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Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

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Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#251

Post by failwhaleshark »

stouset wrote: post #200
throwaway413 wrote: post #192

All of the people supercritical of Intuit in this thread make me wonder, do they think the government would truly be providing a service on par with TurboTax? When has the government ever done Internet right…looking at you, Healthcare.gov. $90 bucks a year to ensure your taxes are right, with a streamlined interface that almost anyone can follow, that returns you back significant value in time and tax return… Intuit…

The government literally already computes the number they expect you to owe. It's how they send you a letter if your own calculations come up short (or long, in which case they will in fact contact you to issue you a refund). If the government simply sends you their calculations ( which they are already computing anyway ) and you disagree, you would still be able to file an amended return with a company like TurboTax…

Every other government in the world doesn't have corrupt leadership, corrupt and unfair tax codes. If taxes were straightforward, then why would anyone have to compute them manually except for edge-cases, which a government representative could assist with?

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#252

Post by oneplane »

chrisseaton wrote: post #215
oneplane wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps from a US-centric perspective. I don't know for a fact if a company or non-person is universally allowed to direct the facility that is the government to do something or not do something everywhere in the world.

Lobbying isn't directing the government. It's presenting your point of view to the government. What the government does with the information you give them is then up to them but sometimes they're obligated to show they've considered it. It's a super-basic part of democracy everywhere. It's usually a right and also actively encouraged through consultation periods while legislation is drafted. I can't understand anyone…

I think you have missed the point so many times it's hard to come up with a number...

Intuit isn't a person, it didn't vote and it has no place telling the government what to do for the people. A company has no opinions, only a bottom line and in many lobbying cases a bunch a shareholders. A government isn't a company and doesn't need to have financial gain, it needs to support the collective people of the country it governs.

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#253

Post by failwhaleshark »

throwaway413 wrote: post #201
stouset wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government literally already computes the number they expect you to owe. It's how they send you a letter if your own calculations come up short (or long, in which case they will in fact contact you to issue you a refund). If the government simply sends you their calculations ( which they are already computing anyway ) and you disagree, you would still be able to file an amended return with a company like TurboTax…

To be honest, I don’t know much at all about how taxes work in other countries, including those at or greater than the population scale of the US. It’s a good point, I will learn more about it. Regarding the first point. You trust the government to do that for you? Genuinely asking. I have no stance formed on that yet.

Most Scandinavian countries compute taxes for you. If you approve of the government calculations, it's easy to finalize it.

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#254

Post by CRConrad »

avalys wrote: post #222
fleddr wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to give a counter example here: In my country (Netherlands), the IRS itself provides the software. Once a year, you download and run it. Everything is prefilled: income from work, bank accounts, mortgages. So if you're a boring, financially stable person, the entire process is literally next -> next -> next -> submit. Filling out tax forms is not a value-add economic activity, so I have no idea why you'd insist…

Your question is, why isn't the federal government of the United States, a country of 330M people, as efficient and effective as the government of the Netherlands, a country of 17M people? Large organizations are less efficient than small organizations. This is true even in private enterprise. Large bloated, centralized government bureaucracies are the most inefficient of all. Part of the "classic American anti-gover…

> Your question is, why isn't the federal government of the United States, a country of 330M people, as efficient and effective as the government of the Netherlands, a country of 17M people?

Holy fuck, can't you Yanks just fucking stop pulling this idiotic non-argument out of your arses every time a comparison with any other country is made?!?

Sure, your pool of people to be taxed is X times bigger than some other country... But your pool of people who could be tax administrators IS ALSO exactly X times bigger than theirs! Holy fucking fuck, how stupid does one have to be not to see that?!?

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#255

Post by slg »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #204
slg wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How do you propose to garner support to fix the system without drawing attention to the bad actors? Is there any evidence that drawing attention to bad actors actually garners political support to fix this? Look at the comments here, almost everyone is talking about the problems with Intuit and not how to fix this systemically. What we need is grassroots political change. This specific issue regarding tax prep is a…

>> What we need is grassroots political change. I'd argue that someone drawing attention to specific bad actors is implicitly saying "stop these people from doing this" which is far more actionable than your generic "What we need is wide-spread, bipartisan support for change". What am I supposed to do with that?

