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

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

#391

Post by rogerkirkness »

throwaway287391 wrote: post #285
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.

Ugh, I hate this argument so much. It's the argument Grover Norquist goes around making to every Republican in Congress that that (in addition to Intuit's lobbying efforts) to stop this from ever happening. (There's a great episode of Planet Money [1] about it.) In addition to just about every major country other than the US, California already has this and it's absolutely fantastic. I've literally never heard anyone…

The cell phone company doesn't have guns or regulate my property rights. Your argument is weak. Turbotax is better than government software will ever be, and it's close enough to free that no one is out in the cold on it.

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

#392

Post by freedomben »

cobbzilla wrote: post #375
thanatos_dem wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just playing devil’s advocate: What if a fixed/low salary only attracts the already-rich whose interests will never be well aligned with the general public? If you want superstar government that is the very best at what it is supposed to do, you need a superstar salary structure, something more like professional athletics. Our president should be paid millions (with complex incentive structures for measurable achieve…

Our presidents are alreay paid millions, typically billions. They just don't get it until after they leave office. Just look at the Obama's net worth. And of course Bill & Hillary pulling down 6 figures for giving a speech (that somebody else writes for them). I'd say they are paid pretty well already

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

#394

Post by rogerkirkness »

shhehebehdh wrote: post #272
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.

> And if you (actually) believe in equality, those affordances should apply to all. Assuming one actually believes it’s an affordance, as opposed to a pointless inconvenience and cash grab. I suspect those whose views you’re attempting to impugn generally have the latter viewpoint.

Pointless cash grabs are an affordance. Would you rather have a competent government? That's only useful if you depend on them more than they depend on you.

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

#395

Post by wwweston »

incongruity wrote: post #342
wwweston wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconding this. I wish more people understood that "lobbying" is largely making a case to congressional staff , not another word for bribery. And half the problem is that we need more lobbying, not less. Donor access is an issue, but I think the larger problem that no one knows how to address with campaign finance laws of any kind is that someone with enough money can simply use that money to hire an army of persuasi…

At the end of the day, if money buys access and money tends to accumulate in a power law distribution it means that access - and thus influence or even speech are not equally distributed. So, while it may not be a bribe, it’s hard to see it as fair. Moreover, if paid access is required and that payment goes to the politician - or their campaign which is just an extension of the process to keep them in power, I’m not…

I definitely don't believe it's fair. Just that it's important to appreciate the problem that wealth can hire genuine persuasion, and that problem is distinct from bribery.

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

#396

Post by areyouseriousxx »

jppope wrote: post #382
avsteele wrote: post #378

Disappointed by the overwhelmingly negative commentary here. There are multiple private companies providing this service for low amount, as many have mentioned; for free for incomes below a threshold. 1) Why would you want the IRS to duplicate this effort and compete with these companies? Remember 'Free' in this context means paid for by tax dollars. Do you think the IRS is going to spend less to implement a filing s…

Pretty sure these arguments wouldn't change if the IRS provided a free service to submit federal taxes. 1) They could still provide free federal tax submissions 2) State taxes could still be submitted through the companies If the companies do in fact provide a service that is valuable the IRS should not be competition for them. Now with that said. Intuit loads up their service with tons of dark patterns, and they spe…

They do provide free federal tax submissions. Everytime I see this stuff come up, I'm in disbelief.

I used Free File for over a decade when I had a lower income and 1040 type employment.

You seriously click a button here: https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-f... Pick a provider and fill out the form. It doesn't even take more than 5 minutes. 10 if you're slow.

How is it on a site full of highly intelligent and educated individuals, there is one single comment about Free File and how simple it is. And it has been around for many years.

There are tons of comments in this thread about how income tax is not automated and free in the US, when it is actually almost automated(fill out name and address and income and the software does the rest) and free for 70% of people in the US. How? How are this many people commenting and no one appears to be aware that almost all of the comments in this thread are incorrect?

On the state level, the federal government, for obvious reasons, cannot control that, but you will be happy to know that many states also support forms of Free File, although are often more restrictive. But with that said, many state taxes are just percentages of what your federal tax liability is so they are often half a page long forms for most people.

And regardless of all of that, and regardless of income, if you have a typical 1040ez income, you can go down to the public library, get the form which is literally two pages and fill it out and mail it in. It also takes about 15 minutes and in 100% absolutely free. Well, you have to purchase a stamp.

Seriously, do you not realize this has been the case forever? Are you located in the US?

