TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes • Hacker News Board

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#41

Post by maerF0x0 » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

rectang wrote: post #34

1024core wrote: post #8

The real dark pattern is their ability to bribe the Congress into preventing IRS from implementing free filing.

It's the inevitable consequence of strengthening corporate rights relative to individual rights: corporations take ever larger ownership of government.

I dont even understand how corporations have rights... My understanding is that in a democratic system the individual voter is the unit of currency.

Sadly this gets muddied in a sea of "representatives" and lobby groups which claim to represent people...

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#42

Post by iamwpj » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 2:55 PM UTC

Hey, just an FYI.

You never have to pay to file taxes. Like the forms are free on IRS.gov. You can fill in the information and mail it in with any money you owe too. There are help guides that step your through the process of filling out the forms as well, like worksheets to calculate deductibles if you need it.

It's very important that you go to IRS.gov and look at your options before you ever pay someone to do your taxes. https://www.irs.gov/forms-instructions

It's good to have free software and keep forms fillable, but we as a society NEED to know how to perform taxes and that the process DOES NOT COST MONEY. You most likely can do it yourself.

The reason we're in the mess now is because people have been so willing to believe that taxes are too hard and impossible for the individual. Who's telling you that you shouldn't do taxes on your own? Look at their motivations.

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#43

Post by maerF0x0 » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:00 PM UTC

I know there's slight irony in using google for this. But if you want to add an annual reminder to use freetaxusa.com

https://calendar.google.com/event?action=TEMPLATE&tmeid=cWEx...

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#44

Post by jakelazaroff » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:01 PM UTC

asimpletune wrote: post #30

Credit Karma does a good job providing free federal and state tax filing. Disclaimer: I work there but not on tax

I don't work at Credit Karma so I can second this, disclaimer-free!

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#45

Post by OrgNet » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:02 PM UTC

H&R Block try to get you to pay at every other page while you are filling your return... But I still went with them because the last 2 years I filled the forms online at a couple different companies and H&R Block was getting me more back.

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#46

Post by mikeash » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:02 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #15

tylerrobinson wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no TurboTax apologist, but really? I think you always have access to the PDF versions of past years' tax returns upon signing in to your account.

Just tried it again: > It looks like you need to pay first to instantly access your TurboTax returns > For instructions on how to access your returns, click help in the upper right hand corner of your screen and type “Prior Year Return” into the search box and when I do that: > To access your prior year return before you file, you have to: > Be in an upgraded version of TurboTax (or add PLUS to TurboTax Free Edition)…

It’s especially egregious since the IRS will give you a transcript for free.

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#47

Post by JTbane » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:04 PM UTC

iamwpj wrote: post #42

Hey, just an FYI. You never have to pay to file taxes. Like the forms are free on IRS.gov. You can fill in the information and mail it in with any money you owe too. There are help guides that step your through the process of filling out the forms as well, like worksheets to calculate deductibles if you need it. It's very important that you go to IRS.gov and look at your options before you ever pay someone to do your…

It's a tradeoff between money/convenience, or money/time. Of course no one NEEDS to pay the $49 for TurboTax. They do it because it is easy.

The reason Intuit has been able to make so much money is that no one wants to waste hours poring over verbose IRS instruction publications, which are not trivial for a layperson to fill out correctly.

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#48

Post by JohnFen » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:05 PM UTC

TurboTax has a pretty troubling history of working against the best interest of taxpayers, from stuff like these dark patterns to their constant lobbying to ensure that the IRS won't offer any taxpayer services that would be of wide benefit to people.

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#49

Post by testvox » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:09 PM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #41

rectang wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the inevitable consequence of strengthening corporate rights relative to individual rights: corporations take ever larger ownership of government.

I dont even understand how corporations have rights... My understanding is that in a democratic system the individual voter is the unit of currency. Sadly this gets muddied in a sea of "representatives" and lobby groups which claim to represent people...

Because corporations are just groups of people operating as one legal entity as is required for many ventures which would be too expensive or risky for one person to take on by themselves. Do you think corporations like the New York Times should not have freedom of speech? Do you think the government should be able to arbitrary power against corporations like Planned Parenthood? Should governments have arbitrary power to limit what information corporations like your local internet service provider can transmit? Should whatever political party who is currently in power be able to steal all the money from the opposing parties corporate entity?

Its good to keep in mind corporations include a large class of entities like public colleges, newspapers, internet providers, charities, political parties, organized religions, public interest groups, and of course for profit businesses. Saying all these entities should have no rights is advocating for the state to have unchecked and arbitrary power over all of them.

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#50

Post by ApolloFortyNine » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:10 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #11

They're not perfect, but I've had success filing with FreeTaxUSA - federal is free, state is $15: https://www.freetaxusa.com/ Obviously too late for people this year, and my tax situation is relatively straightforward so I can't speak to how well it handles edge cases, but the first year I used it I went through the process with both TurboTax and FreeTaxUSA and got the exact same estimated refund. The last straw with…

I used Free Tax USA this year, and it ended up giving me the same number Turbo Tax did (since you can do Turbo Tax for free until the end).

My taxes include a multitude of stock sales, losses (from calls and puts), as well as my W2.

It takes a little longer to fill out then Turbo Tax due to the lack of integrations with banks and what not, but I still finished the whole thing in less than an hour. It's free for Federal, and they wanted something like $10 for my state so I did it out of lazyness.