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FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

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Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#141

Post by andybak »

oconnor663 wrote: post #115
noir_lord wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK if you are an employee of one company you get PAYE (Pay as You Earn) which is dealt with by your employer. I'm 40 and have never had to do a tax return, I get a summary at the end of the year and a breakdown on each pay slip and that's pretty much it. It's one of those silent services that government does so well it pretty much disappears into the background.

Maybe this is already clear, but in the US "tax witholding" done by your employer is mandatory for most people. So all the paperwork we do at filing time is just to compute the difference between what was withheld and what you owe.

In the UK that's normally also done for you.

Only in exceptional circumstances does a normal waged employee have to have anything to do with taxes.

Until I was self-employed in my 30s I never filled out a tax form. Some people never do.

You're being swindled in the US.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#142

Post by IshKebab »

supernova87a wrote: post #102
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.

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.

Erm, loads of countries don't require employees to file taxes. Your employer takes care of it for you.

If you have an unusual tax situation you have to do it still, but 99% of people just have 1 job with 1 salary.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#143

Post by glenneroo »

tssva wrote: post #131
cactus2093 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like TurboTax is probably not worth the hassle of trying to use for free. They try to steer you at every turn into accidentally accepting the paid features, and if you manage to make it through the maze there doesn't really seem to be much left that makes them better than any of the simpler competitors if you stick to the free tiers - no saving your information year over year, no automatically importing the sup…

Because Intuit, H&R Block and others have spent enormous amounts of money and time lobbying federal and state legislatures and executive agencies to ensure they don't. My state had developed a free filing system and had successfully tested it with selected tax filers for a couple of years. It was due to go live the following year for all state tax filers. Intuit and others successfully lobbied the state legislature a…

Lobbying plus this bit from the article:

> Under a longstanding agreement with the IRS called Free File, Intuit and other tax prep companies promised to offer free products to most Americans; in exchange, the IRS agreed not to create a free government tax filing option that would compete with the industry.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#144

Post by Topgamer7 »

guerby wrote: post #21

In 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.

Canada has online filing too. And there is a fully free software (StudioTax), that you can use for up to 20 filings. Its not the prettiest, but I have never paid to file my taxes (except to the gov't of course ;-) ).

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#145

Post by lozenge »

vonmoltke wrote: post #92
Macha wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Withholding = (Taxable income in each bracket * tax rate for each bracket) - (annual tax credits / number of annual payments from your employer). If you're married and want to be taxed as a couple, you simply send the documentation as such to the tax office after your wedding. You can tell your employer and they'll try adjust appropriately in payroll, or you can not tell them and the government will send you a tax re…

> If you're married and want to be taxed as a couple, you simply send the documentation as such to the tax office after your wedding. So that's one difference. I have never sent the IRS proof of our marriage, and they have never requested it. I simply updated my wife's name and our filing status in the year we got married. > (Taxable income in each bracket * tax rate for each bracket) - (annual tax credits / number o…

It's achieved in three ways

1) far less deductions/carve outs in tax law, or ones that people can use without contacting the tax service. Eg pensions and charity contributions deducted by employer, so tax is calculated. Charity contributions paperwork for one off donations dealt with by the charity (Gift Aid scheme)

2) "tax code" five digits representing your tax status, that the tax office will give your company to update calculations when your status changes. Possibly starting from a phone call from you. Eg using marriage tax laws.

3) tax summary P60/P45 provided by your last employer(required by law) that you can give your next employer so they calculate correctly

Sounds complicated, but it's all geared towards moving the burden to employers who just pay for payroll software, for everybody else it is very simple.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#146

Post by HumblyTossed »

cactus2093 wrote: post #122
klmadfejno wrote: post #50

God I hope this suit is successful. Lots of people here are discussing the regulatory trap they've got, and that's a big problem. But the actual problem mentioned in the suit is deceptive marketing. TurboTax is the worst in this regard. Last year, I, at every step of the process, declined the expensive options that say "maybe you'll save more money if you permanently switch into this paid mode". Yet after a couple ho…

Seems like TurboTax is probably not worth the hassle of trying to use for free. They try to steer you at every turn into accidentally accepting the paid features, and if you manage to make it through the maze there doesn't really seem to be much left that makes them better than any of the simpler competitors if you stick to the free tiers - no saving your information year over year, no automatically importing the sup…

> Why doesn't the IRS just have a web app like turbotax for everyone

Because capitalism blah blah. The government isn't supposed to compete with businesses.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#147

Post by morvita »

glenneroo wrote: post #143
tssva wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Intuit, H&R Block and others have spent enormous amounts of money and time lobbying federal and state legislatures and executive agencies to ensure they don't. My state had developed a free filing system and had successfully tested it with selected tax filers for a couple of years. It was due to go live the following year for all state tax filers. Intuit and others successfully lobbied the state legislature a…

Lobbying plus this bit from the article: > Under a longstanding agreement with the IRS called Free File, Intuit and other tax prep companies promised to offer free products to most Americans; in exchange, the IRS agreed not to create a free government tax filing option that would compete with the industry.

How do you think that agreement came about? Hard lobbying from the tax prep industry.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#148

Post by TheJoeMan »

swiley wrote: post #29
gkfasdfasdf wrote: post #28

Obligatory mention of https://www.turbotaxsucksass.com/ , which takes you directly to real free file option of each major online tax prep site, bypassing all the misleading not-actually-free filing options that the sites loudly advertise.

I thought the official IRS form filler was discontinued? Does this just take you to another intuit competitor? EDIT: it just sends you to the free version of turbo tax and has links for the competitors heh

What’s crazy is there is a tier of Turbotax called “Free” (not free if you make almost any money) and “Free File” (actually free)

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#149

Post by crispyporkbites »

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...

Ok so I don’t know much about the us legal and political system, but a couple of questions:

- why does a judge in a lawsuit get to make the decision here? I.e. why is this kind of law not debated as part of public discourse and a decision made through a democratic path?

- given this benefits a tiny fraction of people in the US, why doesn’t a particular party/politician take a stand on it as a policy to win a chunk of votes?

For the first point, a UK former judge spoke extensively on the topic of the courts overstepping their remit as part of the 2019 Reith lectures: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00057m8

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#150

Post by qppo »

neilfrndes wrote: post #135
cactus2093 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like TurboTax is probably not worth the hassle of trying to use for free. They try to steer you at every turn into accidentally accepting the paid features, and if you manage to make it through the maze there doesn't really seem to be much left that makes them better than any of the simpler competitors if you stick to the free tiers - no saving your information year over year, no automatically importing the sup…

> Why doesn't IRS have a web app like Turbotax? Because of great lobbying by Intuit. This planet money episode goes into the details: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/03/709656642/epis...

It's the wrong question too. Why do we have to file a tax return at all? Shouldn't the government be filing a tax return with us instead?

Same answer of course.

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