Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

propublica.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 489 posts

Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#121

Post by dahfizz »

xtracto wrote: post #38

This USA tax thing has always baffled me... it is the exact definition of why we pay taxes: for the government to provide services that are common to the country´s citizens. There´s nothing more common than tax collection: rich, middle class or poor. Why wouldn't citizens demand a public tax filing process? Even in Mexico we have an automagical tax filing process that makes: a) The great majority of the population wh…

I think it comes down to who people trust.

Americans on the whole don't trust their government quite a lot. If the government just said "you owe X in tax this year", nearly everyone's knee jerk reaction would be that the government is overestimating and cheating them.

On the other hand, you can pay a flat fee to let a third party fight the government on your behalf. That's something that many Americans like the sound of.

I think the real problem is that the tax system is complicated, and turbo tax does a good job of making it feel even more complicated than it is. You can fill out your own 1040EZ, if you even know what that is, but people have this sense that the tax system is full of loopholes and they want to exploit that.

Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#122

Post by jorblumesea »

The both parties argument is so stale at this point. While the Dems might not be perfect, they aren't actively sabotaging our democracy. The Republicans just passed a huge tax bill and what did it do? Oh, huge handouts to the wealthy. Nice!

Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#123

Post by nightski »

jlarocco wrote: post #55
throwaheyy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an American but I've been doing US taxes for 10+ years. There's never been any guessing involved. What were you trying to guess? I've underpaid precisely once, when I didn't know about qurterly reporting, and the so-called "penalty" was nothing unfair -- just the interest the money earned in my account instead of the IRS's.

I don't know what the OP's "guessing" comment was about, but the whole process is asinine. The IRS already knows the numbers on W-2 forms because they get the same data from employers. Financial institutions also send them 1099s and other forms. So the IRS already knows all the numbers . There's little point in making people manually re-enter the data. The IRS should automatically fill in everything it knows about, a…

I believe that Americans in the past and maybe even today have preferred the freedom of doing things independently of the government. While it is true the government receives all reported income, it is not true that they know about all your deductions/expenses. While many Americans are oblivious to such things in general the government gives you control over your own taxes. In reality, it's a small amount of responsibility and lets a person take ownership of the process. It is NOT difficult at all, especially for W-2 with the standard deduction. The whining in this thread is ridiculous imho.

The one time I underpayed I promptly received official letters from the federal and state governments giving me time to pay them with a very minor penalty (it was well under 1% due to the short time frame). It was simple and easy.

Ironically the Trump tax cuts made this even easier as the standard deduction was doubled making it much less attractive to itemize.

Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#124

Post by seanmcdirmid »

nvarsj wrote: post #70

Now if only I could file my expat taxes via some public service. The filing requirement in the Obama/Trump era for expats is literally insane, and I'd say even Kafkaesque in the truest sense. The way the government treats its expats w.r.t. tax is inhumane and makes me really dislike being an American.

How did filing requirements change since 2008? I didn’t notice any differences. Also, you can use online tax preparations now as they seem to support 2555 and 1116 forms now, which wasn’t an option in 2008.

Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#125

Post by jayd16 »

ars wrote: post #99
TylerE wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read it? Intuit lobbied....Republicans.

"In 2007, Eric Cantor (a Republican leader) and Zoe Lofgren (a Democrat from Silicon Valley) had introduced a bill to ban return-free filing. Both received contributions from Inuit." And Intuit did not lobby Republicans, it lobbied Grover Norquist.

You mean the guy that got 95% of GOP congressmen to sign his tax pledge? Lobbying Norquist is lobbying the GOP.

Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#126

Post by viraptor »

jjeaff wrote: post #20
GNOMES wrote: post #4

Not sure how factual Adam Ruins Everything is, but his skit on taxes is pretty damning for tax software companies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj4anUL-LvY

I think they get it mostly right for tax filing. But I find them to usually be pretty blinded by ideology when it comes to some topics and severely lacking in objectivity.

Yeah, they range from very accurate to downright dangerous (the one about late pregnancies stands out as terrible). It's not a consistently good source.

Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#127

Post by Rebelgecko »

TylerE wrote: post #75
ars wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we reading the same article? Don't invent partisan issues, the article makes it clear it's not a "Republican" thing, it's an Intuit thing.

Did you read it? Intuit lobbied....Republicans.

I suppose the lobbying could be unbalanced, but that wouldn't be consistent with the numbers when you look at campaign contributions (even if you ignore individual contributions). https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=D000026667...

Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#128

Post by lawn »

_-david-_ wrote: post #109
gtirloni wrote: post #3

> a years-old prohibition on the IRS creating its own online filing system has been scrapped What kind of insanity leads to this? The government is prohibited from creating software that helps its citizens? There's a lot wrong with Brazil but here I just download the government-provided software (that runs on Windows/Linux/Mac) and fill my taxes in 10-15 minutes. Every year they release a new version that is easier t…

I think a lot of people don't really want to download a piece of software made by the government.

In Sweden it's a form on a website. Simple, fast, comes prefilled with the regular stuff and of course free.

Re: IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax

#129

Post by [deleted] »

jjeaff wrote: post #11

There is no reason the IRS shouldn't have a simple, online fillable 1099EZ that makes the calculations and validations for you. And while their at it, match the SSN to the w2 info that they have on file. This would take care of 80% of the population. Just don't outsource it. I'm sure USDS could have it ready in less than a year.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN