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I think that saying "lots of people want to make paying taxes painful" is quite a bold assumption, and it works all too nicely with the argument that Intuit is

by rmxt 11y ago

I think that saying "lots of people want to make paying taxes painful" is quite a bold assumption, and it works all too nicely with the argument that Intuit is merely riding along with public sentiment. The reality is that the bottom 50% of tax filers in the United States have a federal tax rate of about 3%. [1] That isn't too much to get worked up about, and certainly not worth the punishment of needing to deal with complicated tax forms that can otherwise be completely between employer and government. I can't find a statistic that backs up my instinct here, but considering that 56% of individual returns were filed by preparers [2], I would posit that most of these 3% tax rate filers pay someone to do their taxes, such that they are hardly aware of the "reality" of their tax situation. Why would these people want to continue paying Intuit or HR Block or whomever for something that can (and should) be completely automatic? A more accurate assumption might be that "lots of people [with money to throw around] want to make paying taxes painful [so that they can continue being employed/acting as a middle-man in an industry that would otherwise be rendered obsolete by advances in technology]." See this comment [3]. [1] http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-inco... [2] http://www.irs.gov/uac/SOI-Tax-Stats-Tax-Stats-at-a-Glance http://www.irs.gov/uac/SOI-Tax-Stats-Tax-Stats-at-a-Glance [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9381549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9381549

rayiner 11y ago
TurboTax is free for everyone who doesn't make enough money to complain about their federal tax liability.
- fragmede 11y ago
  Fortunately, they charge for doing your state taxes, which applies to most.
- rmxt 11y ago
  That still doesn't respond to the issue regarding why it is Intuit's TurboTax, and not a free solution provided by the government. I mean free, both in terms of cost to the end user, and cost to the government to implement. (I would imagine that long-term, it would even have negative cost to the government.)
  - harryh 11y ago
    Because the US government isn't capable of building software at this level of complexity.
    - rmxt 11y ago
      I can't tell if this is a serious comment or a sarcastic one, but I'll bite. This is blatantly false. I'm not asking them to replicate the full features of TurboTax. These low-income households do not need a full-featured free program. They pretty much just need a single field filled in on their 1040EZ from their W-2, with maybe some questions about child support, local taxes, and the like. This is well within the reach of the US government. For example, both Federal and State governments are able to automatically link household names and addresses together with tax returns to automagically populate college financial aid forms. [1] [1] https://fafsa.ed.gov/help/irshlp9.htm https://fafsa.ed.gov/help/irshlp9.htm
      - harryh 11y ago
        It was serious. I agree with you here though about simpler tax filers. They should be able to make it easy and free for 1040EZ filers. State taxes make it a bit more complex but whatever. I'm not holding my breath though.

by rmxt 11y ago

rayiner 11y ago

TurboTax is free for everyone who doesn't make enough money to complain about their federal tax liability.

fragmede 11y ago
Fortunately, they charge for doing your state taxes, which applies to most.
rmxt 11y ago
That still doesn't respond to the issue regarding why it is Intuit's TurboTax, and not a free solution provided by the government. I mean free, both in terms of cost to the end user, and cost to the government to implement. (I would imagine that long-term, it would even have negative cost to the government.)
- harryh 11y ago
  Because the US government isn't capable of building software at this level of complexity.
  - rmxt 11y ago
    I can't tell if this is a serious comment or a sarcastic one, but I'll bite. This is blatantly false. I'm not asking them to replicate the full features of TurboTax. These low-income households do not need a full-featured free program. They pretty much just need a single field filled in on their 1040EZ from their W-2, with maybe some questions about child support, local taxes, and the like. This is well within the reach of the US government. For example, both Federal and State governments are able to automatically link household names and addresses together with tax returns to automagically populate college financial aid forms. [1] [1] https://fafsa.ed.gov/help/irshlp9.htm https://fafsa.ed.gov/help/irshlp9.htm
    - harryh 11y ago
      It was serious. I agree with you here though about simpler tax filers. They should be able to make it easy and free for 1040EZ filers. State taxes make it a bit more complex but whatever. I'm not holding my breath though.