Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have no idea how you see those two things as mutually exclusive.
If taxation is theft, so are the vast majority of jobs.
I have a choice of jobs, including working for myself. I have no choice in paying taxes.
FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
51–60 of 198 posts
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same idea here in Ireland. Reasons you might need to interact with the income tax system here: 1. You have significant (>€5000) non-employment income. 2. You worked for less than 12 months and are claiming your tax refund. 3. You disagree with the government assessed tax reciept (which is based on what your employer fills in). For 90% of people then, they don't need to interact with it. Their employer reports their i…
> Their employer reports their income, deducts an appropriate amount of taxes, and sends it to the government. How does your employer know what "the appropriate amount of taxes" is? In the US I have always had trouble setting this to where I'm not at least 5% off in one direction or the other, and I know more than my employer about what my withholding rate should be.
It's not set by the employee, rather the employer looks at expected income for the year and withholds accordingly. At the end of the financial year, the Tax dept. does a final calculation and if the amount was too high/low, they send you a notice.
Tax deduction at source is a common concept in a lot of countries, incl. dissimilar ones like India and the NL, where I have both worked. Super convenient and frictionless for the vast majority of employees.
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#53In France you can fill your tax form online since 1999 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A9l%C3%A9d%C3%A9claration... In the past years banks and companies give tax related information to the tax authority so for lots of people the online tax form is already 100% filled and correct. For the past year tax filling I just had to add to the web form renting income, tax deducible donations, and that was it.
Same idea here in Ireland. Reasons you might need to interact with the income tax system here: 1. You have significant (>€5000) non-employment income. 2. You worked for less than 12 months and are claiming your tax refund. 3. You disagree with the government assessed tax reciept (which is based on what your employer fills in). For 90% of people then, they don't need to interact with it. Their employer reports their i…
sounds so amazing. I absolutely hate that we in the US all have to do this stupid homework assignment once a year.
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact is that the government, like a thief, says to a man: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the road side, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly an…
> The fact is that the government, like a thief, says to a man: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. Yes, but I like civil society, infrastructure, paved roads and what little social safety net we have in this country, so...
So you see taxes as necessary. That's fine. It doesn't invalidate the point being made.
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a IRS Tax Software would look more than the universally hated Unemployment Systems, or the government healthcare markets Consider that your opinion on what is "universally hated" is mostly shaped by the sources of information that you consume. Yours happens to be wrong. Overall the country views ObamaCare ~50% favorably, with some specific parts close to 90% approval. > Following Republican efforts to repeal the Af…
> Consider that your opinion on what is "universally hated" is mostly shaped by the sources of information that you consume. Yours happens to be wrong. Overall the country views ObamaCare ~50% favorably, with some specific parts close to 90% approval I support the ACA, but when you implement the benefits in a law and repeal or ignore most of the new taxes and mandates, that will happen.
I thought just the individual mandate was struck down by the SCOTUS. What other pieces make up most of the new taxes and mandates that were repealed or ignored?
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#56Ironically, for most people the IRS has a copy of most your forms (W2, 1099s, etc.) already and can do your taxes for you if you want.
I work and live in different states, but those states have a reciprocal agreement: any local taxes I pay to my employer's state are a credit for my home state income taxes.
Last year a Turbotax glitch (combined with my inattentiveness!) accidentally marked my local taxes as belonging to my home state – this made it appear like I paid significantly too much for local taxes. I filed and happily but surprisingly expected a large refund. Instead, I received a more typical refund and a letter from the Dept. of Revenue showing that the state had amended my return to match their records and that no further action was required.
My taxes could be this simple every time. What a bummer that they aren't.
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I 100% agree, to bad all you will get in response to your comment is how it is evil companies that prevent the noble and universally good government from helping the people. Unfortunately very few people seem to understand that government, intrinsically, is inefficient and bad at everything it does. This can not be avoided or changed it is the natural state of a monopoly. They seem to be able to recognize that when a…
> Unfortunately very few people seem to understand that government, intrinsically, is inefficient and bad at everything it does. This is a laughably false statement. It's easy to find stories of government projects that came in ahead of schedule and under budget, but you have to look for them because those stories don't get nearly as much attention as the inverse. Take the Hoover Dam, for example. That was one of the…
I'm not here to argue that "everything the government does is bad" because I think it's a very nuanced situation. That said, I feel like the Hoover Dam needs to be mentioned in the same breath as Hoovervilles, and as a precursor to the Great Depression.
Arguably, this high-level decision making is the only part that the government did, and should receive credit for, as the Six Companies consortium actually executed the construction.
It's unfortunate that these arguments often involve people talking past one another; governments (being made up of people) are obviously capable of good outcomes. They're also capable of generating bad or inefficient outcomes. Those two latter points are where I think there is value in the discussion: is a governmental act moral, and does it increase efficiency (in the sense of humanity prevailing against its default state).
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because some people are irrationally biased against government providing services or collecting taxes in general. These are ingrained belief systems being challenged.
Ridiculous thing to say. I am a small government person, and I believe taxation is theft. However, I am a realist and so I recognize that taxes are part of our reality. I am 100% in favor of the IRS making it as easy as possible for people to do their taxes, because they already have 99% of the info needed.
> I believe taxation is theft
Then please stop using the things we fund with them. Roads, GPS, etc.
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Consider that your opinion on what is "universally hated" is mostly shaped by the sources of information that you consume. Yours happens to be wrong. Overall the country views ObamaCare ~50% favorably, with some specific parts close to 90% approval I support the ACA, but when you implement the benefits in a law and repeal or ignore most of the new taxes and mandates, that will happen.
Okay? There's no reason laws have to have good and bad parts, like a fundamental yin-yang. You can simply write laws without the bad parts.
The ACA must have good parts and bad parts because the mandate makes the numbers work. Guaranteed-issue insurance doesn't work if healthy people can opt out (because you can just buy insurance after you get sick which makes the risk-pooling idea of insurance not work).
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#60Not sure I understand the hate for TurboTax. Literally not a single person is forced to use it. I do use it and it's a very good product for the most part. Perhaps energy should be directed at the actual tax code complexity rather than software built to help navigate filing. Ted Cruz's tax plan would have practically eliminated the need for TurboTax-type software. https://taxfoundation.org/details-and-analysis-senato…
I 100% agree, to bad all you will get in response to your comment is how it is evil companies that prevent the noble and universally good government from helping the people. Unfortunately very few people seem to understand that government, intrinsically, is inefficient and bad at everything it does. This can not be avoided or changed it is the natural state of a monopoly. They seem to be able to recognize that when a…
My argument is that Tax calculation should NOT be so complex that we need any entity (Govt or Private) to actually run it. Why don't we simplify the tax ssytem like other developed countries instead ? E.g. I worked in Hong Kong for aabout 2 years and for my taxes, the Govt. already calculated everything and I just had to check some boxes. Why cannot we do that here in the United States ? And Yes, I am aware of things like complex deductions etc but still, majority of Americans don't have that problem.