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TurboTax Tricked You into Paying to File Your Taxes (2019)

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Re: TurboTax Tricked You into Paying to File Your Taxes (2019)

#31

Post by daveslash »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #29

> Did you know that if you make less than $66,000 a year But I don't, so...they didn't trick me?

I was confused by this too.... I've never filed my own taxes; I've always paid a tax preparer. I've always thought that I could file them myself for free if I wanted to, but just felt more comfortable paying someone who does it professionally and knows more ins-and-outs of tax law. Is that not true - can I not file myself for free if I make more than $66k/yr? I looked here [1], and it looks like I can? It's still not entirely clear to me...

[1] https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-f...

Re: TurboTax Tricked You into Paying to File Your Taxes (2019)

#32

Post by alistairSH »

qnk wrote: post #9
grayhatter wrote: post #2

We're sorry the answer to "why can't we have nice things" wasn't [political party], it was lobbyists . Lobbyists is the answer to, "why can't we have nice things"!

Honest question, how is lobbying different from bribery? Lobbyists go to Washington, spend fortunes on taking lawmakers to fancy dinners and then get away with what they want. Maybe I don't understand the process and am oversimplifying it, but that's how I see it.

I'll flip the question around... How is lobbying different than random voter talking to their representative in person?

It isn't really - a lobbyist is just exercising the free speech available to all individuals - they just happen to be doing it on behalf of a group of individuals.

I'm purposefully ignoring the whole "corporations are people" aspect because that's a different discussion. But, what you seem to be arguing is that I cannot gather with my neighbors, select a person from the group, and send them to DC to talk to our Congressperson about whatever topic interests us. Instead, we all have to go individually?

Edit - I actually do find the current lobbying situation to be problematic, but it mostly relates to campaign donations. It's not as simple as lobbying (by itself) is bad.

Re: TurboTax Tricked You into Paying to File Your Taxes (2019)

#33

Post by dragosmocrii »

For all Canadians reading this, try WealthSimple Tax (previously SimpleTax). It's pay what you want, and it's a solid product. Nonetheless, tax software should be provided for free by the tax organization (IRS, CRA, etc), it's so stupid to pay for doing your taxes, unless you really need an accountant...

Re: TurboTax Tricked You into Paying to File Your Taxes (2019)

#34

Post by DavidPeiffer »

klmadfejno wrote: post #21

I used to say turbo tax wasn't that bad, and that free filing was easy if you just ignored their promises to save you money if you upgraded. Last year however I got all the way to the end of the process where they revealed I made too much and had to pay. That felt extremely unethical, as the information required to come to that conclusion was available far earlier in the process. And yet what am I going to do but use…

>And yet what am I going to do but use turbo tax again. The perceived risk and effort of using a non-automated system to fill them out doesn't seem worth the cost.

I'd suggest FreeTaxUSA.com as an alternative. Federal is always free, and state taxes are ~12/state. I don't have anything obscure about my taxes, and their forms indicate they can handle much more complicated situations than I have. I've used them for 3 years now, with no issues.

I will say their system is a bit clunky. I feel like I get in loops sometimes where I go through already filled in information and wish I could just jump to the next section. I wish they would give me more questions on each page so I can better understand how a response to one question filters through down the line.

Re: TurboTax Tricked You into Paying to File Your Taxes (2019)

#35

Post by TAForObvReasons »

It's good that people are drawing attention to the dark patterns, but not enough outrage is directed at Intuit's lobbying efforts. For most people, the tax situation is simple enough and the IRS has enough info from informational returns to estimate your tax liability. Intuit among others have been fighting against the simplification of the system.

Re: TurboTax Tricked You into Paying to File Your Taxes (2019)

#36

Post by frankfrankfrank »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #29

> Did you know that if you make less than $66,000 a year But I don't, so...they didn't trick me?

I am not sure if you got that quote from the paywalled article, but I was just looking at TurboTax this year, and they have removed the income requirement. But having experience with others dealing with Turbotax; I have nearing zero expectation that they will not be immensely unethical or at the very least be intentionally grey in their ethics.

What I mean by that is that even for people who were eligible for doing their taxes for free last year, they offered additional services like e-file (literally sending a file akin to the effort and cost of sending an email) at some ridiculous price, and then for those having to do state taxes both charging for the state return software (understandible) and the state e-file … but at rates that ended up tallying up to higher than if the "free" filer had just bought Trubotax with state and free e-file at some discounter or in some cases even at higher rates than the full price.

