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Killing TurboTax

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Re: Killing TurboTax

#461

Post by SubiculumCode »

peter303 wrote: post #387
astura wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IRS themselves need to provide this "auto tax" service.

The tax prep industry lobbied Congress to prevent the IRS from auto-tax filing. The compromise was "free filing" for those with median incomes and below. For a majority, W2s, 1099s and the previous years return can provide an auto-filing framework. The IRS would send your their draft and you agree or modify. Other countries do this.

Having the IRS make a tax estimate that you may then contest is very different than making your own tax estimate that the IRS could then contest. Proposals such as this dramatically shifts power towards the IRS.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#462

Post by anoncake »

astura wrote: post #309
bob1029 wrote: post #298

"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-expe…

The IRS themselves need to provide this "auto tax" service.

Or just make their implementation of the tax code public?

Re: Killing TurboTax

#463

Post by maybelsyrup »

kbenson wrote: post #451
maybelsyrup wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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. So let's just nationalize TurboTax.

That would a) never happen in the current US political climate and b) provide enough ammunition to those against such a mode as to be extremely counter-productive towards other social programs that could deal with more government support. In other words, think back on all the talk of Democrat being "socialists" over the recent years and imagine the field day conservatives would have if any national figure mentioned t…

Thanks for your reply. I hear you 100%, and a few years ago your objections would've appeared in my own head were I to have even considered writing what I wrote. I simply wouldn't have written it.

But it's really interesting to me that what you wrote is about the feasibility of the idea and not the idea itself. Of course, you may think it's a shitty idea - and it may indeed be! But I'd claim that it says something really fucked up about America that your first response was what it was: "couldn't ever happen, plus it would hurt what we do have if this were 'mentioned out loud'" instead of "here's why that's a bad idea".

> imagine the field day conservatives would have if any national figure mentioned this as an idea out loud, and how that might be used to shift the balance of power such that other meaningful programs that could deal with additional governmental support and regulation (healthcare) get set back.

"Shhh! Don't say that too loud -- they'll hear you and then take away our nice things!"

My reply to this is that "other meaningful programs" are already being set back with or without talk of currently-insane ideas like nationalizing a ghoulish company like Intuit/TurboTax. They've been getting set back since the 70's at least, and so-called "conservatives" are coming for more! Let's ask George W. Bush, who at the end of what he deemed a successful presidency only regretted that he wasn't able to kill Social Security!! These peoples' mission is to ensure that any vestige of a welfare state in the US is not only erased, but that merely talking about such a thing becomes so ludicrous-sounding that people dismiss it as impossible. It's working!

The other part of this is just this: love him or hate him - and yes, he's not the president - Bernie friggin' Sanders has walked around this country extremely visibly for the past half-decade calling himself a "socialist" in public, advocating for a complete "political revolution" and millions upon millions of Americans heard him and went "actually that doesn't sound so bad".

I believe that the world we live in is one we made. That's scary, because look at this fuckin' place, but it's hopeful too: we can make a different one. If there are obstacles to doing so, so be it -- but our silence, no matter how rational, doesn't need to be one of them.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#464

Post by kennywinker »

yunesj wrote: post #455
kennywinker wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again you're describing something very different from what is being suggested - and this is not a weird experimental theory - MANY countries have deeply complex tax codes and have also implemented an auto-file system where LARGE portions of the population can file in minutes due to a pre-filled return. I've yet to hear any stories where anything like your nightmare scenario has actually happened. Perhaps you would no…

> Many countries have deeply complex tax codes. Can you give an example of any country whose tax code is more than 70k pages long? Or a country where it requires, by default, taxes paid on money earned while living oversees, depending on a large number of international treaties, case law, and expensive private letter rulings? Or a country that requires you to file a different tax return in almost every state you step…

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/29/15109214/t...

> As of 2014, the tax code was only about 2,600 pages long

The usa hardly has a monopoly on tax code complexity. We're talking about personal income tax right now and I can't find a complexity index for that, but for business taxes the usa ranks fairly low on https://www.taxcomplexity.org/

> That’s not a nightmare scenario. That’s just a standard audit.

