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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

#121

Post by CogitoCogito »

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...

I don't think corporations shouldn't have _any_ rights, but I don't understand why they should be allowed to donate money to politicians. They can't vote, so why can they buy influence? All of the individuals owning the corporation _can_ vote so why does it not suffice that they themselves can donate with their own money?

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

#122

Post by MagicPropmaker »

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.

Lower income people with cash business are far more likely to cheat than wealthy people. (Of course the return for the IRS going after the small player may not be worth it.)

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

#123

Post by dentemple »

briffle wrote: post #97
scrooched_moose wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

Mate, even when you do pay for services, you're still getting your data sold to third-party vendors.

So you might as well utilize companies that provide an actually good product.

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

#125

Post by Bartweiss »

ip26 wrote: post #79
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 ac…

Even for people operating exclusively on wages/salary, it's amazing how fast things can snowball.

Did you work remotely for an out-of-state employer? Now you get to worry about the interplay of taxes in multiple states. Did you change health insurers mid-year? Now you're working out how to prove you were ACA-compliant at all times. Did you have some obscure deduction like rent payment deductions from state taxes? Several people I know lost hundreds of dollars this year by simply not knowing that deduction existed.

Obviously, filing with a paid service instead of simply getting a bill in the mail has a cost. But working out what one owes under the current system also has a pretty significant cost, both in hours spent and potentially in dollars.

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

#126

Post by Bartweiss »

recursive wrote: post #111
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…

Several years ago I tried following this advice, and inadvertantly double-reported some income. This was after attempting to read all the relevant instructions and forms. I then spent dozens (multiple) of hours trying to clean up the mess. There probably would have been a more efficient way of doing it, but that's kind of the point. Professionals know their way around the system and understand the vocabulary. I have…

Similarly, it's often easy to miss some deductions altogether. Not only is the paperwork often confusing, but deductions are an unknown-unknowns situation where you might never even see the relevant form. Several people I know ran into that this year and overpayed by enough to wipe out 5-10 years of TurboTax fees, which really calls into doubt the cost-benefit of doing them by hand.

And as you said - those people were formula-happy programmers with simple W-2 income from one job. It's the absolute lowest level of complexity available, and it's still easy to get wrong.

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

#127

Post by learc83 »

MagicPropmaker wrote: post #122
username223 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lower income people with cash business are far more likely to cheat than wealthy people. (Of course the return for the IRS going after the small player may not be worth it.)

Do you have any evidence to support this? It could be true, but any cash business owner (low income or not) is likely to cheat precisely because it's not feasible for the IRS to prove exactly how much cash income you made.

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

#128

Post by JohnFen »

rayiner wrote: post #119
username223 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There may be many arguments in favor of having the IRS sending out pre-filled-in tax forms, but this one just isn't true: > It would cost the IRS almost nothing to send out pre-filled forms Enhancing the IRS databases to actually plug in the information used on a typical tax return almost certainly would not cost "almost nothing." Back when it existed, less than 20% of people filed a 1040-EZ (the simplest tax form).…

The proposals I've seen for having the IRS prefill returns are that they'd just do the equivalent of the 1040EZ for you. If you want something more comprehensive than that, then you'd still have to do your own taxes.

I think that's a very reasonable approach.

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

#129

Post by JohnFen »

MagicPropmaker wrote: post #122
username223 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lower income people with cash business are far more likely to cheat than wealthy people. (Of course the return for the IRS going after the small player may not be worth it.)

> Lower income people with cash business are far more likely to cheat than wealthy people.

The statistics I've seen indicate the opposite. But I suppose it depends on how you measure. Perhaps on a per-incident basis, you may be correct. But I don't think you're correct if you measure by the amount of money.

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

#130

Post by JohnFen »

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...

Some corporate rights make a lot of sense and are practically necessary. The right to enter into contracts and make use of the legal system, for example.

In reality, the law and the courts do not really consider corporations to be the equivalent of people generally.

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