Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit • Hacker News Board

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#281

Post by fooey » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:01 AM UTC

WisNorCan wrote: post #2

Intuit is consistently one of the least ethical actors in tech. They have a monopoly position in many of their products and take advantage of some of the poorest people through misinformation and lobbying. Facebook & Uber have received most of the heat over the past few years. Intuit has strangely avoided the same level of scrutiny.

We compete with a business Intuit acquired, and the Quickbooks online API is blatantly hamstrung to make sure you can't get that kind of data in and out of their systems.

They had published spec'd out endpoints before the acquisition that just never happened. It's outright abuse, and harms their customers, but there's nothing we can do about it.

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#282

Post by stouset » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:02 AM UTC

failwhaleshark wrote: post #251

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…

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?

Do you understand that that's the reality we're saying we want to make happen?

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#283

Post by slt2021 » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:03 AM UTC

I use olt.com to file online taxes and they are much better than intuit and cost like $15 (compare to $100+ turbotax crap). they also provide free file

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#284

Post by colejohnson66 » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:05 AM UTC

adrusi wrote: post #197

chrisseaton wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TurboTax did find about $50 more return for us somehow Don’t you have to sign to say that you’re entitled to that return? How are you doing it if you don’t understand where it’s coming from?

The person paying the taxes is not always expected to understand exactly how the tax code applies to them. IANAL but I think that when you hire a human tax accountant, their saying that your return is legally sufficient for you to testify that you are entitled to your return as filed. I don't know how that would apply to tax software, but I imagine that for purposes that TurboTax is appropriate for, saying "well Turb…

IANAL as well, but you would possibly have a case for a civil lawsuit against TurboTax

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#285

Post by jhgb » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:11 AM UTC

literallyaduck wrote: post #73

callmeal wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://www.atr.org/trump-budget-cuts-irs-funding-239-millio... President Donald Trump's 2018 budget blueprint is out, and it wisely cuts IRS funding by $239 million. Compared to pretty much any metric where increasing their budget will increase tax collection. Mainly because most tax fraud happens where no one is looking. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/want-to-shrink-defic... The number of IRS revenue age…

That doesn't show decades. The tone of the article sets up to divide readers. IRS spends 11 billion, 300 million is barely a speed bump, is the money being spent correctly? IRS has been used as a tool of intimidation and oppression to target political enemies of the ruling oligarchy. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/irs-scandal-fast-fac... They have deep corruption, the tax code needs reform, and justice defer…

Moving the goalposts much? "Nobody's been doing that." "On the contrary, here are some examples." "Yes, but those are justified!"

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#286

Post by DaiPlusPlus » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:15 AM UTC

novok wrote: post #129

whoisjuan wrote: post #39

Already said in this thread, but I think it's ridiculous that when people think about abusive big tech, they never think about Intuit. Their business is literally the idea of creating friction in federal and local tax systems so they can extort people in exchange of removing some of those synthetic frictions (emphasis on "some"). A sinister business model in every possible way.

Intiuit is medium-large tech, like a twitter, ebay, paypal, square, uber, etc. Also they pay crap and the work is uninteresting which is why nobody focuses on them.

> Also they pay crap

Do they even employ any sizable number of IC SWEs in the US, or are they all Leads/M2s that manage outsourced contracts?

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#287

Post by usaar333 » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:16 AM UTC

EamonnMR wrote: post #104

krferriter wrote: post #12

Given how much H&R Block and Intuit have unethically and corruptly leeched from the government and the taxpayers directly, I think the should literally be nationalized and have their tax software platforms absorbed into the IRS. Their company activities over the last few decades are so flagrantly, indisputably bad for the country. There's literally no upside, none at all. They have intentionally sabotaged tax filing…

Every weird tax rule that makes your tax filing harder is a tax break for someone and that person will fight to keep it.

Not really. All of the investment tax pain I deal with yearly exists to prevent some sort of loophole someone exploited in the past.

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#288

Post by usaar333 » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:18 AM UTC

caseyross wrote: post #28

What's telling is that TurboTax's UX is really, really, good, deceptive pricing aside. Like, so good I almost enjoy using it to do my taxes. The very fact that Intuit has clearly invested money into making a beautiful interface for a tax program, a program that people use once a year , just goes to show how profitable the current arrangement is for them, and how determined they are to keep the average taxpayer from s…

Have to disagree. It's overly optimized for getting every tax deduction over speed and the result is most users wasting tons of time.

Example: I know every year there is no way my itemized deductions will exceed the standard deduction. But there is no clear way to tell TurboTax to stop wasting my time on itemized deductions.

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#289

Post by maxwell » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:32 AM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #193

bestcoder69 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allowing “nationalization” to remain a dirty word (and not “privatization”) is a much bigger gift. Why should it be off the table? Does the average person even give a shit about the public/private status of Intuit? I get conservatives will complain but they will (and do) literally call ANY improvement to the IRS Communism. Is the hope that if you play language games they’ll see the light?

I guess it would be easier and better to just strangle them by simplifying the tax code, sending pre-filled returns to everyone and making a simple and accessible web app for people to file theit taxes with a few clicks. Intuit aren't alone in this scheme. There must be people who think taxes should be complex and scary, so would be against making it easy and convenient. What I wonder though is: aren't there any such…

No, restructuring the tax code, send out millions of physical mailers, and building multi-million dollar web apps would not be easier than Uncle Sam acquiring the assets and running Intuit like the USPS, i.e. Congress only sets pricing.

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#290

Post by NineStarPoint » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:37 AM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #256

oneplane wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The difference is that Intuit also throws money in directions that make sure they get heard.

If the CEO of Intuit (or a representative of Intuit) just called the same phone line the rest of us get, sure there wouldn’t be a difference there. Even if the representatives were calling on Inuit from their side because they believed Intuit has relevant insights into the tax code, that would be fine. But that’s not what’s happening. It’s the way political donations buy access to representatives attention in ways that the non-rich don’t have access to that people take issue with.