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FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

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Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#101

Post by jeffbee »

scott_s wrote: post #82
jeffbee wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The IRS has nearly all the pieces it needs Some things would need to change to make this statement true. Stock brokers and portfolio managers would have to be forced to stop reporting gains without basis. Without the basis the IRS has no idea what your gains were.

Only about half of Americans have any investment in the stock market - and yes, that includes 401ks. That means more than half the population can file taxes without information from brokers or portfolio managers, which means not having that information is not a good reason to not do this.

For people with simple tax returns, aren't they already using the 1040 EZ? Doesn't seem like you'd use TurboTax unless you were itemizing or had a Sched. D to fill out.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#102

Post by supernova87a »

OJFord wrote: post #96
supernova87a wrote: post #72

Why are we bothering with the small potatoes in the room (TurboTax not putting URLs to free tax filing, etc. etc) when the elephant is: "Why isn't the IRS giving people a way to prepopulate and file taxes for free with the financial info that the IRS already has on everyone?" Well, I suppose it's just a product of the corporate interests and congressional deadlock that prevents us from doing a multitude of things rig…

Or just taxing at source for the common things, so that 'filling taxes' isn't something most people have to do.

Given how much our system taxes based on brackets and deductions, etc that are only apparent at the end of a year, that is probably not possible for the bulk of tax revenue. Also, people have many, many different thoughts on VAT, etc.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#103

Post by Bedon292 »

zie wrote: post #69
wffurr wrote: post #61

What's the least scammy alternative to TurboTax? I keep paying for it every year because it's what I'm used to, and I have capital gains and all that junk so I can't free file.

You can pay a tax professional for about the $100 that turbo tax apparently charges. There is an OSS tax solver here: https://opentaxsolver.sourceforge.net/ Only does IRS, not state, works fine for me so far.

For some reason that link doesn't work foe me (may be a DNS issue on my part). Appears to be here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/opentaxsolver/

And it does seem to have a few states, at least in text form.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#104

Post by freeone3000 »

likpok wrote: post #59
freeone3000 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Well, you can't, because of defined enrolment periods and coverage delay periods, and that it's impossible to tell ahead of time whether given insurance covers a given condition.

In addition, medical insurance makes no sense as a risk-pooling strategy, as everybody consumes some medical care annually, and the average cost of care consumed is greater than the amount most people can pay. There has to be something else going on.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#105

Post by Broken_Hippo »

OJFord wrote: post #96
supernova87a wrote: post #72

Why are we bothering with the small potatoes in the room (TurboTax not putting URLs to free tax filing, etc. etc) when the elephant is: "Why isn't the IRS giving people a way to prepopulate and file taxes for free with the financial info that the IRS already has on everyone?" Well, I suppose it's just a product of the corporate interests and congressional deadlock that prevents us from doing a multitude of things rig…

Or just taxing at source for the common things, so that 'filling taxes' isn't something most people have to do.

I'm pretty sure payroll taxes are things taxed at the source: I'm not sure there is a less painful way to tax for, say, social security or military spending. I'd honestly be happy changing some things into payroll taxes, honestly: Gasoline taxes, for example, aren't going to fund roads as much in the future (and efficient cars are already causing issues). Folks that work use roads in most cases, though, even if they use public transportation.

We (Americans) still, in general, don't need to file taxes like we do, though. The US has tons of paperwork: Norway sends me an electronic document to look over and unless I want to file, I owe money, or something is wrong, I don't have to do anything. They will automatically pay out refunds. Sure, I still "file taxes", but realistically, I just look over some electronic paperwork.

This method of "filing taxes" makes it easy to comply with filing and I'm guessing it makes collection rates better with less work.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#106

Post by scott_s »

jeffbee wrote: post #101
scott_s wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only about half of Americans have any investment in the stock market - and yes, that includes 401ks. That means more than half the population can file taxes without information from brokers or portfolio managers, which means not having that information is not a good reason to not do this.

For people with simple tax returns, aren't they already using the 1040 EZ? Doesn't seem like you'd use TurboTax unless you were itemizing or had a Sched. D to fill out.

For many years, I filled out a 1040 EZ, and I used TurboTax to do it. For me, it wasn't about ease of filling out my taxes, as they were trivial. It was about ease of filing my taxes, as it was all online and I didn't have to physically mail anything.

So, yes, such people are already using the simplest possible form, but ease of filing is a big deal, and I suspect many people are like me and use online filing software for that just as much as ease of filling out the forms.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#107

Post by tvb12 »

Cactus2018 wrote: post #95
c22 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happened to me too. I just printed out the return they generated and mailed it in myself. This is actually how tax preparation software used to always work and it definitely wasn't free back then.

This year I was unable to get to the print-out without paying

If I remember correctly, you have to go through the IRS freefile page (here: https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/) to get to the "real" free version of turbotax. The link to the "free edition" on the main page of their site, confusingly, is something else. Turbotax's income limit for free filing is really low, though. Max income of $36,000.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#108

Post by rietta »

I just buy one copy of TurboTax Home and Business each year and then everyone in my family uses it one at a time and free Federal efile. My parents both have different LLCs, I have a business, my sister has a business. We print and mail state returns because no reason to pay yet again for each State efile. I've become the defacto family accountant/keeper of tax file backups.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#109

Post by rootusrootus »

scott_s wrote: post #75
supernova87a wrote: post #72

Why are we bothering with the small potatoes in the room (TurboTax not putting URLs to free tax filing, etc. etc) when the elephant is: "Why isn't the IRS giving people a way to prepopulate and file taxes for free with the financial info that the IRS already has on everyone?" Well, I suppose it's just a product of the corporate interests and congressional deadlock that prevents us from doing a multitude of things rig…

Because we know the answer: the IRS is prevented from doing that by law. Lobbied by Intuit. If you google around, you can find stories on it. edit: save_ferris linked to an excellent story below: https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre...

Grover Norquist is probably more of the reason than Intuit.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#110

Post by rootusrootus »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #105
OJFord wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just taxing at source for the common things, so that 'filling taxes' isn't something most people have to do.

I'm pretty sure payroll taxes are things taxed at the source: I'm not sure there is a less painful way to tax for, say, social security or military spending. I'd honestly be happy changing some things into payroll taxes, honestly: Gasoline taxes, for example, aren't going to fund roads as much in the future (and efficient cars are already causing issues). Folks that work use roads in most cases, though, even if they…

> This method of "filing taxes" makes it easy to comply with filing and I'm guessing it makes collection rates better with less work.

This is by design, in the US the anti-tax crowd wants filing taxes to be harder and more inefficient. It serves their purposes. And they are a powerful lobbying group.

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