The "nightmare" scenario was "you recalculate it from scratch, send it to them, and then they audit you." - a scenario you put forward where this improvement to the tax code (auto-filled returns) results in a world where any time your return isn't what they auto-filled you get audited. That sounds bad, but has not happened anywhere where auto-filled returns have been implemented.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#465

Post by tppiotrowski »

astura wrote: post #309
bob1029 wrote: post #298

"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-expe…

The IRS themselves need to provide this "auto tax" service.

My employer didn’t send me a W2 this year which caused me to seek another method to access this information. I created an account on irs.gov and was surprised to find a single PDF for each tax year containing W2’s, 1099Ints, 1099Divs that I assume were given to the IRS on my employers/bankers behalf.

Now it would be great for a tax program to ingest this PDF and auto-populate your tax return. Unfortunately no PDF for 2020 exists yet and it says it might not be available until October? I don’t know if generating this PDF is a slow process or if this information is intentionally withheld until after the tax filing date to make sure you are “honest” on your taxes.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#466

Post by buu700 »

maybelsyrup wrote: post #463
kbenson wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would a) never happen in the current US political climate and b) provide enough ammunition to those against such a mode as to be extremely counter-productive towards other social programs that could deal with more government support. In other words, think back on all the talk of Democrat being "socialists" over the recent years and imagine the field day conservatives would have if any national figure mentioned t…

Thanks for your reply. I hear you 100%, and a few years ago your objections would've appeared in my own head were I to have even considered writing what I wrote. I simply wouldn't have written it. But it's really interesting to me that what you wrote is about the feasibility of the idea and not the idea itself. Of course, you may think it's a shitty idea - and it may indeed be! But I'd claim that it says something re…

Rather than nationalize Intuit, if we take for granted that TurboTax is indeed too complicated a product to efficiently replicate, couldn't the government simply strike a deal to acquire the TurboTax IP?

From there, we'd just shut down or deprecate the original TurboTax service, and launch our rebranded fork as a free government-provided service like healthcare.gov (could call it taxes.gov). That would work as a short-term solution to make taxes easier for everyone, and it would remove lobbyist pressure against implementing long-term improvements like simplifying the tax code and automating everyone's taxes by default.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#467

Post by revscat »

koboll wrote: post #365
trymas wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

Seems like a really easy first step would be for Democrats to pass a bill allocating money for the IRS to build a What You Owe API that banks and companies can access. Then every bank on the planet can implement a "Click to pay your taxes" button. Attack the problem at the source.

Someone would filibuster it. There’s really no hope.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#468

Post by jonahhorowitz »

astura wrote: post #309
bob1029 wrote: post #298

"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-expe…

The IRS themselves need to provide this "auto tax" service.

Ideally there would be a "tax dashboard" on the IRS site where you could log in and see your (YTD): - Income reported - Taxes paid - Tax credits and deductions - Expected balance (+/-)

Then at the end of the year, you'd log in and click one button to verify the numbers and either pay or get a check.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#469

Post by jimmaswell »

carabiner wrote: post #413
codegeek wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. This is primarily not a "software" problem. Unless we simplify our tax codes in the US, tools like turbotax will stay. In fact, to be honest, turbotax was great when I used it last in 2009ish (I know they got acquired by Intuit and have gone downhill due to Intuit ) but the point is that it is overall an excellent software that really makes it easy to calculate and file things based on current tax codes. I wo…

It's still excellent. I just did my taxes in FreeTaxUSA this year for the first time and it's not nearly as good as TT last year. FTU is like manually filling in the IRS PDF's except as webforms, whereas TT imports PDF's and parses everything correctly, leaving you to do a quick scan. FTU is free because it's just a light GUI layer over the 1040 and various Schedule forms.

FTU does at least direct you to the correct forms for your situation, tell you what to do with deductions etc.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#470

Post by enos_feedler »

bob1029 wrote: post #298

"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-expe…

No rule changes needed. Apple is at the point where they are really pushing up against the limits of consumer spending. Spending $140 on TurboTax is a prime target. Thats $140 where a fraction can get funneled back to Apple purchases. It is now worth it for them to make sure iPhone users never reach a TurboTax checkout flow.

Apple is just getting started with finances built right into the iPhone. The credit card is already rolled out, and now comes a built-in bank account that can accept your payroll. This is just too valuable for Apple to pass up. The next step is push-button tax filing. Classic innovator dilemma where you start with basic returns. Think Uber driver.

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