TurboTax Hides Its Free File Page from Search Engines • Hacker News Board

Re: TurboTax Hides Its Free File Page from Search Engines

#161

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Apr 26, 2019, 6:24 PM UTC

astura wrote: post #130

Consultant32452 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I correct in understanding that interest paid to deposits at a credit union get you a 1099-DIV? And wouldn't that mean virtually everyone who banks at a credit union would get that form? Also, anyone who owns savings bonds or CDs. Those are out of fashion these days, but many people still get them. Your point stands that these are still not the majority of the population, I just wanted to add some more pathways a…

>Am I correct in understanding that interest paid to deposits at a credit union get you a 1099-DIV? No, income from interest paid on deposit accounts is reported on form 1099-INT, not 1099-DIV. 1099-DIV is for dividend income. 1099-INT for interest income. They are are reported different places on your tax form. Nowadays most people don't get 1099-INTs from their banks or credit unions because interest rates are so l…

All it takes to generate $10 in interest is $1000 in a 1% savings account or $500 in a 2% CD. Anyone with even this small a savings will be issued a 1090-INT, no?

Re: TurboTax Hides Its Free File Page from Search Engines

#162

Post by ppseafield » Fri, Apr 26, 2019, 6:27 PM UTC

ahallock wrote: post #98

ppseafield wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intuit lobbies to keep taxes complicated so they can continue to have a business model. https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre...

And this is surprising because? It would be surprising if they didn't do that, honestly. The government is at fault here for selling political power and not representing the interests of the people. We could boycott Intuit, I suppose, or use different products, but aside from that, the fault and source of the problem lies squarely with the government.

We weren't talking about surprise - we were talking about shame. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it doesn't deserve shame. You come off as being oddly defensive towards Intuit.

Re: TurboTax Hides Its Free File Page from Search Engines

#163

Post by joshlittle » Fri, Apr 26, 2019, 6:27 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #127

Meanwhile, California makes it pretty easy to file your state taxes for free, with no intermediary https://www.ftb.ca.gov/online/calfile/index.asp

+1 to CA FTB. My federal tax return was 30 Pages long. I decided to use TurboTax small business to keep it in check - I had a promotion that gave it to me for free ($119 value) but it was extra for state efile ($59.) I went to the franchise tax board website and filed state for free using my federal 1040 in about 10 minutes.

Re: TurboTax Hides Its Free File Page from Search Engines

#164

Post by samsabri » Fri, Apr 26, 2019, 6:32 PM UTC

craftyguy wrote: post #42

jahabrewer wrote: post #30

Fuck Intuit. Shame on engineers who work there.

I'd rather shame the government that allows Intuit to have their way with taxpayers. Intuit exists primarily because of the convoluted tax filing process in the US afterall..

Why can't we shame both? :)

Re: TurboTax Hides Its Free File Page from Search Engines

#165

Post by dsr_ » Fri, Apr 26, 2019, 6:32 PM UTC

kristopolous wrote: post #140

cr0sh wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why, but all of this "privatization" bugs the hell out of me. Maybe it has something to with wanting to see my taxes being used properly, rather than going to a private company's profits. Maybe it's the abstraction; that'd I like to know that the workers I see doing the work for the government are government employees, and that I am, in some small way, helping them? I mean, sure, with a private company t…

Many are convinced that paying the workers, the lobbyists, shareholders, board of directors, and contract overhead is cheaper than just paying the workers directly. I've been investigating why people think this for years. I've read a number of books, listened to lectures, went to proseminars in economics at UC schools, took some classes ... Recently, I've become increasingly convinced it's actually just a giant hustl…

This is largely correct. Simple case: the local school district here in a suburb of Boston provides a school bus service. So did the one I attended in New York.

The one in NY owned a fleet of diesel buses, a central depot to put them in, a repair facility next to the depot, and paid administrators, mechanics and drivers. Every so often a wave of buses were replaced.

The one in MA pays a bus company that does all the same work. The bus company makes a profit. Interestingly, they aren't scaled -- this bus company serves this school district, period.

In theory, the MA school district could look for another vendor if the price got too high. In practice, every bus company is already at their capacity and could not expand to cover another district without a major capital infusion to fund another depot, repair shop, and more buses.

In any situation where one could reasonably argue that a private company could scale, one would have to also accept the argument that the government could scale at an advantage because they don't need to make a profit: depots and buses need to be fairly local, and while they can be consolidated to some extent, one might as well handle it as a multi-district service - a county or even state-wide.

Arguments based on a private company being more efficient because of competitive pressures don't work. There's no competitive pressure.

Arguments based on private companies being less corrupt don't work. Mismanagement happens everywhere.

When it comes to public services, privatization always means a handout to the owners.

