I'm really happy with how the Canadian Revenue Agency handles things. You file online, there's plenty of free services to do your taxes. They support auto-fill where the CRA can send them the tax info it already knows about you (e.g. from banks and employers), etc. I filed my a few weeks ago and they assessed my returns by the next afternoon. Last week I received a cheque in the mail, but that's only because I forgot to fill out the direct deposit info on the CRA website. The husband of a former colleague used to fill out junk on their tax returns because they knew that the CRA would just fix it all up, and then tell them what they owed (or what they would be refundend) in their notice of assessment.
How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013)
101–110 of 454 posts
Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013)
#102Serious question: Is it possible for society to criminalize rent seeking behaviors like this? It seems clear that there's no benefit to keeping the status quo tax filing system except for the benefit of tax preparers. What's stopping the US from creating a law that says if a company attempts to lobby for something in bad faith (like the tax example), they will face sanction?
We could also pass a law that said that lawmakers should be prosecuted for corruption for creating laws that supported rent-seeking behaviors.
Businesses just do what they're expected to do, protect their business opportunities - but why don't we hold our representatives to higher standards?
Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013)
#103I once contemplated buying NovoNordisk and investing millions to open subsidized donut shops for the wealthy.....
Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013)
#104I have a better idea. Simplify the tax code so anyone can do theirs on an index card. There is absolutely no reason for the gargantuan tax code in a free society.
That's what the 1040EZ is. Seriously, take a look at it, it's a single page, only half of which is calculations: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/f1040ez--2016.pdf If you object that this isn't sufficient for you or someone else, I'll be happy to argue that whatever behavior would make you 1040EZ-ineligible should either not be permitted in a free society (because it's a tax-avoidance scheme for certain types of ric…
> Use this form if: Your taxable income (line 6) is less than $100,000.
For a lot of the folks on HN, I'd bet that isn't true.
At the end of the day, US taxes are super weird. This may be an overly simplistic view, but I'm definitely of the opinion that we need to drastically simplify taxes. Complex systems generally produce more opportunities for exploitation.
I wonder just how simple a viable tax system could be.
Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013)
#105I live in New Zealand. I don't have to file taxes if my income is a standard wage my tax payments are automatic. My employer deducts them from my wage and they are sent to the IRD (Our government tax dept). My student loan and super payments are also automatic. If there is anything wrong then at the end of the tax year I can file to correct things. I also get donations rebates, this is a one page form that lists all…
Because it'd put accountants, lawyers, and firms like these out of work.
Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013)
#106A tangential issue: It seems almost impossible to me that the systems of tax preparation services, whether cloud-based, local software, or offline, are secure. The standard of security is, make the target more expensive to breach than it's worth to the attacker. How much would it be worth to have access to the tax returns of large swaths of the population? I don't know the answer, but I'm guessing it's easily worth b…
The answer, of course, is "it's not that secure". Now, Turbo Tax and H&R Block aren't being hacked, but breaking into their systems isn't the easy way. And like you said, attackers want to take the easy way. The easy way is to get just enough info from your targets as it takes to extract money from them. And in the past few years, e-filing fraud has skyrocketed. The mantra is "file your taxes before someone else does", because the number of people who are submitting their tax form only to find out it's already been submitted is greater than ever before.
It's really, really hard to attack Intuit. It's much easier to submit fraudulent tax forms and pocket the returns before anyone notices.
Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013)
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Married filing jointly is one of the more sexist things codified in US law. It basically says women make no money and the man has to provide for everyone with a big salary so deductions and credits for the big earner. Or it says that if you're a dual income bunch of shmucks, that your wife must make 80% of what you do. Think about when these laws were written and look at it through a historical context. Once you do,…
> It basically says women make no money Could you explain this? I don't see where MFJ assumes women make no money. > if you're a dual income bunch of shmucks, that your wife must make 80% Also don't see how it means that. Could you explain your argument in a bit more detail?
Sure. When the federal income tax was instituted in 1913, all of the tax rates were individual (and the lowest bracket covered most Americans). People who were married could lump sum their income and divide by 2 to find the correct rate. Married filing jointly back then was just a way to save on paperwork and hassle. Lump the two incomes together, divide by two, and treat the two people equally. That was it.
In 1948, you got the official married filing jointly "status" and with it, the various income credits, deductions, etc. One would think that the married filing jointly tax rates would simply be double what the individual rates were, right? Wrong. The joint rates were about 1.8x the individual rates. Someone was 100%, someone was 80%. This being 1948, the woman in the dual income family was 80%. The IRS didn't want to appear to favor married couples over single people (even though they did), so they said 1.8X instead of 2X the individual rates. If you were lucky enough to be a big wage earning white male in 1948 America, you got a huge tax break since stay-at-home moms were the norm, there was a baby boom going on, and only about 20-25% of women worked.
Married filing jointly is silly. It should be a sum of the family income, divided by two, then mapped to the individual rates.
Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013)
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same old same old: show me a doctor who doesn't want you to be sick. Show me a lawyer who doesn't want you to get in trouble with law. Show me a priest who doesn't want you to sin. It just blows my mind up to what degree TurboTax will go with this!
Chinese system: pay doctor only when you're well. Allign incentives.
Patient pays doctor when patient is following instructions, not eating fast food, not smoking, etc? That would make it even.
Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013)
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was under the impression that they worked crazy schedules so they could work 2-3 days and be off the other 4-5 days each week.
Are you kidding? Very rare is the doctor with that kind of schedule.
My wife works at a regional cancer center and many of them do indeed have this kind of schedule. It's built into their contract.
Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013)
#110That's really disgusting, and the reason I'm not using TurboTax.
I switched to Tax Act [1] a couple years ago and have not been happier. Easier to use and MUCH cheaper. For federal and state the total came to $30