TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free • Hacker News Board

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

#401

Post by therealx » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 10:31 PM UTC

pfranz wrote: post #336

_9vzr wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In VA, if you want an alcohol license for your restaurant, you are required to print an ad in a local newspaper stating that you intend to get a license. I'm guessing it's so some prohibitionist can call up the ABC and complain? It's completely ridiculous. I wondering what will happen when print newspaper ceases to exist.

I've noticed a lot of "public notice" laws. Either a physical sign on the property or something published in the newspaper. I'm not quite sure what the digital equivalent would be--a government run "announce" page that gets indexed and archived? Not really much different from press releases governments and businesses already do required by other laws. I do see the value in publicly announcing things, but I do see new…

Most modern states just post a sign over the door prior to opening that X company seeks Y license and this location.

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

#402

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 10:37 PM UTC

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…

Who is/are Turbotax's lobbyist/s? Who do they put most pressure on? It's hard to take action without knowing who the players are.

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

#403

Post by rdiddly » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 10:39 PM UTC

Is there not an option that has all of the advantages of electronic filing, EXCEPT actually submitting the return? i.e. you print everything out at the end and mail it? Because I mean, that would make it immune to all lobbying but still be a huge improvement over filling it out by hand.

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

#404

Post by cortesoft » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 10:46 PM UTC

musicale wrote: post #351

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…

> 1. Last time they tried to do what all of you ask, a ready return. TurboTax and others hired bunch of lobbyist and put so much pressure on people here and killed the project. People are still afraid and don't want to do too much to grab the attention of their lobbyist! This is insane. Where are the actual citizens at the negotiating table?

This is always the problem with these sorts of things... TurboTax cares a LOT more about this issue than an individual citizen... sure, it costs each citizen $50-100 every year to file their taxes, and they would love to have a free public option... but it is literally THE ENTIRE BUSINESS for TurboTax. They are going to fight so much harder than the people who pay the $100 a year. Concentrated gains and widely distributed costs create this imbalance.

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

#405

Post by harumph » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 10:47 PM UTC

justaguyhere wrote: post #377

r0m4n0 wrote: post #158

A few weeks ago I started an LLC in New York. I followed all the simple instructions online and the process was actually very straightforward and easy. I had an official digital copy of proof my LLC existed within an hour. I went to sleep with and thought that there is hope for our government. Within a few days I received a letter from a private company informing me that unless I pay them $1000 to publish the name of…

I wonder how many laws/rules there are, that made sense long time ago but not anymore, or those that never made sense to begin with.

Running for office on a platform of "removing useless laws" has been a dream of mine since childhood.

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

#406

Post by cortesoft » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 10:48 PM UTC

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #398

mszkoda wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is exactly this. You look at donations to people from corporations or through lobbyists and they don't look that large, $15-20k and they are getting big bills passed. That $15-20k isn't buying the politician or their vote. The threat to give millions of dollars to the opposing politician that will support them is.

There are limits on how much you can donate to a candidate's campaign; however, you can contribute unlimited funds to a PAC, but the PAC's advertisement efforts must be separate from the candidates; they can't be coordinated.

Which is perfect for a company like TurboTax who wants to lobby for an issue... they don't care about the candidate, they don't have to coordinate with them at all... they just tell the representative, "if you don't vote my way, we will fund a PAC that will attack you". No candidate coordination, no problem.

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

#407

Post by pfranz » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 11:04 PM UTC

therealx wrote: post #401

pfranz wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed a lot of "public notice" laws. Either a physical sign on the property or something published in the newspaper. I'm not quite sure what the digital equivalent would be--a government run "announce" page that gets indexed and archived? Not really much different from press releases governments and businesses already do required by other laws. I do see the value in publicly announcing things, but I do see new…

Most modern states just post a sign over the door prior to opening that X company seeks Y license and this location.

Yeah, that works for changes at a physical location. What about founding of an LLC or other less tangible changes? Even with a physical sign it would be nice to have a searchable long term record. That seems to be what newspapers fulfilled; public broadcast and a reasonable long-term archive.

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

#408

Post by hanniabu » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 11:13 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #261

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?

One for NY should be pretty easy, just a splash page showing the user how to send the state everything in their bank account.

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

#409

Post by kerkeslager » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 11:17 PM UTC

isaacgreyed wrote: post #395

kerkeslager wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does a 'free' government company respond to competition (since they have no pressure to be profitable)? The leadership of government organizations has pressure to get re-elected, or to get someone from their party elected. I'm not sure whether you are simply ignorant how representative democracy is supposed to work, or whether you're feigning ignorance. Is it really so unfathomable that people might be motivate…

Is the vote of the election ever: "Can you make this one website that is messy better?". People are more focused on big issues and annoying software won't often make the platform.

The vote of the election isn't "Can you make this one website that is messy better?" because the politicians are incentivized to never let it get that bad.

One only has to take a look at the Obama administration's apparent panic over healthcare.gov to see this at work. When it wasn't going well, it very much was a political issue at the forefront of political conversation.

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

#410

Post by ajdlinux » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 11:27 PM UTC

rubicon33 wrote: post #283

xivzgrev wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude I salute you. There are so many edge cases to support. For number 2 can you import fed return with calfile? IRS free returns going down too so you are not alone: https://taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/Free_File_Program_Is_Failin... This is a large reason why Prorepublica keeps digging at this - it’s fucking crazy actual free filing is going down while these paid shenanigan products are holding strong with their ginorm…

Is it really as simple as that? Budget trumps all? With all due respect to the OP, most state run software operations are complete, utter, garbage. I'd happily pay money to avoid some of the clunky, poor UI/UX, and downright broken web tools that the state of California produces. TurboTax on the other hand, is a relatively nice experience.

I file my taxes in Australia using a government-run web application. It's not perfect (like all big government systems it has outages, etc etc) but I can't really complain about it, it's more than adequate to get the job done and I certainly wouldn't want to pay for something that's only marginally better. There's a few UX tweaks which would be nice but it's fine, really.