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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

#201

Post by godelski »

mdorazio wrote: post #198
godelski wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's something to be said for making sure the government is doing it accurately. >> Let the IRS do it, they send you a copy and you send it back either as is or with modifications. That's why you check it. And to respond to a possible next question, do we trust TurboTax (or others) more? > Also, if you have other income with no W2 it needs to be reported. All those other forms that are handed to you are ALSO alr…

It's a bit more complicated than that. For example, rental income and capital gains on sales of property or owned items don't typically have reported forms associated with them. But for probably 90% of tax filers, the IRS should already have everything it needs and know the exact amount owed.

That's fair, but I think if it works in 90% of cases that's a huge win. And it seems like it'd be pretty easy to close that gap (with multiple solution methods).

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

#203

Post by maxmax »

streb-lo wrote: post #196
akarma wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stolen from Twitter [1]: "Government: You owe us money. It’s called taxes. Me: How much do I owe? Gov’t: You have to figure that out. Me: I just pay what I want? Gov’t: Oh, no we know exactly how much you owe. But you have to guess that number too. Me: What if I get it wrong? Gov’t: You go to prison" [1] https://twitter.com/jordan_stratton/status/11181414550616719...

You realize that only a portion of people get audited right? Sure, your government could calculate everyone's taxes but I'm guessing those taxes would need to go up...

Try filing your taxes using different numbers than on your W2/1099 and see what happens.

I guarantee you'll get a discrepancy letter.

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

#204

Post by pickle-wizard »

godelski wrote: post #169
turc1656 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, you're missing the forest when looking at the trees. Go bigger. Why the hell is the tax code so damn complicated that it requires certified experts and special software to perform personal tax filings? I can see the case for a complex code for business taxes since there are many different industries that have different rules. But personal returns should never, ever have such complicated rules. And that doesn't m…

> Why the hell is the tax code so damn complicated that it requires certified experts and special software to perform personal tax filings? My response is: >Nah, you're missing the forest when looking at the trees. Go bigger. Why are we even having to file our own taxes? The IRS already checks everything. They have all the information that you enter into these systems (in fact, turbo tax has frequently had my W2 befo…

I helped my sister do her taxes this year, since it was her first year. We just used the H&R block software since that is what I used to mine.

They rejected her return because I kicked two of the numbers on the EIN of one of her employers. The rejection was quick too, as we got the email about 20 minutes after submitting the return.

I always knew that the IRS checked your return, but I always figured it was something that eventually happened. I didn't think they checked everything as you submitted it. I don't know why I though that. Guess I pictured the IRS computer as an old IBM S/360 with core memory that did everything in batches.

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

#205

Post by notriddle »

JohnFen wrote: post #129
MagicPropmaker wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Likely to cheat" usually means something like "the probability of a person cheating is higher," meaning it would be based on the number of incidents, not on the amount of money.

If the poster has meant the amount, they might have said "Lower income people with cash businesses cheat more than wealthy people" (which is ambiguous) or "The IRS loses more money to low income cheaters with cash businesses" (which is unambiguous, and, when you phrase it that way, truly sounds ridiculous given the high level of wealth inequality I would expect one wealthy cheater to cheat the IRS out of more money than all of the other cheaters in the world)

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

#206

Post by mizchief2 »

akarma wrote: post #173
godelski wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why the hell is the tax code so damn complicated that it requires certified experts and special software to perform personal tax filings? My response is: >Nah, you're missing the forest when looking at the trees. Go bigger. Why are we even having to file our own taxes? The IRS already checks everything. They have all the information that you enter into these systems (in fact, turbo tax has frequently had my W2 befo…

Stolen from Twitter [1]: "Government: You owe us money. It’s called taxes. Me: How much do I owe? Gov’t: You have to figure that out. Me: I just pay what I want? Gov’t: Oh, no we know exactly how much you owe. But you have to guess that number too. Me: What if I get it wrong? Gov’t: You go to prison" [1] https://twitter.com/jordan_stratton/status/11181414550616719...

Sounds a lot like the "self evaluation" nonsense when it comes to performance review.

"I give myself a 5 and deserve a 5% raise" Oh well you only get a 2% raise.

Just lazy management that event "delegates" the only part of the job they are actually supposed to do.

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

#207

Post by JohnFen »

notriddle wrote: post #205
JohnFen wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

"Likely to cheat" usually means something like "the probability of a person cheating is higher," meaning it would be based on the number of incidents, not on the amount of money. If the poster has meant the amount, they might have said "Lower income people with cash businesses cheat more than wealthy people" (which is ambiguous) or "The IRS loses more money to low income cheaters with cash businesses" (which is unamb…

Yes, your interpretation is likely the correct one. In terms of societal impact, I don't think it's the important one.

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

#208

Post by doctorsher »

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…

Same thing happened to me! A few years ago, in addition to my normal job I had some 1099 Misc income. It was the first year I had taxes that I wasn't familiar with, since I wasn't sure how the 1099 Misc would come into play. As I was filling it out, TurboTax prompted me to upgrade to a paid plan, and they estimated they could get me an additional $1200 dollars back on my refund. Even if they are overestimating, paying $80 and getting $400 back is worth it. So I went with it and filled out the new information. I got absolutely nothing added to my refund: $0. It's a ridiculous dark pattern, and I'll never give TurboTax another dime.

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

#209

Post by georgeecollins »

stvswn wrote: post #112
georgeecollins wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

Your argument seems to be that "since some speech can be prohibited, it isn't correct that corporations have absolute free speech rights." That's absolutely true. Neither a corporation nor an individual can engage in libel, some types of obscenity, true threats, etc. Furthermore, there are indeed cases where corporate entities are treated differently than individuals, and no one seriously argues that it's inappropria…

My argument is that corporations are uniquely effective ways to avoid accountability for your speech. So perhaps that speech should be regulated differently than speech directly attributable to an individual.

Reading your post helped me think of a more concise way to say this. So thank you. And again.. I am not really sure and I see both sides.

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

#210

Post by godelski »

pickle-wizard wrote: post #204
godelski wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why the hell is the tax code so damn complicated that it requires certified experts and special software to perform personal tax filings? My response is: >Nah, you're missing the forest when looking at the trees. Go bigger. Why are we even having to file our own taxes? The IRS already checks everything. They have all the information that you enter into these systems (in fact, turbo tax has frequently had my W2 befo…

I helped my sister do her taxes this year, since it was her first year. We just used the H&R block software since that is what I used to mine. They rejected her return because I kicked two of the numbers on the EIN of one of her employers. The rejection was quick too, as we got the email about 20 minutes after submitting the return. I always knew that the IRS checked your return, but I always figured it was something…

> I don't know why I though that. Guess I pictured the IRS computer as an old IBM S/360 with core memory that did everything in batches.

I think that idea is common. But why wouldn't they automate it with modern(ish) hardware? It saves them money to do that. Just like it saves H&R block by creating a program. In fact I'm more surprised that H&R didn't flag it before you hit submit.

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