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Killing TurboTax

kunle.app

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Re: Killing TurboTax

#221

Post by nightski »

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.

The IRS does have income information, but they do not have deduction information. Deductions are mainly where any form of complexity comes in. Without deductions taxes are super easy.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#222

Post by totaldude87 »

Ok am curious.

Why people hate TurboTax so much ? Is it because its a monopoly (or) does it uses any predatory practices (or) kill other companies that tries to compete.

Disclosure: I used TurboTax to file this year's taxes and kind of like their UI and ease of use (for top $ of course):|

Re: Killing TurboTax

#223

Post by trishume »

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.

For people who haven't used it: SimpleTax just absolutely nails UI quality, it's so nice and smooth that every year I've used them I've been done in under 15 minutes (other than time spent double-checking because it can't have possible been that easy) and come away so grateful for their existence that I gladly throw money at them. One year the Canadian Revenue Agency even introduced a new API that lets SimpleTax pre-fill most of the information like employment income from the stuff the CRA has on file.

I've since moved to the US and I'm dreading doing my taxes using probably TurboTax for the first time this year. At least it probably won't be as bad as previous years when I had to file non-resident US taxes for internships, where you can't even use TurboTax and have to use Glacier or TaxAct, which were terrible compared to SimpleTax.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#224

Post by nightski »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #174
wheybags wrote: post #167

Something I never understood about us taxes - from reading discussions online, it seems like everyone needs to file taxes at the end of every year? Here it's only self employed, or people with rental or investment income. In a normal employer-employee relationship, the employer has to take care of it for you, they deduct taxes before sending the money to your account. This seems to be the way it works in most places,…

Correct. Companies like Intuit lobby the government to keep complex tax codes so they can provide services that make it easy.

While that may be true, the reality is a lot of the complexity comes from deductions to handle people's "special" situations and needs.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#225

Post by legitster »

I just want to point out that this article is using a really bad definition of monopoly. There are about a dozen if not more ways to file taxes, and just because one is the most most popular and gets a bigger slice on the bell curve doesn't mean it has a monopoly.

It bugs me a little because I keep seeing the definition of monopoly becoming less and less meaningful.

I think the argument, if anything is the opposite: there are dozens of tax filing software, they all more or less do the same thing, and all the resources get wasted on marketing against each other. So I think I would prefer an actual monopoly! And if the government won't make it, why not make an open source one that can drive the for-profit ones out of business!

Re: Killing TurboTax

#226

Post by astrea »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #174
wheybags wrote: post #167

Something I never understood about us taxes - from reading discussions online, it seems like everyone needs to file taxes at the end of every year? Here it's only self employed, or people with rental or investment income. In a normal employer-employee relationship, the employer has to take care of it for you, they deduct taxes before sending the money to your account. This seems to be the way it works in most places,…

Correct. Companies like Intuit lobby the government to keep complex tax codes so they can provide services that make it easy.

They don't lobby to make the tax code itself more complex, they just lobby to be the only providers of such services: https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...

Re: Killing TurboTax

#228

Post by compiler-guy »

chrisseaton wrote: post #143
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…

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!

They don't already know. Sometimes they have suspicions, and then perform an audit, or request more information about a particular detail, by which they get the information they might need.

Only then do they actually know.

For example, you yourself may have filed with the status, "Married, filing separately", but the other person in your relationship may have filed with the status, "Single".

The IRS has no idea who is right without actually talking to the two of you. And because they don't know which status is correct, they don't know how much each of you owe.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#229

Post by jedberg »

In case you're wondering how they justify keeping the system the way it is, the going line is, "If you allowed auto-filing taxes, the government will sneak in new taxes that you'd never even know about!!"

The other argument I've heard is, "it should be painful to file taxes, to make people support the idea of getting rid of taxes".

Re: Killing TurboTax

#230

Post by jrgaston »

Seems to me that for a lot of people, maybe the majority, the government already has all your tax data and you shouldn't need to file, only accept the government's numbers. I am in the opposite situation, especially as I have to file in two countries. Not living in the US doesn't give you a pass on filing US taxes. I get to buy two different versions of TurboTax :-( We don't worry much about a US audit (some say the IRS is starved for funding by anti-tax politicos?) whereas in our other country they quickly catch even the smallest error.
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