.illinois.gov/programs/mytax/il-1040.html
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- DeepYogurt 1y agoCali too
- wnevets 1y agoThe average tax payer takes the standard deduction and doesn't require anything special. There is absolutely no reason for this process to be privatized for the typical American.
- nbbaier 1y agoIt's INCREDIBLY infuriating to me that it is.
- jimbob45 1y agoThere’s also no reason for anyone not to make coffee at home with what affordable modern coffee machines can do but Starbucks remains in business, against all odds.
- eviks 1y agoOf course there is a reason- you don't spend your whole life at home near your coffee machine. Also it's not only about coffee
- kristjansson 1y agoIn this analogy Starbucks is attempting to making paper filters illegal.
- otikik 1y agoIt would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Your wealthy are now saying the quiet part out loud, and your poor are cheering.
- irrational 1y agoUse Free Tax USA. Federal is free. If you need to file state, it is $15. I’ve used it for years and it works great. For a number of years I prepared my taxes on both Turbo Tax (without actually paying for it) and Free Tax USA. They always came up with the same numbers.
- kristopolous 1y agoSecond this. Been using them for years. Took under an hour. Never give money, business or data to Intuit
- accrual 1y agoDoes anyone have recommendations to replace Credit Karma? I previously really liked the service, pretty straightforward, but it was recently bought by Intuit. Tried to login over web and it just redirected me to an app.
- talim 1y agoIf you mean the tax filing product, Credit Karma Taxes, that was bought by Block (Cash App) a few years ago and is now named Cash App Taxes. I've used it for the past few years, but this year had a more slightly more complicated tax situation due to switching investment brokerages and making more trades than usual and I found it kind of annoying to deal with. I switched to FreeTaxUSA this year and it worked quite well, so I'll definitely be using it instead of Credit Karma/Cash App Taxes next year.
- kristopolous 1y agoI do similar things with SoFi. https://www.sofi.com/financial-insights/ https://www.sofi.com/financial-insights/ It's pretty decent. I use it all the time. I know this sounds kinda promo-iy, but they'll do a mutual signup bonus so if you actually want to sign up, it's a $25 bonus for you with this link https://www.sofi.com/invite/money?gcp=b3f052b0-5031-473e-a907-238f1599ce41&isAliasGcp=false https://www.sofi.com/invite/money?gcp=b3f052b0-5031-473e-a90... sorry if that seems spammy -- I've never shared anything like this. Check my history if you want. I just genuinely like them
- ksec 1y agoSometimes things like this I am reminded in the discussions of AI, not everything problem can be solved with AGI or even ASI.
- twothreeone 1y agoI must be missing something.. why is nobody mentioning Free File Fillable Forms? I use it every year.. it's great! Super easy and seems like completely separate from both Direct File and Free File options.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- somat 1y agoFFF is... ok... I guess. It does bother me that if you watch your network requests, You find out it is an intuit product. I mean the IRS has one job, to receive taxes, why do I have to go through a third party company that I do not trust, to do this. As backwards and stupid as it is in this internet enabled age, I still file paper forms. At least until the irs can get it's online act together, (Based on the information in the parent article, this may be never)
- twothreeone 1y agoInteresting.. maybe the IRS contracted development and/or hosting from Intuit instead of doing it in-house. But it's completely free of charge, you don't need an Intuit account or sign their EULA/privacy policy or anything like that. And the official documentation for the tool itself is issued by the IRS [0]. [0] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5274.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5274.pdf
- insane_dreamer 1y agoI’ve been using Cash App to file for the past 2 years and it’s 100% fee and worked well, good interface etc. I have fairly complex taxes but it handled it all. State return too. Never going back to TurboTax or HRBlock.
- us-economy 1y ago[flagged]
- mmooss 1y ago> it gives its citizens best quality of life That seems unlikely and I believe there is much factual evidence that it's wrong. For example, health, welfare, etc. are generally relatively poor in the US compared to peer countries.
- gibbitz 1y agoI just pay an accountant. I never get a comparable return from turbo tax even after the 10x he charges me. To top it off, he gets to make a living without having to game our democracy.
- mandeepj 1y agoMr. Bessent (Treasury Secretary) was repeatedly asked during his confirmation hearing whether he would protect DirectFile and he said "Yes" :-) A small snippet of that conversation. The video recording has much more details - Do you agree with the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) report finding that the Direct File pilot was successful and should be expanded? Answer: As noted during the hearing, I commit that for this tax season, Direct File will be operative to prevent any disruptions for taxpayers. And if confirmed, I will consult and study the program and understand it better, and evaluate whether it works to serve the best interests of taxpayers. From page 36 at https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/responses_to_questions_for_the_record_to_scott_bessent.pdf https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/responses_to_qu... So he evaluated not to expand :-(
- lolinder 1y agoThat's not a Yes, that's a pretty clear No. You just don't speak fluent Politician.
- mandeepj 1y agoYou are right! In his "politician" language, he committed only to this tax season.
- mmooss 1y agoHow is that "politician" language? The speaker is clear and direct.
- intended 1y agoWe Too, remember only the gist of a question, and not its actual words.
- wnevets 1y ago> I will consult and study the program and understand it better, and evaluate whether it works to serve the best interests of taxpayers They were direct about this tax season but that looks like classic politician for "I'm killing it ASAP" to me.
- hliyan 1y agoMeanwhile where I live (Sri Lanka), we're all able to directly file our taxes with the Inland Revenue Department: https://eservices.ird.gov.lk https://eservices.ird.gov.lk . It's called RAMIS. It has it's warts and has had some outages in the past, but it gets the job done. Note that Sri Lanka is a third world country that's currently recovering from a major economic crisis in 2022.
- jdenning 1y agoIt’s crazy that it only costs $240k to buy control of tax filing policy and fuck over the entire nation.
- anon6362 1y agoRegulatory capture and lobbyists win again. Corruption at its finest. Other countries like Norway have much simpler tax systems that pre-compute the amount for taxpayers.
- dkobia 1y agoAs context size in LLMs grows I suspect getting taxes done in a very near future will be something trivial. For most people it is merely a form filling task moving a set of numbers from here to there.
- presto8 1y agoDid my taxes with taxes.cashapp.com this year. I recommend it. It's free to file both federal and state. It handled my complex tax return, including rental income with depreciation, RSUs, ESPP, section 1256 contracts, etc. And it can import last year's info from a TurboTax or other PDF. Oh and it comes with 1-year of free audit defense as well. I'm not sure what their long-term business stategy is, but I would rather pay them than TurboTax. I find Intuit's political lobbying distasteful.
- pyfon 1y agoLooks like a loss leader / marketing giveaway to promote their crypto services?
- flashgordon 1y agoA slightly different angle. Every ceo is chomping at the bits for getting rid of all their employees because ... AI. What would it take to build a fully open source turbo tax alternative using AI? I suppose the hardest part would be keeping uptodate with rules etc but id assume that'd be the perfect use for LLMs?
- silexia 1y agoHow about if we shrink the amount of taxes we pay so no software is required at all?