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TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free

propublica.org

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Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free

#51

Post by giovannibonetti »

jib wrote: post #40
gjvnq wrote: post #9

Just for comparison: in Brazil the _Receita Federal_ (IRS equivalent) provides a free multi-platform* Java desktop app for filing your taxes. The UI isn't great* and if you do complex stock trading it can be a pain to add the necessary information, but for the vast majority of people it works just fine. It also shows if it is better to use the standard deduction or the itemized deductions for your particular case and…

In Sweden, the government does the work for most normal cases. They send you a suggestion of “this is all we know about” and you just say “yeah, seems right” via SMS. In Ireland you don’t do anything in the usual case, unless you think it’s wrong, everything is taxed at source by the employers/banks. Both cases different if you’re a company ofc.

It seems a bit naive of the government to reveal to you your income sources they know about. If you have any hidden ones you can confidently not report them and pay less taxes than you would otherwise.

Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free

#52

Post by FPGAhacker »

lqet wrote: post #22
gjvnq wrote: post #9

Just for comparison: in Brazil the _Receita Federal_ (IRS equivalent) provides a free multi-platform* Java desktop app for filing your taxes. The UI isn't great* and if you do complex stock trading it can be a pain to add the necessary information, but for the vast majority of people it works just fine. It also shows if it is better to use the standard deduction or the itemized deductions for your particular case and…

Fun fact: the official tax filing application in Germany which has been around for a few decades is called "ELSTER" (apronym for El ektronische St euer er klärung, "Electronic Tax Return") which literally translates to "MAGPIE", as in "thieving magpie" ("Diebische Elster"). This is a form of self-irony which is quite unusual for the German tax offices. OS portability has greatly improved with their online app [0], wh…

> This is a form of self-irony which is quite unusual for the German tax offices.

Love it.

Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free

#53

Post by vonmoltke »

justin66 wrote: post #16
vonmoltke wrote: post #2

ProPublica seems to be singularly focused on Intuit to the exclusion of all the other powerful interests who benefit from a complex and opaque tax code. They may be fighting efforts to make filing easier under the current rules, but they aren't really doing anything to keep those rules a clusterfuck.

> They may be fighting efforts to make filing easier under the current rules, but they aren't really doing anything to keep those rules a clusterfuck. ProPublica is trusting the reader to understand that responsibility for the current state of US tax laws lies with the US government.

Then ProPublica should not be making statements in the article that explicitly tie Intuit lobbying to fighting efforts to improve the current tax code. See another of my replies for examples.

Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free

#54

Post by SamuelAdams »

dangus wrote: post #21
u801e wrote: post #3

Free fillable forms[1] has been around for a number of years and van be used by anyone regardless of income level. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_File#Free_File_Fillable...

They are still an unnecessarily painful solution. I did do these last year to finally kick TurboTax to the curb. However, they’re shamefully complex especially considering how they’re already a piece of software. They barely do basic arithmetic. The restrictions are entirely artificial, and the system is gamed so that you either spend a lot of time learning tax form rules and lingo or you just pay TurboTax to do it f…

What about the free forms is painful? I have only ever filed via these forms - I've never used TurboTax, and my AGI exceeds the limits on the federal free file software.

To me, it's pretty simple: you read the instruction book and go through it line by line. If you have odd forms to complete, like paperwork for an HSA, a quick google search will set you in the right direction.

People with more complicated tax returns will always need a professional's expertise. But for 90% of people who have one income source for one household, the paper forms are very intuitive.

I think people think they are "painful" because they need to read and comprehend more.

Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free

#55

Post by dangus »

throwaway_law wrote: post #33
ttn wrote: post #17

Can someone from US explain how come there is still no open source alternative to TurboTax?

