111–120 of 466 posts
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Filing taxes does not actually require a separate company to help with. You can download the PDFs (or go to the post office), read the directions and fill them out yourself. I have never actually done that; but my parents did well after I was using software, which sure is more convenient.
I think if you make under $70k or so you can do it online as well, there's a few sites that officially help you on behalf of the IRS.
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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 ne…
They aren't. The IRS form is the exact for completed by TurboTax or any other accountant/service provider. The IRS only accepts their own forms.
>For most people the IRS could send a tax form already filed out to read, verify, and return.
Thats what is really being asked...the Government to do tax returns for you for free. Even if TurboTax and accountants weren't lobbying the Government not to do taxpayers tax returns for them for free, its a major jump to say the government/IRS would unilaterally begin doing this for taxpayers as a free service.
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…
I'd like it if we could take up other, simpler models of sorting out income tax but I use software out of this pool† every year and its served me just fine:
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/e-services/...
† usually StudioTax. I donated to them last year. It's not pretty software but it's effective and easy to use. https://www.studiotax.com/en/
"Our business model is similar to that of a street performer. You can use and enjoy our software and later decide if the experience was worth it and you can afford a donation. However, based on many users’ feedback, you should be wary of recent free offerings from big commercial organizations. To use our previous analogy, they are big circuses that send their clowns out to the street to attract unsuspecting customers to their tents and pressure them in paying for their overpriced shows."
Maybe I'm totally wrong here, but I don't see much of a difference between extorsionist tax filing software and scam callers warning me about the IRS suing me. Can the government please make something that's easy to use? Filing taxes isn't something that requires a separate company to help with, and I see no reason why these products have a right to exist (and especially not be canonized), especially with how exploit…
Filing taxes does not actually require a separate company to help with. You can download the PDFs (or go to the post office), read the directions and fill them out yourself. I have never actually done that; but my parents did well after I was using software, which sure is more convenient.
wait, does the Transmogrifier Deduction for Frobnubilors apply when you claim to be Single-and-Only Highlander? pauses and takes 1 hour to read up on the IRS rules for this and compares with the advice of $random_internet_guy
And after the personal satisfaction of having completed everything myself, I file and a few months later get a letter from the IRS to the effect of "Dear Mr Bonehead, you totally forgot this obvious item, so we're going to refund you a bit more. You're welcome."
Taxes are not hard if you know how all of the rules apply to your special situation. If you don't, like most people, you're in the dark and it becomes a very poor use of time, with lost money at stake—or worse if your intentions are deemed to be fraudulent.
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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…
Your point about how the IRS already has all of the relevant information is something that has always puzzled me. Why are we performing this bizarre, ever-changing ritual with the threat of IRS audits hanging over us if they already know everything? I think that is part of why TurboTax has such a foothold. I use it because it walks me through the frankly byzantine process and explains a good deal of the arcane termin…
TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free; 211 points -- 54 minutes ago
TurboTax to charge more lower-income customers; 144 points -- 3 months ago
Congress Scraps Provision to Restrict IRS from Competing with TurboTax; 82 points -- 4 months ago
Listen to TurboTax Lie to Get Out of Refunding Overcharged Customers; 171 points -- 5 months ago
TurboTax Uses a “Military Discount” to Trick Troops into Paying to File Taxes; 170 points -- 5 months ago
TurboTax and H&R Block Saw Free Tax Filing as a Threat; 355 points -- 6 months ago
TurboTax Hides Its Free File Page from Search Engines; 881 points -- 6 months ago
TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes; 608 points -- 6 months ago
How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013); 462 points -- 7 months ago
edit: if you _still_ haven't gotten enough TurboTax reporting, there's a great Reply All episode that covers propublica's reporting as well https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nhgol
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> I see no reason why these products have a right to exist (and especially not be canonized), especially with how exploitive they are or can be. But if we remove the annual pain of dealing with taxes, then Americans will get complacent and may stop being bothered by having to pay taxes. - The serious ideology of a major American political party vis-a-vis taxes.
This. It is a special combination of sadistic and stupid, an American classic.
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…
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This is "whataboutism" at it's finest. This article is on Intuit. It's focused on Intuit's bad behaviour. ProPublica has other articles on the issues you are complaining about.
> This is "whataboutism" at it's finest. That's not "whataboutism" at all, as I'm not defending Intuit's behavior. > This article is on Intuit. It's focused on Intuit's bad behaviour. ProPublica has other articles on the issues you are complaining about. I'm saying ProPublica should have referenced those articles, rather than making statements that imply everything is the tax preparation industry's fault.