What a lot of people are not aware of is just how utterly evil that these "tax preparer" companies are in their practices, they aren't just unethical or even corrupt, they are deliberately evil and even criminal in their methods. The leaked emails from TurboTax illustrate that. They actively sabotage efforts to, e.g., make it possible for citizens to simply upload the tax return or even just the tax form output from the software so that the utter nonsense e-file has to be used that the companies have a gate around.

It's just one of the many ways and things that are modern forms of company stores, traps that are intentionally and deliberately constructed to ensnare and entrap and pilfer from people for little to no value. It's quite literally BILLIIONS of dollars that are drained from the middle and lower classes to file taxes … information the IRS already has.

Re: TurboTax Tricked You into Paying to File Your Taxes (2019)

#37

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

daveslash wrote: post #31
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #29

> Did you know that if you make less than $66,000 a year But I don't, so...they didn't trick me?

I was confused by this too.... I've never filed my own taxes; I've always paid a tax preparer. I've always thought that I could file them myself for free if I wanted to, but just felt more comfortable paying someone who does it professionally and knows more ins-and-outs of tax law. Is that not true - can I not file myself for free if I make more than $66k/yr? I looked here [1], and it looks like I can? It's still not…

Maybe, but if you're in the over $72k category (I guess the article is from 2019 and the threshold has changed) it's literally just electronic versions of the paper forms which I consider a huge waste of my time and mental energy. Intuit doesn't charge you _and_ make you do the work. Intuit charges you _instead_ of making you do the work, just like you'd pay an accountant for. The IRS doesn't even offer guidance on which forms you need.

> If you choose Free File Fillable Forms as your Free File option, you should be comfortable doing your own taxes. Limitations with Free File Fillable Forms include:

> It won't give you guidance about which forms to use or help with your tax situation

> It only performs basic calculations and doesn't provide extensive error checking

> It will only file your federal return for the current tax year

> No state tax return option is available

I don't want to "do my own taxes". That's the whole point of paying for a service that makes it easier. And also it's not even available right now:

> Free File Fillable Forms reopens Feb. 12, 2021 at noon ET.

Re: TurboTax Tricked You into Paying to File Your Taxes (2019)

#38

Post by s_dev »

alistairSH wrote: post #32
qnk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, how is lobbying different from bribery? Lobbyists go to Washington, spend fortunes on taking lawmakers to fancy dinners and then get away with what they want. Maybe I don't understand the process and am oversimplifying it, but that's how I see it.

I'll flip the question around... How is lobbying different than random voter talking to their representative in person? It isn't really - a lobbyist is just exercising the free speech available to all individuals - they just happen to be doing it on behalf of a group of individuals. I'm purposefully ignoring the whole "corporations are people" aspect because that's a different discussion. But, what you seem to be arg…

Money. Receiving money is the fundamental difference between lobbying and discussing policy with constituents.

Re: TurboTax Tricked You into Paying to File Your Taxes (2019)

#39

Post by RIMR »

klmadfejno wrote: post #21

I used to say turbo tax wasn't that bad, and that free filing was easy if you just ignored their promises to save you money if you upgraded. Last year however I got all the way to the end of the process where they revealed I made too much and had to pay. That felt extremely unethical, as the information required to come to that conclusion was available far earlier in the process. And yet what am I going to do but use…

There are numerous detailed guides online, including by the IRS, illustrating how to do your own taxes.

Unless your finances are extremely complicated, it's fairly easy to do it yourself.

Re: TurboTax Tricked You into Paying to File Your Taxes (2019)

#40

Post by mandelbrotwurst »

daveslash wrote: post #31
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #29

> Did you know that if you make less than $66,000 a year But I don't, so...they didn't trick me?

I was confused by this too.... I've never filed my own taxes; I've always paid a tax preparer. I've always thought that I could file them myself for free if I wanted to, but just felt more comfortable paying someone who does it professionally and knows more ins-and-outs of tax law. Is that not true - can I not file myself for free if I make more than $66k/yr? I looked here [1], and it looks like I can? It's still not…

You definitely can, you'll just have to fill out a bunch of complicated forms (accessible via the "Use Free File Fillable Forms" button on the page you linked), which is what you pay your accountant to do, and that anyone has the option to purchase TurboTax software to assist with.

The article leaves this out.

Yes, it would be great if the IRS were able to provide software as slick as Intuit's to assist with this, and it would also be nice if Intuit didn't use so many dark patterns, and at the same time they've built a product that makes self-filing far easier to do correctly than any other option out there.

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