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TurboTax and H&R Block Saw Free Tax Filing as a Threat

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Re: TurboTax and H&R Block Saw Free Tax Filing as a Threat

#111

Post by eric_cc »

HenryBemis wrote: post #93
danso wrote: post #14

FWIW, Turbotax/H&R's hiding of their Free File site pages was discussed here about a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19758126 They have since made their pages discoverable by search engines and have denied that it was intentional obfuscation. But the news in TFA is that apparently someone at (or formerly at) H&R leaked internal documents with explicit guidance: > “Do not send clients to this Web Site u…

> The H&R Block spokeswoman said the company’s Free File offering grew 8.3% this year.. I wonder what was the growth of the paid products. Gut feeling tells me that it was far more than 8.3%. I have said before (and it didn't do good to my karma but this is more important). I feel that USA Democracy (not the political party) has been corrupted and injured by Lobbying. "Corporate America" rules and the people are ther…

I agree with the fact that lobbying is a big problem. I think just about everybody agrees with that. However, the rest of your points aren’t so great. The tax services are quite convenient and useful paid services. Submitting free taxes in the USA is obviously an option. And to your point on health care: health insurance companies are not the only bad actors in the health care system.

Re: TurboTax and H&R Block Saw Free Tax Filing as a Threat

#112

Post by dvorak365 »

It would be amazing if the US had an equivalent of the CBO for determining the impact of legislation on the annual total of labor-hours. Are there any estimates how many less labor-hours would be necessary if the US handled tax returns more efficiently (eg. sent out prefilled forms)?

Re: TurboTax and H&R Block Saw Free Tax Filing as a Threat

#113

Post by sosborn »

HenryBemis wrote: post #93
danso wrote: post #14

FWIW, Turbotax/H&R's hiding of their Free File site pages was discussed here about a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19758126 They have since made their pages discoverable by search engines and have denied that it was intentional obfuscation. But the news in TFA is that apparently someone at (or formerly at) H&R leaked internal documents with explicit guidance: > “Do not send clients to this Web Site u…

> The H&R Block spokeswoman said the company’s Free File offering grew 8.3% this year.. I wonder what was the growth of the paid products. Gut feeling tells me that it was far more than 8.3%. I have said before (and it didn't do good to my karma but this is more important). I feel that USA Democracy (not the political party) has been corrupted and injured by Lobbying. "Corporate America" rules and the people are ther…

> Talking to the state should be free.

It is free. Hiring a lobbyist is much like hiring an advertising firm. You could do the work yourself, but you pay for expertise and connections.

Where lobbyists have the advantage is they know who to call to get the meetings, and they have information from other clients they can leverage. The problem isn't that money changes hands, it's that votes change hands, and oftentimes, lobbyists are the ones best positioned to trade in this currency.

Re: TurboTax and H&R Block Saw Free Tax Filing as a Threat

#114

Post by antidesitter »

vonmoltke wrote: post #97
antidesitter wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument never made sense to me. How is the amount on a check or bill, if made clearly visible, somehow “not visible”?

Their actual goal is to make people resent taxes by forcing them to calculate themselves just how much money they are giving the government. It's less painful if you get something akin to a credit card statement from the IRS.

Ok, but why does making the process more painful make people lobby for lower taxes? The connection isn’t obvious to me.

To make this more explicit, presumably the chain of reasoning is as follows:

1. Make tax filing more painful.

2. As a general rule, people will set out to do that which reduces their pain.

3. Therefore, people will set out to do that which makes tax filing less painful.

4. People determine that lobbying for lower taxes will make tax filing less painful.

5. Therefore, people will set out to lobby for lower taxes.

Step 4 doesn't make sense to me because reducing total tax rate and reducing tax code complexity are orthogonal issues, and advocating for lower taxes will not in and of itself lead to a simpler tax code.

Re: TurboTax and H&R Block Saw Free Tax Filing as a Threat

#115

Post by [deleted] »

ShorsHammer wrote: post #110
HenryBemis wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will assume that although we think the 'gov' knows all about our financial affairs, in reality they don't. E.g. receive some inheritance, selling of property with profit, started trading forex and you got income from that. There are many unknowns, perhaps not for you, but for other people. Also you need to file in order to have this 'discussion'/exchange. Perhaps the state erroneously thinks you made 500k and is ta…

For the average wage earner with uncomplicated investments the Australian government knows exactly what I have to pay. I log in and all my income along with divdends are right there pre-filled. There's nothing else to do but sign off on it. Maybe it's different elsewhere but here tax it's simple, all electronic and a free service provided by the tax office for the majority of Australians.

[deleted]

Re: TurboTax and H&R Block Saw Free Tax Filing as a Threat

#116

Post by lotsofpulp »

e40 wrote: post #6
lotsofpulp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freefile on irs.gov and the pdf of the 1040 instructions. Just because some software validates doesn't release you from the liability, so if you actually have a complicated situation, I'd find a qualified tax professional or read through the myriad IRS rules and regs.

Does this do validation?

I’m not sure what validation means, but it does auto calculate and tell you if things don’t add up.

Re: TurboTax and H&R Block Saw Free Tax Filing as a Threat

#117

Post by HEHENE »

rdonohue wrote: post #8

Although it doesn't do the filing for you this guy has a great excel program that handles many tax forms. I have been using his stuff for years. https://sites.google.com/site/excel1040/home/

It's funny how sometimes the best utilities are just really complex Excel sheets. Amazing how versatile Excel can be.

I homebrew beer and use a tool called Bru'n Water to calculate what adjustments I need to make to my source water to match the characteristics of the style of beer. Once again it's just a massive excel file. Water and style information goes in, water additions (calcium sulfate, lactic acid, etc) comes out.

https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/

Re: TurboTax and H&R Block Saw Free Tax Filing as a Threat

#118

Post by zmarty »

eric_cc wrote: post #111
HenryBemis wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The H&R Block spokeswoman said the company’s Free File offering grew 8.3% this year.. I wonder what was the growth of the paid products. Gut feeling tells me that it was far more than 8.3%. I have said before (and it didn't do good to my karma but this is more important). I feel that USA Democracy (not the political party) has been corrupted and injured by Lobbying. "Corporate America" rules and the people are ther…

I agree with the fact that lobbying is a big problem. I think just about everybody agrees with that. However, the rest of your points aren’t so great. The tax services are quite convenient and useful paid services. Submitting free taxes in the USA is obviously an option. And to your point on health care: health insurance companies are not the only bad actors in the health care system.

Not convenient or useful at all. You know what would be actually convenient and useful? The government pre-filling most of your taxes for you, like in other countries.

Re: TurboTax and H&R Block Saw Free Tax Filing as a Threat

#120

Post by Retric »

Twirrim wrote: post #89
brianpayne2 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how many of the countries around the world treat it. You can thank the folks that lobby the government on behalf of tax prep companies for this convoluted mess we have. The more confused we are, the more money they make.

It's more complicated than that. There are very influential anti-tax and small government think tanks that vehemently argue against it, from the perspective that it reduces oversight. Their position is that people just won't pay much attention to how much taxes they're paying if they don't have to fill in tax paperwork themselves each year. Their position is that if you make it invisible to end users, governments wil…

That smells like justification after the fact. We have decided to support the tax prep industry now how can we justify that stance?
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