Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

propublica.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 319 posts

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

#301

Post by Mountain_Skies »

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…

I ran into that this year. After declining all of the mid return attempts to get me to upgrade to the paid service, when I got to the very end it told me that since I had purchased health insurance on the government marketplace for part of the year that I'd have to pay extra for that form. I went with Credit Karma instead. Turns out that my taxes weren't affected at all by my health insurance situation. Between the cost of the Deluxe version and now being required to pay for state filing, they wanted $67. I know they think these "free" offerings are a way to dissuade Congress from having the IRS offer tax filing directly but these games aren't helping their cause any.

Credit Karma was free for filing both state and federal though they did make two attempts to get me to install Cash App, both of which I declined.

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

#302

Post by Mountain_Skies »

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.

When I did my taxes through them, at the start they offered to transfer my data into Cash App. The wording was a bit shady as it wasn't clear what Cash App is or if it was part of the tax prep process or not. I already knew what Cash App is so I declined but I could see some people getting confused. At the end it also offered to load my refund into a Cash App account "in days instead of weeks", making it essentially a refund anticipation loan. The wording on that one was much more clear and I declined.

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

#303

Post by s1artibartfast »

kristopolous wrote: post #293
s1artibartfast wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the major challenges with the US system is that the central authorities do not have much of the individual tax information all submitted and processed in advance of the individual taxes. The individual then has to to incorporate this information and file it. Sometimes individuals get amended taxTax information from their income sources and then have to re-file. The central authorities cross check on the backen…

No. This is not correct. https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre... California piloted a pre-filled tax return system (similar to Sweden and Australias, that the OP was talking about) called ReadyReturn in 2005 with 51,000 people. Intuit then spent $3 million to smash it. They lobbied and then sued the state to stop the program. They are also profoundly incompetent technologists. There's an entir…

I hear what you are saying about the problems with the current system being fraught with problems, and there being a total gap in a government provided service.

That said, there are a lot of challenges to such a program.

Ready return was limited to people who were single, no-dependents, standard-deduction, only-wage-income, one-employer, with a maximum adjusted gross income of $139,917

This is great for a number of people and should exist!

That said, if you fall into this category, your 1040 should take 15 minutes to file by paper.

Where automated systems break down is handling more complex scenarios. Selection of deductions, pass through business income and losses, charitable donations, corporate investment vehicles, ect.

Many of this things require individuals to make choices at the time of filing. This is challenging to automate.

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

#304

Post by at_a_remove »

tgb wrote: post #196
at_a_remove wrote: post #83

I am a chump who uses TurboTax every year. Having seen a few cases of the IRS going after someone I knew, I just pay the danegeld. Perhaps I do not need TurboTax, but I know that the laws at the state and federal level change every year and that I have no real ability to track any of this, but the penalties can be high for failure. I rarely understand tax jargon, in any case; I always feel like I am on the back foot…

What does "IRS going after" mean here? I've been filling my taxes by hand, and back when I used some "free" online thing, I had problems multiple times and the IRS basically just sent me a bill saying what I owed and I payed it. (Doing it myself has proven more reliable.) Contrary to popular belief, it's not a crime to make a mistake on your taxes. So what happened that you're so concerned about?

An example, from this year: a friend received a letter from the IRS. They were about to levy something in the order of ten thousand dollars. I will mention that the tax return that year had been prepared by a family friend of theirs who worked for the IRS. I have no further details at the moment.

Perhaps you are not fussed by the prospect, but I do not ever want to get a letter from the IRS telling me I need to pay them ten thousand dollars.

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

#305

Post by mixmastamyk »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #303
kristopolous wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. This is not correct. https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre... California piloted a pre-filled tax return system (similar to Sweden and Australias, that the OP was talking about) called ReadyReturn in 2005 with 51,000 people. Intuit then spent $3 million to smash it. They lobbied and then sued the state to stop the program. They are also profoundly incompetent technologists. There's an entir…

I hear what you are saying about the problems with the current system being fraught with problems, and there being a total gap in a government provided service. That said, there are a lot of challenges to such a program. Ready return was limited to people who were single, no-dependents, standard-deduction, only-wage-income, one-employer, with a maximum adjusted gross income of $139,917 This is great for a number of p…

It's not challenging at all. I did taxes in NZ for a contract once. You do make a few choices if you want add some exemptions to save money, but it doesn't amount to much either way.

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

#306

Post by grayhatter »

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…

That's a cute little example, but it's really not at all convincing. How many hundreds of thousands of people have to pay some tax company to file their taxes just so a few teachers who have more deductions than the standard deduction can pay for the privilege of some software to make it a tiny bit easier?

Then, why wouldn't the IRS be able to offer that same functionality? The whole idea that "the IRS can't know" about this type of deduction feels like a lie to me, but I don't know enough to be sure.

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

#307

Post by grayhatter »

nineplay wrote: post #257
lotsofpulp wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I think you are right, my point more that until we have revamped our school systems so that teachers do not have to purchase extra expenses, the tax code remains unfortunately complicated. A lot of the blame goes ( justifiably ) at private companies and their lobbyists, but even without these vested interests there's a lot of complexity that cannot be easily removed

That whole argument of the teachers need a complicated tax code is cancerous. There's an easy way I'm happy to solve it with. If you're a public school teacher, you can skip paying taxes. You already aren't paid well enough, this ones on us.

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

#308

Post by grayhatter »

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…

Because lobbyists aren't advocating for something that the constituents the representative supposedly works for. They're advocating something that a corporation, likely not even within the district or state wants.

As an example why can't I who don't live in your state go to your representative and get him to act in my best interests? Why would it be wrong for your representative to act in my interest instead of yours?

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

#309

Post by grayhatter »

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.

I agree with your conclusion, but not your premise. As a politician it could be very dangerous to simply ignore a lobbyist.

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

#310

Post by BeetleB »

nostrademons wrote: post #287
BeetleB wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've dealt with the IRS. It was a major pain. Ridiculous pain. They were contesting some education credits some years after graduation. Showed proof of payments to the university, but they responded with "Well how do we know you were paying for education - you could have been paying for things like parking?" They kept saying "Send us this doc and you'll be good." We'd get the doc, send it to them, and they'd say it's…

Also had to deal with the IRS over education credits and capital gains. It is a pain, and can be stressful, but ultimately I found that the IRS was fair, bureaucratic, and professional. I think that the most important thing to remember when dealing with any government or financial institution is to keep paper records of everything . For our education credit dispute, we had my wife's transcript and receipt for tuition…

Well, I had a record that I had paid the university, just not the receipt that said that the payment was for tuition and not parking.

I generally do keep paper records. For this case, both the university and a tax accountant told me what I had submitted is all that is needed. There's a reason the university gives you a tax form every year. Saying I should keep more records is like the IRS coming to you and not accepting your employer's W-2 form and wanting additional proof of your wages. Did you happen to save your biweekly payslips?

For standard deductions/credits (of which education is a common one), I do think it is the responsibility of the IRS to come up with a simple system to show it, like they already do for the W-2. The tax statement the university provides should suffice - what else is it for?

As for professionalism: They were calm and courteous, but I do not think being told "If you can show X it will be sufficient", and then not accepting X when I provide it to them is professional. This happened twice for the education credit issue. X wasn't some vague general idea, but a very specific document. They literally said "If you can show a bank statement showing payments to the university that will be enough" and then refused to accept it when I provided it to them (switching to "Yes, but how do we know it wasn't for parking?"). It should have been obvious at the outset that the bank statement would not have this information.

Post reply on HN