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Killing TurboTax

kunle.app

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Re: Killing TurboTax

#211

Post by wwww4all »

drewg123 wrote: post #93
wwww4all wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because of Grover Norquist and his organization (ironically named Americans for Tax Reform). Their "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" taken by most Republican lawmakers (95% before 2012), locks them into supporting his policies. The problem is that he views any attempt to simplify tax filing just like a tax increase (presumably since people will be less upset about paying their taxes), and uses his influence to lobby again…

The president can simply order IRS to give taxpayers itemized list of taxes and income information they have and the taxes for the year.

If the taxpayer agrees, they can just sign and get refund or pay additional taxes.

If taxpayer disagrees, they can submit additional information.

The Democratic president can do this right now, for this tax year.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#212

Post by vharuck »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #163
edoceo wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The IRS is a US federal agency, though. They can claim no copyright on the code. It should be be public domain.

Unless it was written by a contractor who then gave the copyright to the IRS. This is a very common situation. The federal government is not barred from having copyrights.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#213

Post by vidarh »

anaclet0 wrote: post #147

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

It was set up for Hasan Minhaj's show, and the show was cancelled. Since it was set up right before previous "tax season" I'm assuming they'd just paid for a year.

It's in archive.org, though, e.g. [1], and it's just a static site with a bunch of links.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20210130180334/https://www.turbo...

Re: Killing TurboTax

#214

Post by ndiddy »

agloeregrets wrote: post #110
somehnguy wrote: post #75

TurboTax is disgusting. I used them for a few years in the past due to their great marketing and easy to use website. But they pulled a bait & switch on me last year, at the last minute (after I had done everything) I was required to pay north of $120 to actually file. The problem isn't that they want money to use their software, it's that they're not upfront about it. Free is thrown in your face about 100 times duri…

Thats exactly what I got that I felt like the Article didnt seem to get. Turbo Tax is required to abide by the FreeFile rules. this means that for some customers their software is required to be free. By some customers I mean like 60%. So TurboTax moved to seeing their product as an upsell game, start at free and UHOH! You have to pay us! To that they dont have to be upfront because they 'Didn't know you made too muc…

Another way is how they have two "free" sites: One called "IRS Free File Program by Turbotax" and one called "Turbotax Free Edition". The free file version of Turbotax is only accessible from the IRS free file webpage (they block it from search engine results) and has a limit on annual income, but (as far as I know, I file on paper) it does not have as many upsells as "Turbotax Free Edition", which has a different (higher) annual income limit and gets advertised like crazy by Turbotax. This obviously creates customer confusion and people get tricked into using the wrong version.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#215

Post by [deleted] »

pbronez wrote: post #122
dastx wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that same thread someone mentioned OpenFisca [0], which is used to codify tax law. Have you considering utilising it instead of re-inventing the wheel? [0] https://github.com/openfisca

These projects seems to come at tax policy from very different directions. US Taxes helps you fill out the specific form needed to file your taxes in the United States. OpenFisca helps you model a country's tax policy overall. It would certainly be interesting to connect the two, but I suspect that you'd do that after finishing US Taxes. Specifically, you could take a completed return from US Taxes and transform it i…

[deleted]

Re: Killing TurboTax

#216

Post by wwww4all »

specialist wrote: post #156
wwww4all wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Democrats had filibuster proof senators when Obama was president. They had way more than 50%.

Why did this not happen then?

Re: Killing TurboTax

#217

Post by leephillips »

ISL wrote: post #127
bombcar wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intuit and HR Block lobby against it every year, and the IRS continues to threaten to do it.

It is an unclassified federally-funded document -- as I understand things, it is therefore in the public domain. Because many eyes often make bugs shallow, there is a pretty good chance that a public release of the code will find errors that both find funds that are owed to the government and exonerate people who have been incorrectly billed. What better purpose for the American Fuzzy Lop?

This can’t possibly be true, in general. Work products produced by a contractor from a federally-funded project are not automatically in the public domain. Government-held, unclassified data can be sensitive, proprietary, confidential, or contain private information about citizens. None of this is public domain.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#218

Post by mixmastamyk »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #195
artificialLimbs wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spend a couple hours reading the instructions... lol bro, I'm employed and married with 2 kids. I guess that's considered a partnership. ;)

I used to do it myself when I was a W-2 employee, and I remember spending a few hours on it the first or second year, but after that it’s pretty quick since the process and forms don’t change much. Kids are just a couple credits and maybe a form for dependent care deductions. But I also had a few hours to burn. I understand preferring to spend that time with kids instead. But it is worth noting that it’s a much small…

Yes, and you should understand how it works. That means doing it a few times. Like learning how to multiply before using a calculator.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#219

Post by mixmastamyk »

ndiddy wrote: post #200
lotsofpulp wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know. But if you’ve opened up the IRS free fillable forms website, and put up the accompanying instructions on your second monitor, and know how to read English, I don’t see how it’s difficult, if you’re income is from a W-2. Everything is kind of labeled and laid out for you.

I believe that's only for filing a federal tax return, and for filing your state tax return you still have to either use a tax preparation website or do it on paper.

California has a had a wizard-style site for... I'm not sure a decade or so.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#220

Post by ghaff »

bluGill wrote: post #181
RC_ITR wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but that would require a significant shift away from our current deduction-based approach. Good luck prying that out of the cold dead hands of boomers (and eventually Gen X)

A large part of it has been. The standard deduction is high enough now that most people can't take advantage of the deduction based approach. Of course most tax people will tell you to save all receipts, they will happily charge you to look through them and calculate that they are not big enough to matter. If people knew how simple their taxes really were most people wouldn't be willing to pay as much for it.

I've itemized the past couple of years for various reasons and I have some other complexities. But, yeah, most people--especially if they don't have a mortgage--are just going to take the standard deduction.
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