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Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

propublica.org

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Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#351

Post by malloryerik »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #260
danielhughes wrote: post #226

I've often read headlines noting that the tax-prep lobby spends huge sums to preserve the status quo. But the numbers quoted in the article as evidence don't appear to support that claim. $6.6m seems low relative to these figures https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2018&inde... * *I can't vouch for this site or its data Relevant quote from the Tech Crunch article: "One reason why folks Congress could b…

The perrenial misunderstanding about lobbying in the US is that it's about money. It's not. It's about access. The money spent by lobbying firms is almost always in pursuit of that access. AKA buying a $10,000 plate at this donor dinner gets you a sit down with the Senator. Not only do lobbyists get more accessible they get more credibility. The lobbyists are high paid lawyers at respected firms. They have degrees fr…

> No one is evil stuff just breaks.

Are you implying here that the problem can't be fixed or ameliorated?

> buying a $10,000 plate at this donor dinner gets you a sit down with the Senator

What if there were no donor dinners because campaigns were limited to a set amount of public funds?

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#352

Post by guelo »

Calloggs wrote: post #298

Planet Money covered tax filing a few years ago and visited it again recently: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor... My understanding is that the main opposition appears to be (1) the tax preparation lobby to protect their business interests and (2) anti-tax activists that believe that making people calculate their own taxes will make them more aware of how much they are paying in taxes. The…

I would classify causing mass pain for political gain as purely evil.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#354

Post by thanatos_dem »

azinman2 wrote: post #350

"The Ways and Means chair, Neal, received $16,000 in contributions from the two companies in the last two election cycles, according to the ProPublica report." It's embarrassing and absurd how cheap it is to buy off congress from making everyone's lives easier. Can't a gofundme raise more than 16k to counter them?

Well that’s quite a slippery slope... it’s going to be corporations vs citizens in a bidding war making all politicians multi millionaires?

How about we go back to when politician wasn’t a full time job, and you barely got paid for it? Make it illegal to pay politicians for any public services apart from a set nominal salary.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#355

Post by randysavage »

rattlesnakedave wrote: post #349
Calloggs wrote: post #298

Planet Money covered tax filing a few years ago and visited it again recently: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor... My understanding is that the main opposition appears to be (1) the tax preparation lobby to protect their business interests and (2) anti-tax activists that believe that making people calculate their own taxes will make them more aware of how much they are paying in taxes. The…

A better way to do 2 would be to do away with withholding. After a year of that we’d see a radically different tax system.

Forcing everyone to make quarterly estimated payments would lead to riots in the streets.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#356

Post by DubiousPusher »

gowld wrote: post #332
DubiousPusher wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The perrenial misunderstanding about lobbying in the US is that it's about money. It's not. It's about access. The money spent by lobbying firms is almost always in pursuit of that access. AKA buying a $10,000 plate at this donor dinner gets you a sit down with the Senator. Not only do lobbyists get more accessible they get more credibility. The lobbyists are high paid lawyers at respected firms. They have degrees fr…

Paying for access is a bribe. What confuses people is that yes it really is incredibly cheap to bribe Congress and get crazy high ROI, because Intuit can get organized (it's already a corporation with management) afford $6Million in bribes but Americans for sane tax policy can't. This is what "moneyed special interests" refers to.

When I say it's not a bribe I mean in the classic "quid pro quo" sense. I certainly think it's not a great way to run a republic. My point is exactly that it's cheap because the representatives aren't looking to get rich off that money. It's cheap because they're just buying 20 minutes of time.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#358

Post by cbo100 »

gowld wrote: post #345
indemnity wrote: post #227

Meanwhile, in my little country (NZ), as a regular salaried worker, I only had to interact with the IRD in the years that I had a few side gigs in addition to my regular employment. Most years I don't interact with them at all. Don't even have to file. I guess in the USA they are worried the IRS will get it wrong, so on the chance they will, everyone has to follow really complicated processes, even if their tax affai…

The USA has "deductions", which are convoluted rat races where everyone does a bunch of paperwork so they all get a small discount which is cancelled out by higher overall rates. The IRS can't tell you which deductions to take, since they don't know your whole life situation. It's the same structure that makes you pay 3% extra for everything you but so you can get 1-2% back as a credit card refund, and makes you get…

Australia has "deductions" and the filing forms are plenty complicated, doesn't stop them making a nice website with a free e-filing system.

For pretty much everything is prefilled, and you just double check from your own records, fill in the various deduction screens for whatever class of deductions you're claiming.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#359

Post by [deleted] »

rogerkirkness wrote: post #247

The easier it is the file taxes, the closer you get to a direct link to your bank account where you "don't have to think about it". Affordances and friction can be good. And if you (actually) believe in equality, those affordances should apply to all.

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