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

#71

Post by penagwin » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:42 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…

Filing taxes is crazy complicated though. When I got my first job in high school, it was still confusing, even with turbotax (which is free under a certain income). There's so many bits and peices even for individuals with "simple income structure". The vocabulary is unfamiliar, how do I report my savings account earnings? Do I need to if they were only 50c?

My buddy has to report expenses of a certain kind, and it's complicated to do that even with turbo tax too.

Haven't even gotten started on people with crypto-investments, freelancing, multiple jobs, dependants, etc.

Yes you can totally learn that stuff on your own, but there's 0 chance you can expect the general population to be capable of doing their own taxes without messing stuff up.

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

#72

Post by georgeecollins » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:43 PM UTC

testvox wrote: post #49

maerF0x0 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 powe…

You are making a straw man argument. No one is saying "corporations should have no rights of advocating and the state to have unchecked and arbitrary power over all of them."

The idea is, should corporations have all the same free speech rights as individuals, or can we limit them? I can think of at least one reason why maybe we should limit them: accountability. If I yell fire in a crowded theater I can be charged with a crime. A corporation can be as well, but in practice enforcement is problematic. There is also the question of moral accountability. If I write an Op Ed saying kids should smoke cigarettes I have to live with it. If a company runs an ad campaign it's hard to know who really is responsible.

But I understand why people disagree. This isn't a simple issue.

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

#73

Post by b_tterc_p » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:43 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #25

b_tterc_p wrote: post #24

I used turbo tax and had to file multiple state returns. They showed a few blatant pages saying I could maybe get higher deductions with an upgraded version, although I suppose I knew enough to know that wouldn’t be the case. It wasn’t hard to file everything on the free tier. They won’t let me get a copy of the return without paying anymore which is dickish, but they did say that would happen pretty clearly so it’s…

> I really have no reason to look elsewhere? TurboTax actively lobbies the government to make filing taxes difficult. So one reason to look elsewhere is simply to avoid giving money to a company that behaves that way.

If you reread my post, I haven’t given them any money. Their free tier is fine.

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

#74

Post by bluGill » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:47 PM UTC

JTbane wrote: post #47

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.

I quit doing my own by hand because one year I forgot to copy line 13b of form 123a: to line 26d of form 987d... The software does this automatically for me. I generally think software is slower than doing everything by hand ( I use TaxAct, I don't know how turbotax is different) because of all the stupid waits while it asks questions that don't apply (retirement income...).

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

#75

Post by rootsudo » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:50 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…

Not anymore. They paywalled previous returns which were free for the past 5+ years.

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

#76

Post by dangus » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:50 PM UTC

I want to take this opportunity to mention that the IRS Free Fillable Forms service is completely free for anyone.

It might not be the best choice for everyone, but I found that despite all these tax services' low cognitive load, they ask so many questions with so many steps that the actual time that it takes to file with TurboTax wasn't actually any faster than just biting the bullet and reading some instructions.

Again, I think it's not a great choice for many people but it's the one I'll be using moving forward.

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

#77

Post by rayvd » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:51 PM UTC

1024core wrote: post #8

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

I can't imagine how horrible a single captive solution from the IRS would be compared to one spawned by the competitive marketplace.

Now why our tax code needs to be so complex that it requires software like Turbo Tax is certainly a fair question.

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

#78

Post by bluGill » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:52 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #9

alehul wrote: post #3

In my experience this year, TurboTax prompted me that I could save money by upgrading to a paid plan via taking advantage of some extra deduction. I thought, "if it's going to save me more than I pay for it, why not?" I clicked through and found that this deduction wouldn't actually save me any money. I then couldn't find a way to get back to the free plan (they only charge you after you file, so this should be possi…

The paid plan upgrade is based on which forms you input, not necessarily which deduction you get. So hypothetically, even if your best choice is the standard deduction, they expect you to pay if you have some of those other tax forms. I guess my question is, if you know the standard deduction is the right choice, can you just not input the tax forms that you don't need for that?

I don't know if the standard deduction is right for me (after the latest tax reform it probably is, but previously my deductions were close to the line so I needed to do my forms both ways to find out)

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

#79

Post by ip26 » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:54 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…

Nobody has to pay money to file their taxes. Anybody could figure it all out on their own.

But I have a new & deep appreciation for how complicated taxes can get. If you have W-2's and 1099's, it's pretty easy. But holy cow, I ran a rental property and there is a huge step function in complexity when you venture beyond the W-2 & 1099. And that was only just dipping my toes in the pool of business taxes.

So a hired accountant, or a software-accountant (turbotax, h&r block), really can help you out where you might otherwise have to pour over IRS documents every weeknight for months.

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

#80

Post by dlandis » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

4restm wrote: post #60

I used Credit karma it was pretty painless for a 1040. e-filed both state and federal and didn't cost a dime. Albeit I bet they hope to get revenue from credit card recommendations.

They don't support all states unfortunately.