Re: TurboTax Hides Its Free File Page from Search Engines

#166

Post by Evidlo » Fri, Apr 26, 2019, 6:34 PM UTC

tomkat0789 wrote: post #154

CalRobert wrote: post #127

Meanwhile, California makes it pretty easy to file your state taxes for free, with no intermediary https://www.ftb.ca.gov/online/calfile/index.asp

Illinois does too on the state Department of Revenue's website! Hooray for state government!

Illinois made me file in paper this year because I am an out of state student. Next I can file electronically.

Re: TurboTax Hides Its Free File Page from Search Engines

#167

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Apr 26, 2019, 6:35 PM UTC

dontbenebby wrote: post #118

astura wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capital gains and dividends in a Roth IRA is not taxed either. They clearly mean they ALSO had a taxable brokerage account that generated dividends; saying they contributed to an IRA was an (unintentional) misdirect.

Yes, I've been upfront about the error, acknowledged it, and I've edited the original post. I still stand by my assessment it's not cool to nudge people not to save. There are many people who'd like to save, but don't have 401ks. (Ex: students doing internships, contractors, or people working in the service industry) The limit for a 401k is ~18k IIRC and ~5500 for an IRA IIRC. If you had say, 10k from a summer intern…

To be pedantic, the total pre-tax 401(k) contribution limit in 2019 is $19k ($25k if you’re over 50). But the total defined contribution limit (employer+employee, including after-tax) is $56k. So if you were so inclined (and fortunate to have the income) you could sock away $56k through an employer plan, including pretax, company match, and post-tax.

IRA (traditional and Roth) contribution limit in 2019 is $6k.

Source:

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/401k-contribution-limit-increas...

Re: TurboTax Hides Its Free File Page from Search Engines

#168

Post by username223 » Fri, Apr 26, 2019, 6:39 PM UTC

ska wrote: post #53

quantumwoke wrote: post #44

As someone who lives outside of the US, can someone please explain how the US government has not implemented its own free tax filing system? In my home country this hasn't been a thing for over 10 years.

Short story: lobbying.

Slightly longer story: bribes (http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8076/693/400/price-sheet-...)

Basically, our representatives can choose their voters via redistricting (gerrymandering). Senators can't do that, but elections are advertising wars, and the one with the most money often wins, and therefore repays his/her donors.

I'm not saying people should give up on democracy, but it needs some help from human beings instead of TurboTax.

Re: TurboTax Hides Its Free File Page from Search Engines

#169

Post by jason_slack » Fri, Apr 26, 2019, 6:39 PM UTC

atonse wrote: post #120

rdiddly wrote: post #94

Who wants to just start writing a free version and start putting them out of business? Filing taxes is not the Linux kernel, I mean how complicated is it really? It's still just a matter of following directions and doing basic math. Computers are great at that. No rocket science needed. I even thought of a name: Caesar (as in "render unto..."). Caesar.org is available. At the end it generates a PDF for printing & mai…

It's not hard. It's all arithmetic. Before people pounce on me for "trivializing it" – I've written, from scratch, Obamacare Insurance calculators that analyzed hundreds of policies with various coverages, coverage tiers, and you could type in things like "If i broke my leg on this policy, how much would it cost?" (all in real-time). It was a lot of arithmetic but really not that bad (about 150-200 lines of mainly ap…

So I once worked for a company writing math calcs all day everyday for various things (real estate, insurance, algo trading, school district budgets, hazards). If you would be willing to talk more about this email in my profile. I’ve often thought about the tax sector and how to make it easier. I really like the idea of a “Robinhood” for taxes. So to speak.

Re: TurboTax Hides Its Free File Page from Search Engines

#170

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Apr 26, 2019, 6:48 PM UTC

astura wrote: post #104

chrismeller wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’ve got only W2 income then a 401k would be much more common. A normal IRA is “common” as well, but not nearly as much so I’d argue. As another comment pointed out it could have been a Roth IRA, which has different rules. It could also have simply been some other oddity or quirk of the tax software at the time. None of the specifics negate anything related to complexity vs cost.

You can have both an IRA and a 401(k) and contribute to both in any given tax year (up to limits set by the IRS for each individual account). In fact, you SHOULD have both since 401(k)s are hugely inflexible compared to IRAs so it makes sense to fund an IRA before a 401(k) unless you're getting a match on the 401(k) contributions. So if you want to save 10% for retirement and you get a 5% match on your 401(k) then it…

> In fact, you SHOULD have both since 401(k)s are hugely inflexible compared to IRAs so it makes sense to fund an IRA before a 401(k) unless you're getting a match on the 401(k) contributions.

This really depends on how good your 401(k) is and what kind of investments you want to make. If you just want the standard (and very good) low-cost three-fund portfolio, all 401(k) programs I’ve seen offer these kinds of index funds. If you really want more exotic investments, then an IRA might be better.

The advise to have both is sound though, but the best reason is you want to maximize your tax-advantaged savings. “Flexibility” is a benefit not important to everyone.