>I'd argue that someone drawing attention to specific bad actors is implicitly saying "stop these people from doing this"

Exactly, but people focus on the "these people" rather than the "doing this". Why stop this single actor when we can stop anyone from "doing this".

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#256

Post by chrisseaton »

oneplane wrote: post #252
chrisseaton wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lobbying isn't directing the government. It's presenting your point of view to the government. What the government does with the information you give them is then up to them but sometimes they're obligated to show they've considered it. It's a super-basic part of democracy everywhere. It's usually a right and also actively encouraged through consultation periods while legislation is drafted. I can't understand anyone…

I think you have missed the point so many times it's hard to come up with a number... Intuit isn't a person, it didn't vote and it has no place telling the government what to do for the people. A company has no opinions, only a bottom line and in many lobbying cases a bunch a shareholders. A government isn't a company and doesn't need to have financial gain, it needs to support the collective people of the country it…

What do you think is the difference between Intuit lobbying and a representative of Intuit lobbying?

If the CEO of Intuit phones their representative and says they think some change to the tax code is bad that's lobbying and that's fine to me.

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#257

Post by avalys »

CRConrad wrote: post #254
avalys wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question is, why isn't the federal government of the United States, a country of 330M people, as efficient and effective as the government of the Netherlands, a country of 17M people? Large organizations are less efficient than small organizations. This is true even in private enterprise. Large bloated, centralized government bureaucracies are the most inefficient of all. Part of the "classic American anti-gover…

> Your question is, why isn't the federal government of the United States, a country of 330M people, as efficient and effective as the government of the Netherlands, a country of 17M people? Holy fuck, can't you Yanks just fucking stop pulling this idiotic non-argument out of your arses every time a comparison with any other country is made?!? Sure, your pool of people to be taxed is X times bigger than some other co…

Do you think “add more administrators” is the correct solution to every problem?

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#258

Post by CRConrad »

runawaybottle wrote: post #16
azinman2 wrote: post #11

Intuit is a perfect example to me of the flawed reality in a libertarian ideology. We know they’re terrible, we know their products aren’t great… yet where are all the meaningful competitors? People who are at least meeting their bar if not substantially exceeding it? It’s not like this is a new industry that takes time to bake. Where are the YC startups trying to take them on? Meanwhile they continue to make live ex…

I think their software is good and I usually have a very easy time filing taxes. In comparison, I remember filling out my FAFSA application and that being long ordeal. I don’t think government has the willingness to create a seamless tax-filing experience. Who is stopping the IRS from making a competing easy to use tax filing website? Are people suggesting Intuit is stopping a good product team from operating within…

> Who is stopping the IRS from making a competing easy to use tax filing website? Are people suggesting Intuit is stopping a good product team from operating within the IRS?

How about reading TFA before commenting on it? This is literally exactly what it's about.

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#259

Post by slg »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #207
slg wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said we need to leave the bad actors out of the narrative. I am simply talking about not placing the blame on them. It is the equivalent of a blameless postmortem. We are in a constant cycle of firing interns for pushing costly bugs into production without ever wondering why we are allowing interns to push to production without supervision. We just fire the intern and think the problem is fixed. We have learn…

Would you fire an intern who intentionally and repeatedly pushed broken code to production because for whatever reason it was in their best interest? We fire bad actors all the time.

My main goal would be to understand how an intern could intentionally and repeatedly pushed broken code to production. Fixing that is more important than punishing the individual. A broken/corrupt system will do more damage over the long term than an rogue individual because a well designed system won't give a single individual with little experience that much control.

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#260

Post by dragonwriter »

CRConrad wrote: post #254
avalys wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question is, why isn't the federal government of the United States, a country of 330M people, as efficient and effective as the government of the Netherlands, a country of 17M people? Large organizations are less efficient than small organizations. This is true even in private enterprise. Large bloated, centralized government bureaucracies are the most inefficient of all. Part of the "classic American anti-gover…

> Your question is, why isn't the federal government of the United States, a country of 330M people, as efficient and effective as the government of the Netherlands, a country of 17M people? Holy fuck, can't you Yanks just fucking stop pulling this idiotic non-argument out of your arses every time a comparison with any other country is made?!? Sure, your pool of people to be taxed is X times bigger than some other co…

You seem to make the mistake of not realizing that our pool of people who post stupid arguments is also X times bigger.
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