Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Killing TurboTax

kunle.app

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 692 posts

Re: Killing TurboTax

#291

Post by shortstuffsushi »

d1zzy wrote: post #236
lotsofpulp wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unless you have your own business and partnerships and whatnot. IDK about that. As a non-resident alien for tax purposes for a couple of years I couldn't use any of the existing software (TurboTax, etc). I even tried to contact a tax accounting firm like HRBlock and they had no idea about things I needed to file that I discovered on my own reading the IRS publications. So I d…

> As a non-resident alien for tax purposes

It seems like you are (were) a good candidate for a more comprehensive service for sure. Perhaps a better wording would have been "it's pretty simple as a resident and (W-2) employee," which encompasses the majority of those filing, and who probably don't need a service like TurboTax or an accountant.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#292

Post by snikeris »

xrd wrote: post #55
ed25519FUUU wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just thinking that an open-source tax engine is the way to go in the future. I would like to see it maintained by the USGOV.

> 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 use this:

https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...

If you’re reading Hacker News, you can probably figure it out.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#293

Post by breck »

chrisseaton wrote: post #250
breck wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not pay an accountant? Complexity covers corruption. Why not just pay the nice mafia boss the protection money, and stop complaining? First and foremost, it's a matter of principle. It's just not right to have the tax code written in the way it is written. It is written by special interests. If we all just said "complexity is no problem, we'll all just pay a small fee to accountants", not only will that "small…

> My tax returns should be a single text document that I can keep in git and copy/paste/update each year. But why do you even need a tax return? Most countries don't need it for the vast majority of people. Why does the US?

I 100% agree with you. I think it creates lots of weird artefacts. I really like the continuous nature of the crypto world and smart contracts, and think the world will slowly pay off the technical debt of wierd arbitrary schedules and move to a smoother, simple, more transparent system.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#294

Post by EvanAnderson »

ohyeshedid wrote: post #287
EvanAnderson wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a fun legal rabbit hole to descend into.

I don't know about fun, but it would definitely be expensive.

"Fun" from a research perspective. (I've got friends who are IP lawyers and enjoy talking about this stuff.)

Re: Killing TurboTax

#295

Post by [deleted] »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #239
motbob wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you are a simple family where everyone is biologically related and living together, then things are pretty simple in the end. The issues come up with mixed families, divorced parents, etc. As for the dollar values, if you make $30,000 and have 2 kids, you can usually get a $6,000 tax credit or more. The U.S.'s support for working low-income families is carried out through the tax system. Put another way, tax…

Not a problem, you enter dependents into the wizard, and take them out when/if they move out. No matter the situation, they accept your word for it. If an audit occurs you will have to prove things with documentation and be held liable for mistakes or fraud. It's basically a five-minute task that you appear to believe should make tax filing take hours? I did taxes once in NZ, you go to a website where they have all t…

[deleted]

Re: Killing TurboTax

#296

Post by trymas »

lolsal wrote: post #282

TurboTax's offering is not just about literally filing my taxes. It's about managing risk that I'm not botching my filing in the form of missing something entirely, mis-filing, or leaving deductions on the table. Even if submitting forms online is entirely free, I'm willing to pay SOMETHING to make sure SOMEONE ELSE is responsible for making sure it goes well. I pay accountants for this for this exact reason. I'm sur…

It's a racket. Government already knows how much you owe them. So how about US government, like most modern countries, send you a form which says: "we think you owe us xxx$ (because of this and that), if not - provide extra information"?

Re: Killing TurboTax

#297

Post by lolsal »

ianlevesque wrote: post #286
lolsal wrote: post #282

TurboTax's offering is not just about literally filing my taxes. It's about managing risk that I'm not botching my filing in the form of missing something entirely, mis-filing, or leaving deductions on the table. Even if submitting forms online is entirely free, I'm willing to pay SOMETHING to make sure SOMEONE ELSE is responsible for making sure it goes well. I pay accountants for this for this exact reason. I'm sur…

I get what you're saying, and I use it for the same reason, but as far as "SOMEONE ELSE is responsible" they do a really great job in the ToS making sure they legally really aren't responsible in any way. It's a great racket.

I understand (and agree that it's a racket), but even so, it was worth something to me even when I was filing 1040EZs.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#298

Post by bob1029 »

"Killing TurboTax" is essentially a meme until we meaningfully simplify the tax code.

There is no software development team on earth who could catch up with the full capabilities of TurboTax without some sort of fundamental shift in the business. I really hate to say this as someone who makes a living out of it, but dealing with the current amount of complexity in the tax code with a piece of software that a non-expert could use is virtually impossible.

For the happy path (i.e. single individual, no dependents, no investments, no retirement, rents home), you could certainly build an application that handles these scenarios. The moment you factor in individuals who are bringing stock sales, multiple investment properties, ownerships/K1s and other complex scenarios to bear, its a different hellscape altogether.

Also don't forget that most states have their own independent tax codes as well, which further complicate matters. There's difficulty multipliers all over this problem domain, and you can be certain that the lobbyists employed by Intuit, et. al. are encouraging this.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#299

Post by snikeris »

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!

The last time I tried to use a professional, he asked me so many questions that I haven’t used one since.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#300

Post by ldbooth »

This sounds like a great project once the US revises it's tax code. And a lot of wasted of time should it be revised to incorporate digital tools available today (like Mint transaction categorization). It's unlikely to be revised in the near term, but I have hope that throuh some bad economic or social upheaval, we may see some appetite to increase US GDP in a real way and decrease the wealth disparity by simplifying tax filing in a real way.
Post reply on HN