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Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

pluralistic.net

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Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#311

Post by chrisseaton »

oneplane wrote: post #291
chrisseaton wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not about what I "think" the difference is. The difference is, in fact, that a company is not a person. And a person doing something in the name of the company or as a representative of the company is not acting as a person either, but as an extension of the company. A company is essentially a sociopath that does not have to follow a social contract, has no limited lifespan, doesn't need to eat, sleep, have shel…

Do you think non-people shouldn't be allowed to lobby? So not charities either?

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#312

Post by nimish »

paulproteus wrote: post #302
nimish wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you get access to the SOAP api? Doesn't it need a bunch of verification and special dev accounts with IRS ? Would be great for the docs to be public. >To receive the distribution of schema packages, you must have an active e-services account and be listed on an e-File application with the provider option of Software Developer. Your role on the e-File Application must be Principal, Responsible Official, or a D…

We followed the process with the IRS, doing a bunch of verification as you said, which gave us access to the API docs. We're only part-way through the full process of becoming an Online Provider per https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p3112.pdf I wish it were simpler. I get why the IRS wants to verify who is submitting tax data to them, though.

Nice. Will you open source the code and docs at all?

I do get why the irs wants to vet submitters in production but you can't even get the detailed info for development without going through the long verification process.

I wanted to do this since I have extensive experience in implementing SOAP clients and interfacing with ancient legacy systems so I am very interested in any public way to contribute

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#313

Post by oneplane »

chrisseaton wrote: post #311
oneplane wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about what I "think" the difference is. The difference is, in fact, that a company is not a person. And a person doing something in the name of the company or as a representative of the company is not acting as a person either, but as an extension of the company. A company is essentially a sociopath that does not have to follow a social contract, has no limited lifespan, doesn't need to eat, sleep, have shel…

Do you think non-people shouldn't be allowed to lobby? So not charities either?

Voters should be allowed to lobby. Ideally, sociopathic wealth hoarders should never be allowed to lobby or vote. But some of those are people, so those'd be the exception, sadly (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27698751).

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#314

Post by chrisseaton »

oneplane wrote: post #313
chrisseaton wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think non-people shouldn't be allowed to lobby? So not charities either?

Voters should be allowed to lobby. Ideally, sociopathic wealth hoarders should never be allowed to lobby or vote. But some of those are people, so those'd be the exception, sadly ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27698751 ).

That would mean that for example a charity for vulnerable people not able to lobby for themselves would not be able to lobby on their behalf.

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#315

Post by jandrese »

xyzelement wrote: post #196
jandrese wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This year we tried doing our taxes using both TurboTax and FreeTaxUSA. TurboTax has a much worse interface, it took almost twice as long to complete the taxes despite having an identical return. TurboTax did find about $50 more return for us somehow despite having entered the same information into both sites, but that amount is less than the fee TurboTax would charge so we ended up submitting through FreeTaxUSA inste…

This is the sort of critical thing. You do your taxes once a year but the impact could be hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. In your case it was only 50 but thematically this says that TT is better because it found you more credits/deductions. You don't know it's gonna "only" be 50 ahead of time. And the more complexity/money is at stake, the more important it is to get right. Once you are talk…

It could also be that TurboTax gets $50 less on the next person. I was working with only a single datapoint. Also, from what I recall the extra $50 seemed to be coming from TurboTax counting a deduction for double what FreeTaxUSA did. I really didn't understand what it was doing there.

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#316

Post by [deleted] »

oneplane wrote: post #313
chrisseaton wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think non-people shouldn't be allowed to lobby? So not charities either?

Voters should be allowed to lobby. Ideally, sociopathic wealth hoarders should never be allowed to lobby or vote. But some of those are people, so those'd be the exception, sadly ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27698751 ).

[deleted]

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#317

Post by oneplane »

chrisseaton wrote: post #314
oneplane wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voters should be allowed to lobby. Ideally, sociopathic wealth hoarders should never be allowed to lobby or vote. But some of those are people, so those'd be the exception, sadly ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27698751 ).

That would mean that for example a charity for vulnerable people not able to lobby for themselves would not be able to lobby on their behalf.

No, it doesn't. Unless that charity is a sociopathic wealth hoarder. Then it does apply and then your point is also moot.

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#318

Post by chrisseaton »

oneplane wrote: post #317
chrisseaton wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would mean that for example a charity for vulnerable people not able to lobby for themselves would not be able to lobby on their behalf.

No, it doesn't. Unless that charity is a sociopathic wealth hoarder. Then it does apply and then your point is also moot.

You said 'Voters should be allowed to lobby' - but a charity isn't a voter. Other things that aren't voters but most people think should be able to lobby in a healthy democracy include unions.

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#319

Post by thatguy0900 »

CRConrad wrote: post #241
thatguy0900 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The citizens cannot police the federal electorate. At best, they can police local politicians and maybe a few big ticket federal items. They have too much going on in their own lives to police federal politicians passing hundred page bills every week.

> The citizens cannot police the federal electorate. I thought the citizens are the federal electorate?

You seem to be right, I understood that to mean the elected when it's the opposite. Though considering how heated politics is becoming I would say the sentence was still correct :)

Re: Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit

#320

Post by oneplane »

chrisseaton wrote: post #318
oneplane wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't. Unless that charity is a sociopathic wealth hoarder. Then it does apply and then your point is also moot.

You said 'Voters should be allowed to lobby' - but a charity isn't a voter. Other things that aren't voters but most people think should be able to lobby in a healthy democracy include unions.

Exactly, I said 'Voters should be allowed to lobby'. Not 'exclusively'. I said that because you stated that I was say ing 'nobody should be allowed to lobby', which is also not what I was saying. It seems that you are constantly trying to make it fit your personal narrative.

And even then, does it matter? The point is that voters, which is what the government exists for, should be the ones to assess what they want, not the sociopathic wealth hoarder with the most wealth. If you want to define an ultra specific scope around that, you can do that.

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