Killing TurboTax

#1

Post by kunle » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

Re: Killing TurboTax

#2

Post by api » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

I gotta say I have a love-hate thing with Turbotax. I hate the company and its influence peddling, lobbying, and near monopoly status, but Turbotax itself is a very well designed product with a great intuitive experience that has done a great job filing taxes.

So it's a rare case of a sleazy state-sanctioned (via refusal to simplify the tax code) monopoly with a decent product. Usually such monopolies have complete shit products because they don't need to care.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#3

Post by breck » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

I started building my own open source US tax engine, but then found https://github.com/ustaxes/UsTaxes here on HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26138446) and decided to throw my efforts with them instead. Check it out!

Re: Killing TurboTax

#4

Post by savanaly » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

I'm not sure I understand how monopolies acquiring their competitors early on in order to be able to maintain their monopoly price works in practice. Wouldn't the eager gaze of startup founders looking to strike their first big score turn like the Eye of Sauron on any such industry? And all the monopoly profits that the monopolist stands to extract would in the medium run hit an equilibrium of zero when balanced against the extractions of the people it's forced to acquire?

Re: Killing TurboTax

#5

Post by aphextron » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

What exactly does everyone have against Turbotax? I use it every year and I love it. Sure I could save a hundred bucks and spend hours filling out IRS worksheets, but I don't want to. They have excellent UX, and serve as a reliable secure cloud repository for all of my financial information. What's the big deal?

Re: Killing TurboTax

#6

Post by sgwealti » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

Or the IRS could file our taxes for us for free.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#7

Post by breck » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 4:49 PM UTC

api wrote: post #2

I gotta say I have a love-hate thing with Turbotax. I hate the company and its influence peddling, lobbying, and near monopoly status, but Turbotax itself is a very well designed product with a great intuitive experience that has done a great job filing taxes. So it's a rare case of a sleazy state-sanctioned (via refusal to simplify the tax code) monopoly with a decent product. Usually such monopolies have complete s…

TurboTax works great, until things get a little too complicated, and it quickly becomes terrible. What is needed is a strongly typed DSL where you can copy and paste your entire tax return as a single text document/spreadsheet.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#8

Post by cratermoon » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 4:49 PM UTC

savanaly wrote: post #4

I'm not sure I understand how monopolies acquiring their competitors early on in order to be able to maintain their monopoly price works in practice. Wouldn't the eager gaze of startup founders looking to strike their first big score turn like the Eye of Sauron on any such industry? And all the monopoly profits that the monopolist stands to extract would in the medium run hit an equilibrium of zero when balanced agai…

Barriers to entry.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#9

Post by toomuchtodo » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 4:49 PM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #5

What exactly does everyone have against Turbotax? I use it every year and I love it. Sure I could save a hundred bucks and spend hours filling out IRS worksheets, but I don't want to. They have excellent UX, and serve as a reliable secure cloud repository for all of my financial information. What's the big deal?

You're paying for a service that should be provided for free by the IRS, as happens in many other developed countries. It's unnecessary financial drag on the economy.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#10

Post by savanaly » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #8

savanaly wrote: post #4

I'm not sure I understand how monopolies acquiring their competitors early on in order to be able to maintain their monopoly price works in practice. Wouldn't the eager gaze of startup founders looking to strike their first big score turn like the Eye of Sauron on any such industry? And all the monopoly profits that the monopolist stands to extract would in the medium run hit an equilibrium of zero when balanced agai…

Barriers to entry.

But it has been acquiring companies, as mentioned in the article. Why didn't those companies face a barrier to entry? Or if they did and it wasn't binding why is it apparently binding to other up and comers?