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

Post by ajdlinux » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 11:31 PM UTC

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…

Post by Sohcahtoa82 » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 11:56 PM UTC

SkyBelow wrote: post #157

mywittyname wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I suggest we stop taking taxes out of paychecks and have people pay their full taxes once a year. It would help them see the total amount of taxes they pay. It would have a positive effect on government policy.

Post by dsalzman » Fri, Oct 18, 2019, 12:17 AM UTC

Post by jbrr25 » Fri, Oct 18, 2019, 12:41 AM UTC

kej wrote: post #275

xtracto wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding a data point with Mexico: All invoices are digital. Every person who gets a TaxId also gets a Private/Public keypair and generating invoices means signing the document with that key. The amazing thing is that now accountants talk about the XML, which is the legal representation of the invoice. As a result, every year if you file your taxes, you go I to the government freely provided website , get into your acc…

>also gets a Private/Public keypair Tangential curiosity: how is this part done? Do you download the keys from a government website? How do they handle key reissues if a private key is compromised?

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Fri, Oct 18, 2019, 1:03 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #249

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.

I wonder what percent of taxpayers actually owe a different amount than the IRS can compute on its own. My guess is it’s not much more than 30% (the percentage who itemize deductions). Is it really worth making 100% of taxpayers do their own just to handle the edge case of people who actually have to?