There are...you can download any tax form for free and fill it in by hand or in a PDF program. You will see articles regularly attacking TurboTax because SV has been wildly unsuccessful in producing a startup that can compete with TurboTax, so instead a lot of effort is spent attacking them in the media. Google, Microsoft, Facebook all spend significantly more on lobbying to ensure market hegemony. Don't be surprised…

I disagree with this simply because the idea that competition exists or could exist is not an excuse for the system to function the way it does.

There are new players in the space, like CreditKarma. Many competitors offer more features for free than Intuit as well. But that doesn’t mean we should have to rely on private companies (who are data hoarding) to file our taxes. That doesn’t mean that free fillable forms need to be unnecessarily more difficult to use than commercial solutions.

In reality, the IRS already has all the relevant forms reported to them. For most people the IRS could send a tax form already filed out to read, verify, and return. For business owners and other more complex situations, these are still the same people who are already hiring a tax accountant and are probably skipping TurboTax as it is.

In other words, commercial tax preparation software for most users is filling an artificial need that only exists because the government has been lobbied not to provide the (basic) service itself.

Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free

#56

Post by candyman »

I guess this is why some wish to vote for Elizabeth Warren. This kind of crap goes on all the time. FWIW I think TurboTax is pretty useful and because it saves time worth paying for in many cases. However someone with very simple taxes, like working a job with no itemized deductions they should be able to file an online 1040EZ or = for free and in a few minutes. It's very simple. This is probably why the whole money-in-politics thing is so powerful as well.

Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free

#57

Post by gjvnq »

jib wrote: post #40
gjvnq wrote: post #9

Just for comparison: in Brazil the _Receita Federal_ (IRS equivalent) provides a free multi-platform* Java desktop app for filing your taxes. The UI isn't great* and if you do complex stock trading it can be a pain to add the necessary information, but for the vast majority of people it works just fine. It also shows if it is better to use the standard deduction or the itemized deductions for your particular case and…

In Sweden, the government does the work for most normal cases. They send you a suggestion of “this is all we know about” and you just say “yeah, seems right” via SMS. In Ireland you don’t do anything in the usual case, unless you think it’s wrong, everything is taxed at source by the employers/banks. Both cases different if you’re a company ofc.

Brazil has started offering pre filled income tax declarations.

However, they require a digital certificate to download (probably for privacy reasons) and I don't have one so I couldn't test it.

Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free

#58

Post by washadjeffmad »

ttn wrote: post #17

Can someone from US explain how come there is still no open source alternative to TurboTax?

The exact conditions that would enable a simple FOSS tax software or portal is what TurboTax has been lobbying to make sure stays broken and can't easily exist.

Also, taxes in the US are really complicated, and while our governments know how much we owe, the burden of determination and filing is placed wholly on the citizen.

Should we be able to log in to our IRS profile page and track and manage our taxes ourselves throughout the year? Yes. Is this techically possible today? Also yes. Would this make TurboTax and some other bloodsucking middlemen less TurboRich?

Well, you can see why it's impossible.

Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free

#59

Post by Nursie »

gjvnq wrote: post #9

Just for comparison: in Brazil the _Receita Federal_ (IRS equivalent) provides a free multi-platform* Java desktop app for filing your taxes. The UI isn't great* and if you do complex stock trading it can be a pain to add the necessary information, but for the vast majority of people it works just fine. It also shows if it is better to use the standard deduction or the itemized deductions for your particular case and…

In Australia a sort of spreadsheet-like app is published each year. It pulls in data from a variety of sources (banks and employers mostly, IIRC), fills in everything it can and then lets you do the rest.

Windows only last time I did it (7 years ago?), things may have improved further since then.

Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free

#60

Post by SamuelAdams »

justin66 wrote: post #11
u801e wrote: post #3

Free fillable forms[1] has been around for a number of years and van be used by anyone regardless of income level. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_File#Free_File_Fillable...

It does not have the dialogs to walk you through the weird parts of filing a tax return. It's not really comparable to something like TurboTax.

What parts are the "weird parts of filing a tax return"? Not trying to come across as combative, I'm just genuinely curious.
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