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Killing TurboTax

kunle.app

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Re: Killing TurboTax

#141

Post by edoceo »

numpad0 wrote: post #92
coldpie wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you really screw up[1], or are intentionally trying to screw the IRS[2], you don't have to worry about an audit. The IRS's goal isn't to bring down their wrath upon you, their goal is to accurately collect the taxes they are due. If you pay too little, they'll ask you to pay the difference. If you pay too much, they'll refund it. Really: I once used the single-payer tax table instead of the filing-jointly tax…

I wonder if someone could FOIA their audit software stack and put that up on GitHub and Docker Hub

Generally no. Data you get from FOIA requests is generally limited with what you can do with it. State specific laws, your use-case not withstanding

Re: Killing TurboTax

#142

Post by briga »

mikecarlton wrote: post #130

Don't give turbotax your money. If you want free, high-quality tax prep, consider Credit Karma ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/03/07/when-ta... ) The difference is that they're using your data to target financial products at you (just like any other free service). But they don't sell your data at least.

You realize Intuit owns Credit Karma now, right?

Re: Killing TurboTax

#143

Post by chrisseaton »

motbob wrote: post #80
sgwealti wrote: post #6

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

The IRS can simplify the process, sure. And if you are living alone, have no children, and don't care about taking advantage of any special credits or deductions, then a "file for me" button would be fine. (Though the process for those taxpayers is already in a good place--I filed my taxes for free in about 30 minutes this year.) But if you, say, have children, the IRS will not be able to "file for you" in any meanin…

If you think the IRS aren't able to work out how much tax you need to pay... how do you think they're catching people who don't pay enough tax? They must already know!

Re: Killing TurboTax

#144

Post by ghaff »

runako wrote: post #104
motbob wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IRS can simplify the process, sure. And if you are living alone, have no children, and don't care about taking advantage of any special credits or deductions, then a "file for me" button would be fine. (Though the process for those taxpayers is already in a good place--I filed my taxes for free in about 30 minutes this year.) But if you, say, have children, the IRS will not be able to "file for you" in any meanin…

I came here to write something along these lines. For the simplest cases, filing is free and really easy now. Everyone who needs TurboTax now would need something roughly as complicated until our entire tax regime is overhauled. Adding to the types of really common situations where you do have to provide context the IRS doesn't already have: - side-hustle contracting (IRS doesn't know what expenditures are for the bu…

>- stock sales (your broker may not know your basis)

This used to be a real nightmare especially when there were acquisitions in stock, splits, etc. There were a couple times over the years when I just said F' it and put down a reasonable number.

But these days, unless you have some pretty old investments, the brokerages generally track your basis.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#147

Post by anaclet0 »

I wonder what happened to turbotaxsucksass.com, it was listing a bunch of free alternatives and it mysteriously expired right before tax season began.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#149

Post by kristopolous »

zaychikk wrote: post #124
coldpie wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your taxes are super simple, you can use the IRS's free fillable forms: https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form... You basically type your numbers in and it does the math for you. Then you print it out and mail it in. It can't do anything complex, though. In my experience (Minnesota), state filing is even easier, usually just copying numbers from your federal form and doing one table lookup. N…

Also, if your income is under $72,000 you can use the TurboTax website completely free through the Free File program: https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/browse-all-offers

Use another service on that page, any of them. Turbo tax is full of dark patterns. They're corrupt and dishonest swindlers.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#150

Post by MikeTheGreat »

twiddling wrote: post #70
sgwealti wrote: post #6

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

The intent of certain lawmakers is to make sure that the filing and reporting of taxes is onerous as a lesson about the illegitimacy of government taxation.

I don't suppose those lawmakers are voting to reduce their pay to $0, eliminating their government-provided pensions, or reducing the need for taxes by giving up any of their other benefits, are they?

Otherwise, legitimate or not, that money is going to have to come from taxes somewhere.....

Also, what does onerous have to do with legitimacy? It's like there's two orthogonal axes and they're trying to make taxes painful to convince the populace to dislike taxes, whether the taxation process is legitimate or not.

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