And if you make over $66k a year? Come on, you can afford $50.

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

#397

Post by vidarh »

blindwatchmaker wrote: post #388
vidarh wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way to think about it is that if people were actually straight up buying votes on a regular basis the prices would likely be much higher. If politicians were admitting to themselves they were selling their vote, a large proportion of them would likely think about the value their vote have in a particular setting and price it accordingly. Part of the reason it's cheap is because most of the time the politician…

> Another way to think about it is that if people were actually straight up buying votes on a regular basis the prices would likely be much higher And as I said earlier, the campaign contributions are window dressing for the rest of it and I gave a concrete example. Families like the Clintons have made massive amounts of money cashing out after office, and secured lucrative sinecures for their daughter while in it. T…

But while I'm sure some of them had that in mind, I think very of them went around thinking "how I vote on this specific piece of legislation will make a difference in how much I make afterwards".

The Clintons is a good example of why that would no sense: Their revenue is effectively diversified enough that it would make very little difference. They're trading off their perceived status and recognition - if they'd pushed policy in a different direction, their revenues would just have come from being popular as speakers etc. with different sets of people, it wouldn't have evaporated. It might have been different, and it is possible they'll have thought about that at times, but it is unlikely that they kept thinking "this will increase/lower our income later" because it's way too abstract how it would influence things.

Yes, I'm sure outright vote-buying happens, but I don't think most lobbying is outright vote buying. That doesn't mean it isn't wrong, but that trying to paint it as outright vote buying rather than paint it as wrong by making the point that disproportionate access is equally bad is counter-productive. Because if you accuse the average politician of outright selling their vote, they'll consider themselves unjustly victimized and just think you're a crank that's totally off the mark.

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

#398

Post by peteforde »

One thing I don't understand (possibly as a Canadian, possibly just as a conscious person) is how little it costs to bribe your highest-ranking politicians.

The article suggests that tax filing is an $11B industry and that companies spend ~$6M lobbying your corrupt senators. The chair of the Ways and Means committee received ~$16k in donations from Intuit/H&R.

Wait, what?

Never mind how inexcusably transactional this political 69 sesh is... it's obviously table stakes for these people.

What I can't process is that $11B of revenue only spent $6M to bribe these guys. Why not spend $100M? Why not spend X? Are the senators just selling themselves short?

For perspective, $6M is like 10-12 totally normal homes on my totally normal suburban street.

If I was in the business of bribing politicians, I would allocate a lot more than $16k to the chair of the committee. Just saying. At least send all of his grandkids to the Ivy Leagues.

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

#399

Post by mindcandy »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #356
gowld wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Politicians don’t put the bribes in their pockets. They put them in their re-election campaigns because without those bribes they will get voted out of office by The People in favor of an opponent with a larger, bribe-based ad budget. They don’t want the bribes, they need them just to stay in power. In return, the real goal of “access” is to hear what the bribing company wants written into law or else the bribes will cease and the politician will be booted out.

Competition for this ad budget is so fierce that Congresspeople spend more than half of their working hours reaching out to groups they need bribes from. This skews the laws not always in favor of the groups, but really in favor of whatever motivates the groups to bribe harder. Ex: if simplifying the laws would make everything easier for everyone, we can’t have it. We need the existing complexity to fight and have bidding wars over.

No matter what you want Congress to do, they can’t do it until we fix campaign finance. Doesn’t matter what issues you care about. They’ll only be worked on incidentally if they don’t get in the way of the bribes.

You don’t like it. Congress doesn’t like it. They’re trapped and can’t move against it without getting cut off and booted out. We’re all fucked until we find a catch-22-escape for them.

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

#400

Post by dragonwriter »

mindcandy wrote: post #399
DubiousPusher wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Politicians don’t put the bribes in their pockets. They put them in their re-election campaigns because without those bribes they will get voted out of office by The People in favor of an opponent with a larger, bribe-based ad budget. They don’t want the bribes, they need them just to stay in power. In return, the real goal of “access” is to hear what the bribing company wants written into law or else the bribes will…

> Politicians don’t put the bribes in their pockets.

Yes, they do. All the time.

> They put them in their re-election campaigns because without those bribes they will get voted out of office by The People in favor of an opponent with a larger, bribe-based ad budget.

You kind of fail at corruption if you are getting bribes many times the annual salary of a job per year and are feeding them into nothing more than keeping that job.

Most corrupt politicians do not fail at corruption that badly.

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