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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)

#141

Post by burkaman »

kemitche wrote: post #58
mywittyname wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit Karma is free. Works great, and has no discernable dark patterns. They even have import features from major payroll companies like ADP. I had to quit turbotax because one year I was a 1099 worker and every year since, it pushes me to go with their "small business edition." Each year it got harder to avoid "upgrading." Seriously, just do it. Quitting TT is so much easier than quitting anything else.

> Credit Karma is free. That just makes me wonder what Credit Karma is getting out of the deal.

It's extremely up-front, the home page is offers for credit cards and loans and such. It's also explained here: https://www.creditkarma.com/faq/howitworks

In several years of using it, they've never emailed me advertising anything, and while they're obviously sharing my info with credit card companies and banks, I haven't gotten any marketing from them either. If you don't care about the recommendations, as I don't, you can use it for your taxes and never think about it the rest of the year.

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

#142

Post by lotsofpulp »

mellavora wrote: post #139
lotsofpulp wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the reason is because tax software companies pay legislators to make and keep taxes complicated. There is no reason, with the advent of internet and databases, that 90% of people’s taxes can’t be completely automated. Part of the reason is because more tax rules means more loopholes to take advantage of.

In Sweden taxes are fully automated. Has been for years. What makes it possible is a comprehensive national ID system. Which has advantages and disadvantages.

The US also has a comprehensive national ID system. We just happen to get all the disadvantages, without the advantages.

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

#143

Post by technofiend »

jlongr wrote: post #72
minitoar wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn’t intuit acquire credit karma? Will this be the last year of a separate ck tax product?

Square agreed to acquire Credit Karma Tax.

Credit Karma got a lot more snoopy about personal details after Intuit acquired them. They won't get anything else from me until after that merger goes through, because I see no reason to give Intuit any more data than they already have. I moved to H & R Block's Tax Cut more than a decade ago thanks to Intuit doing something horrible I no longer remember.

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

#145

Post by cycomanic »

DavidPeiffer wrote: post #34
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 y…

Here in Sweden I go to the tax office website, log in, have a brief look at that all my salary has been correctly entered (I have yet to encounter that it hasn't) add if I possibly want to deduct some extra things (also very uncomplicated), go to file and click send (the whole thing can even be done on mobile) . The process typically takes 20min max, Australia was quite similar. I'm always amazed by tax systems which seem to be so complicated that you almost always need an accountant (I know my parents in Germany always had one, even though their job did not imply more complex taxes than mine)

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

#146

Post by lotsofpulp »

nineplay wrote: post #74
grayhatter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people think UBI is a good idea, some bad. It's probably fair to say it's both. Simple, easy, and free tax submission is pretty universally believed to be a good thing. Except from lobbyists... that's what I meant to convey. There was also a subtle comment about Us vs Them politically being harmful, where Us vs Them (lobbyists) is likely helpful.

There is a counter-argument, though I'll leave it's plausibility up to the reader. There are a lot of deductions a taxpayer can use that the IRS doesn't know about. Charity donations are probably the most common, but also business expenses and medical expenses. Teachers who spend their own money to buy class supplies could and should be able to submit those receipts and get a deduction. That can't be easily simplifie…

> Teachers who spend their own money to buy class supplies could and should be able to submit those receipts and get a deduction.

No, they shouldn’t. The class supplies should be paid for by the government, not the teacher.

Deductions need to be completely removed, and replaced with cash. Government should have to account for whatever it wants to incentivize.

Also, I think few teachers probably get past the standard deduction amounts in order to make sense for them to itemize everything in order to get a deduction for classroom supplies.

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

#147

Post by JadeNB »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #46
DavidPeiffer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 y…

Why not use the official IRS free file forms?

Does the IRS allow direct e-filing? At least as of last year, it seemed that you still had to go through someone else to file electronically (although the forms are freely available).

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

#148

Post by sixstringtheory »

noodlenotes wrote: post #126
rconti wrote: post #30

Funny anecdote, I've been using TurboTax installable for a decade or so (having given up on doing them completely by hand). Been considering hiring a professional because you always hear that they are worth their weight in gold. (Our tax situation is not particularly complicated though, typical Silicon Valley married homeowners). Well, last year, did everything in turbotax, said we were short by like 15k. Believable,…

BTDT = been there done that Should I feel old if I didn't know that?

I’m well aware of the phrase but have never seen it initialized before.

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

#149

Post by JadeNB »

wernercd wrote: post #109
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your tax situation doesn't change from year to year you don't need to scour the instructions. Just work through the forms using last year's return as a guide.

Except things change from year to year so even if YOU don't change, the underlying tax laws move over time.

And there have been a lot of tax changes recently. Although my personal situation didn't change significantly, the filing experience changed more during the past administration than in the 10 years I'd been filing taxes before that, even though those previous 10 years included multiple moves and changes of jobs, and the purchase of a house.

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

#150

Post by johncessna »

jspaetzel wrote: post #86
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"!

It is possible to ignore a lobbyist, it's still up to political representatives to do right by their constituents.

Politicians rarely know when there is a problem, someone has to tell them there is one. There's where a lobby group comes into play. The danger becomes which one do you believe? You can hear both sides and make a carefully thought out decisions, and then do that for the 10,000 other groups coming to you, but it's a time consuming process.
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