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

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

#91

Post by JohnFen »

anonuser123456 wrote: post #64
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...

Corporations are just the proxies of their owners. The corporation has rights on behalf of those owners.

> Corporations are just the proxies of their owners.

This is not actually the case. Corporations are entities separate and independent from their "owners". That fact is why there's such a thing as a corporate shield that mostly prevents the owners from being held responsible for the misbehavior of the corporation.

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

#92

Post by User23 »

JohnFen wrote: post #51
aeturnum wrote: post #33

I encountered this with H&R block when I had a particularly complex tax situation a few years back (had worked as a contractor for several corporate entities and also had the tail end of full time work plus investment income). H&R block quoted me 3-4 rates, insisting I pay them more money at each step to finish the process. I realize it's hard because the number of complications that can come up in filing taxes is di…

If your taxes are complex enough to warrant having a tax preparer handle them for you, I recommend avoiding H&R Block. Instead, ask your colleagues, friends, and family for recommendations for an independent tax preparer rather than a chain.

Just so you know, that independent tax accountant probably uses the pro version of TurboTax.

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

#94

Post by joshuaheard »

You can still file free if you make over $66,000 per year, it's just a more limited edition. I have used it for years with no problems. If you are comfortable with filling out the forms yourself and reading the accompanying IRS form instructions, you should be fine. It's federal only.

https://www.freefilefillableforms.com/#/fd

Protip: some of the forms do the math for you, but some don't. Also, there are no worksheets available. So, I use a spreadsheet to do the math and calculate the worksheets.

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

#95

Post by JohnFen »

User23 wrote: post #92
JohnFen wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your taxes are complex enough to warrant having a tax preparer handle them for you, I recommend avoiding H&R Block. Instead, ask your colleagues, friends, and family for recommendations for an independent tax preparer rather than a chain.

Just so you know, that independent tax accountant probably uses the pro version of TurboTax.

Not all. Mine certainly doesn't.

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

#96

Post by michelpp »

username223 wrote: post #87
rootusrootus wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Intuit definitely feeds Congress some money in support of their corporate goals, the lack of free tax filing is probably more Grover Norquist's fault. He strongly opposes anything that would make paying taxes easier, and he has a lot more influence than Intuit.

Norquist is just twisted, sabotaging the government to convince people that it doesn't work. It would cost the IRS almost nothing to send out pre-filled forms, and giving them enough money to audit the wealthy (i.e. ensure they aren't cheating) would more than pay for itself.

Agreed. In fact the IRS would likely save money, because of all the followup enforcement actions they could avoid.

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

#97

Post by briffle »

scrooched_moose wrote: post #88
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…

CreditKarma is 100% free for everything. I've used them the last two years without issue, although they dramatically improved the service this last year. It was a little rough year 1.

I want to try CreditKarma's free filing, but since its free, I'm the product, and i'm not sure what that means, when handing them all my tax info yet..

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

#98

Post by dragonwriter »

anonuser123456 wrote: post #64
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...

Corporations are just the proxies of their owners. The corporation has rights on behalf of those owners.

> Corporations are just the proxies of their owners.

Corporations are proxies for some combination of their shareholders, their management, and their chartering government, but not simple proxies for any of the three.

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

#99

Post by danepowell »

rayvd wrote: post #77
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.

Of all the government agencies, I think the IRS actually has one of the best track records for caring deeply about UX. Compare the federal tax forms and instructions to just about any state tax forms, the federal forms are miles ahead in terms of usability. Relative to the complexity of the tax code itself, of course (which the IRS doesn't control).

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

#100

Post by rectang »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #58
testvox wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Do you think corporations like the New York Times should not have freedom of speech? I will admit i have not thought long and hard on this. But on the surface it seems like the answer is "Yes". But the individuals working in those corporations do. So when a journalist submits an article their free speech is protected as an individual rights extended through the corporation. Similarly for property rights... I think…

Regardless of the reasoning behind Citizen's United, one outcome has been an extraordinary increase in corruption.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/opinion/citizens-united-c...

It is immaterial whether the increased corruption was an incidental side effect, or the whole point. From the perspective of the individual citizens being exploited, it doesn't matter whether it was the government exploiting them or a corporation exploiting them after having bought the franchise from the government.

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