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Killing TurboTax

kunle.app

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Re: Killing TurboTax

#151

Post by ehsankia »

JanSolo wrote: post #29

This has already been done successfully in Canada. A small team from Vancouver built a pay-what-you-want web-based tax-filing system from scratch. It's called SimpleTax and it's already a major competitor to the Canadian version of TurboTax. In fact, it was so successful that it was recently acquired by Canadian investment group WealthSimple.

No wonder I've been seeing so much ads about WealthSimple tax. It's literally every other ad on TikTok for the past 2 months. That and every other WealthSimple app (trade, invest, etc).

Re: Killing TurboTax

#152

Post by tallanvor »

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…

Unfortunately TurboTax falls flat if you have a complex return. They "support" forms 1116 and 2555, but it's clear that they didn't put any real time into making sure they do the calculations correctly. Long story short, I got a check from the IRS for almost $1000 because TurboTax computed what I owed incorrectly.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#153

Post by lotsofpulp »

chrisseaton wrote: post #112
xrd wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> please don't use this software to file your taxes for the 2020 / 2021 tax season. I wonder if there is a PR that Intuit filed to add this to the readme. Seriously, I wonder how much money Intuit has spent to terrify people into using their software. Each year, I look around for alternatives so I can avoid giving them money, and each year I find some reason to grow fearful of an IRS audit and go with the company tha…

> Each year, I look around for alternatives so I can avoid giving them money Why not pay an accountant? Why is everyone trying to do their own taxes? By the time you've spent a couple of hours looking for alternatives... you might as well have just paid a professional to do it!

It’s pretty simple to do your own taxes unless you have your own business and partnerships and whatnot.

Spend a couple hours reading the instructions, use the IRS free fillable forms website, and you do it once and every year after it’s quick and easy. Things don’t change much year to year. If you don’t understand, post a question a personal finance forum and someone will pipe in with an answer.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#154

Post by bluGill »

glial wrote: post #66
xrd wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> please don't use this software to file your taxes for the 2020 / 2021 tax season. I wonder if there is a PR that Intuit filed to add this to the readme. Seriously, I wonder how much money Intuit has spent to terrify people into using their software. Each year, I look around for alternatives so I can avoid giving them money, and each year I find some reason to grow fearful of an IRS audit and go with the company tha…

I have used TaxAct successfully for the last several years and they're great. (just a happy customer)

I've been using TaxAct for years, but I'm not sure they are better. They have every incentive to lobby with TurboTax to make sure it is hard to file taxes without help.

I'm tempted to go back to paper forms. It wasn't hard, just annoying the one time I forgot to copy line 13 of form 1234 to line 43d of form 5678 and then had to amend my state filings.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#155

Post by chrisseaton »

motbob wrote: post #126
kleer001 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right now, the system we have is pretty good. Not compared to other countries it isn't. Not by a long shot. Video with transcript below: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/dreading-taxes-countries-s... Get the heck out of here with your bull pucky

Maybe it's "bull pucky" to you, but I have vivid memories of my parents agonizing over taxes as a child. The agony they went through is much ameliorated now due to advances in technology. And thank you for the link, but this news segment basically is big on opinion, low on specifics. Feel free to link me to a detailed article on how non-U.S. countries handle self-employment or dependent tax issues and whether/how tho…

Most importantly, most countries do it by simply having much higher thresholds for complicated tax rules applying to you.

In the UK quite a few people don't pay any tax at all, and the vast majority don't pay enough tax to have to file any return.

What impact does a dependent have on your tax that needs to make it so complicated? I have relatively complicated taxes due to two jobs and some unusual deductions, but having a child doesn't really have any impact on my tax return in the UK.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#156

Post by specialist »

wwww4all wrote: post #79
jounker wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the solution. We can already do this. A pilot program was run. The problem is that the anti tax wing of the Republican party and Turbotax are actively opposed. Instead of developing software, we should be writing our representatives.

Democrats have the entire government now, President, senate and the house. Democrats had filibuster proof majority when Obama was president. Why are you just blaming Republicans?

It's true that the Democratic caucuses, both federal and state level, are much harder to hold together. Every year there's a bill in my state to reign in pay day lenders. Basically banning usury level interest rates on loans. Overwhelming popular support (~80%) and editorial support.

And every year there's a "blue dog" Democrat living in a purple district which bends to the pro pay day loan lobbyists.

Vetocracy is a tough problem. Our civic legacy is to fear the mob, tyranny of the majority. (Thanks Plato.) So it's rare that mere popular support ( >60%) is sufficient to attain progress.

So, to your point, mere 50% + 1 vote ain't ever enough.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#157

Post by chrisseaton »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #153
chrisseaton wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Each year, I look around for alternatives so I can avoid giving them money Why not pay an accountant? Why is everyone trying to do their own taxes? By the time you've spent a couple of hours looking for alternatives... you might as well have just paid a professional to do it!

It’s pretty simple to do your own taxes unless you have your own business and partnerships and whatnot. Spend a couple hours reading the instructions, use the IRS free fillable forms website, and you do it once and every year after it’s quick and easy. Things don’t change much year to year. If you don’t understand, post a question a personal finance forum and someone will pipe in with an answer.

> It’s pretty simple to do your own taxes

So why do people complain about it so much? To the point where they're writing their own custom software (?!) to do it?

Re: Killing TurboTax

#158

Post by brocket »

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.

Now it's the same company unfortunately. Intuit completed their acquisition of Credit Karma in Dec, 2020.

https://investors.intuit.com/news/news-details/2020/Intuit-C...

Re: Killing TurboTax

#159

Post by rencire »

breck wrote: post #3

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!

Cool to see more open software in this space. Curious to know if there are any plans/efforts in leveraging the work done in http://opentaxsolver.sourceforge.net/ to handle more use cases. Maybe ustaxes can be a nice frontend to some of the tax logic in opentaxsolver?

Re: Killing TurboTax

#160

Post by bluGill »

ISL wrote: post #134
Thrymr wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How useful is the computation code though? The computations themselves for the cells on a 1040 form are not that complicated and well documented in the instructions. The hard part is getting all the right numbers into the source boxes.

Somehow, the IRS compares the tax return I submit with what they expected. It is that entire machinery that is in the public interest to be visible and audited by the public.

You can't FOIA the data they use for your taxes. They have your W2 data, and it was sent to you, but they won't give it to you.
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