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

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

#261

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

mars4rp wrote: post #193

I am the developer in charge of CalFile, the free filing software that everyone asks for here for state of California. https://www.ftb.ca.gov/file/ways-to-file/online/calfile/inde... I am pushing so hard to make it better and more useful to more people, like being able to add capital gain that is not currently supported. these are the push backs that I am getting: 1. Last time they tried to do what all of you ask, a…

Is there anything like this for of the other big states like NY, Texas, and Florida?

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

#262

Post by 0xffff2 »

CDRdude wrote: post #239
0xffff2 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but why can't you just call up the newspapers directly and list whatever it is that the law requires?

The newspapers will charge you to run the ad. They have no reason to print that info for free.

Of course, but surely that aren't going to charge you anywhere near $1000.

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

#263

Post by CobrastanJorji »

Accujack wrote: post #106
candyman wrote: post #50

I guess this is why some voters are eager for someone like Elizabeth Warren to get in office and stop some of this anti-competitive behavior. It's odd to me because TurboTax is good software (at least when I used it) and it saves time. So to me it's worth the money. But to force someone who as a job and no real deductions to not simply file a 1040 EZ online is just a rent seeker making sure they get paid.

>Elizabeth Warren to get in office and stop some of this anti-competitive behavior. Warren is a run of the mill middle of the pack Democrat. She only looks good because at present the GOP looks so bad. The government needs to be reformed, electing one party or another President isn't going to change much, unless you set the bar really low (Trump)

Okay, fine, but "your taxes are automatically filed for you" is a specific campaign issue for Elizabeth Warren, and in addition she's introduced legislation specifically aimed at this issue (https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/912). Pointing her out as a potential solution in a thread about this particular issue is appropriate.

On the other hand, "everybody in every party sucks and it doesn't matter who anyone votes for because it won't change anything" is a comment that could go on any post about any aspect of politics and doesn't contribute to a productive conversation.

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

#264

Post by mmsimanga »

cesarb wrote: post #46
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…

> Brazil the _Receita Federal_ (IRS equivalent) provides a free multi-platform Java desktop app for filing your taxes. Other fun stuff about that desktop app... * Originally, it was a DOS-only program (yes, it's that old). Then for a while, it was Windows-only, then for some time (probably due to the Linux users complaining) there was both the Windows-only version and the Java multi-platform version, and later the Wi…

> The original way of sending the output of this program to Receita Federal was to write it to a floppy disk and take it to a bank

My cousin started work as a company messenger back in the early 80s and these are the sort of tasks he used to do. Its amazing that the profession has died out in in such relatively short space of time. I guess courier companies have filled in the slot but courier companies would never have coped with the number of documents that needed to be ferried about town in the old days.

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

#265

Post by 0xffff2 »

pm215 wrote: post #234
0xffff2 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not terribly difficult to construct circumstances in which the government doesn't know how much you owe them. It's simpler to have a single policy for everyone. Therefore, everyone has to do their own taxes. I really don't think it's more complicated than that.

Simpler for who? It's not simpler for the vast bulk of people whose only significant income is from their employer. It's not simpler for the tax authorities either, who now have to process a lot more tax returns rather than just doing something more straightforward for the common-case.

Of course it's simpler for the IRS. Simpler does not imply less work.

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

#266

Post by pwg »

ttn wrote: post #17

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

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

Actually there is one (depending on your definition of 'alternate'): http://opentaxsolver.sourceforge.net/

I have used it for the last two years to do my Fed and State taxes.

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

#268

Post by ptrklly »

mars4rp wrote: post #193

I am the developer in charge of CalFile, the free filing software that everyone asks for here for state of California. https://www.ftb.ca.gov/file/ways-to-file/online/calfile/inde... I am pushing so hard to make it better and more useful to more people, like being able to add capital gain that is not currently supported. these are the push backs that I am getting: 1. Last time they tried to do what all of you ask, a…

You're doing great work! I'd love to try it next year. If I do, what do you recommend for filing my federal?

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

#269

Post by jandrese »

mars4rp wrote: post #193

I am the developer in charge of CalFile, the free filing software that everyone asks for here for state of California. https://www.ftb.ca.gov/file/ways-to-file/online/calfile/inde... I am pushing so hard to make it better and more useful to more people, like being able to add capital gain that is not currently supported. these are the push backs that I am getting: 1. Last time they tried to do what all of you ask, a…

Virginia used to have free online filing until the tax prep industry got one of their people elected and killed it off. Now our state efile options are more expensive than federal efile options.

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

#270

Post by n-exploit »

nan0 wrote: post #257

Who is going to build this "free" tax filing system? I hope not the IRS [0] 0: https://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/computing/it/irs-predic...

"On 17 April 2018, the final day for U.S. citizens to file 2017 tax returns, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) suffered a major system failure related to the hardware supporting its 58-year old, 20-million-line Cobol-based Individual Master File system [PDF], which is still being used today to process the vast majority of individual tax returns. As a result of the failure, the IRS extended by a day the filing due date."

Maybe that's because a decades-old system hit capacity, and has nothing to do with the system design?

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