Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or maybe it's a common theme with California's draconian politics being ineffective.
The nation is pretty tired of California and NY trying to save it.
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California tried to save the nation from tax filing, then Intuit stepped in
81–90 of 304 posts
Re: California tried to save the nation from tax filing, then Intuit stepped in
#82Going to paraphrase a quote from a podcast that stuck with me.
> What (the left) needs to do is clear out rents. Not just housing rents, but rent seekers. The economy is riddled through with people who do nothing, but get paid because structurally that’s who gets paid.
Intuit is one of those companies. They produce a few real products, QuickBooks for businesses and Mint, but overwhelmingly their money comes from the fact that they charge rent on filling your taxes. They’re a parasite on our society.
Fortunately the podcaster wasn’t talking about the US; their country was worse off than America in this area by far. But unfortunately it seems like we’re on the same glide slope if we don’t do something about it.
Re: California tried to save the nation from tax filing, then Intuit stepped in
#83At the risk of being a non-popular opinion, I don't find tax filing to be particularly difficult. Maybe its because my job is to solve pretty hard problems all day. But the average person/family who doesn't itemize have a Sched C, it's quite easy. The thing to understand about filing is that (particularly for W2 wage earners) you're not telling the Government how much you made and how much you owe. They know that alr…
> The thing to understand about filing is that (particularly for W2 wage earners) you're not telling the Government how much you made and how much you owe. They know that already.
But they don't necessarily know how much you owe. Even many W2 wage earners are eligible for various credits, including but not limited to out of pocket charitable donations, moving expenses, child and dependent care expenses, student loan interest and post-high-school courses you pay for that improve your work skills.
Re: California tried to save the nation from tax filing, then Intuit stepped in
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
HEY! Fellow US ex-pat here in Germany. I do use germantaxes.de which offers a hand-holding experience and all in English but the fact that there's a simple government provided solution is how it should be. All this hate towards FB and others but we really should be reigning in the likes of Intuit because filing taxes should not cost anything for simple W-2's. I recall reading that in Japan if you have just wage incom…
Not just Japan, also true for the UK with our Pay As You Earn system - you get assigned a tax code, and the appropriate amount is automatically deducted from your payslip. No need to file anything, and refunds/demands get generated automatically each year if you've been changing jobs/not working/other odd circumstances meaning that the amount you paid doesn't match what you were expected to
And if you DO need to file a tax return (e.g. earning over 100k, certain types of income) you can (in most cases) do it for free on the HMRC website with a guided system.
Re: California tried to save the nation from tax filing, then Intuit stepped in
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't find tax filing to be particularly difficult. That's nice. You still might care that we collectively waste an enormous amount of time doing it, unnecessarily, for the benefit of Intuit (and some cranks who want people angry about taxes). If you still don't care, I'll be taking a few hours of your labor per year for my around the house work. It isn't particularly difficult work, no big deal, right?
I won't argue that the whole system is stuck in the 20th century, but there is a little bit of "big companies and taxes are evil and I'm oppressed!" going on here. I understand not everyone has an easy time with it. But today, 70% of Americans can file for free. Some version of optional auto-filing I have no problem with. As far as a private company trying to protect it's revenue, there are far more egregious example…
Intuit is just really easy to understand as a cut-and-dry example of regulatory capture. They basically maintain the need for themselves entirely through laws that create the problem they solve.
Re: California tried to save the nation from tax filing, then Intuit stepped in
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They know that already and calculate it. Why waste people's time with this stuff then?
Real talk though, how are they going to know that you bought an energy efficient AC unit for your house that you can deduct off your taxes?
They don't, but the important thing is that the vast majority of people don't itemize, especially with the high standard deduction there is now. Required filing is just pointless for them.
Of course the option to file will remain, no one is arguing against that.
Re: California tried to save the nation from tax filing, then Intuit stepped in
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Basically, as a fellow Brit you will know that for most people your tax just happens automatically (typically through the PAYE system, so tax is taken before you get your paycheck, and we never have to even think about it). Then in the UK if you have more complex tax affairs, then you have to fill in a self assessment on the government portal (where it already knows most of your tax information, and you are pretty mu…
Do private tax prep companies have an argument they advance about why automatic filing is a bad idea? Or is it just pure behind scenes lobbying?
My understanding is the two pro arguments for manual filing are:
If taxpayers aren't forced to confront the details of their tax payments every time they do a filing, they're less likely to complain about high taxes (this comes with the implication that high taxes are inherently bad, which depends on your political leaning)
Taxpayers may just accept the automatic deduction without realising they're being overcharged in the event of an error, for years at a time.
How much they actually care about such arguments vs the threat to their business model is subjective, but it seems the majority on this site (and myself) don't buy it.
Re: California tried to save the nation from tax filing, then Intuit stepped in
#88Dutchie here, never had an issue with tax returns in my country. You just go to the website, fill it in, done. I don't get the context at all. Is the ELI5: CA wanted to create their own tax return software. Intuit said no, and now they use Intuit or something? Normally I understand context and such, but in this case: isn't it the obvious thing to do? Does the USA not have the back of their citizens? I'm sorry to say…
A country is made of people AND legal entities. Legal entities in the US have a lot of impact in what the country does (for example it's legal for companies to pay politicians, which is illegal almost everywhere else). Believe it or not, about half of the country believes these policies are great and it's what makes the usa so succesful. I am not making a stand, just trying to explain here.
It creates a strange disconnect. Voters in influence policy at election time and then lobbyists come in an undo everything.
Re: California tried to save the nation from tax filing, then Intuit stepped in
#89Going to paraphrase a quote from a podcast that stuck with me. > What (the left) needs to do is clear out rents. Not just housing rents, but rent seekers. The economy is riddled through with people who do nothing, but get paid because structurally that’s who gets paid. Intuit is one of those companies. They produce a few real products, QuickBooks for businesses and Mint, but overwhelmingly their money comes from the…
>What (the left) needs to do is clear out rents.
Unfortunately in the US the rent seekers have an easy hack to make sure that never happens: lobbying.
The system will never change unless we vote out the current politicians, and then maybe it will change. We might have to clear out most, ideally all of the applicable congress every election cycle for a few years before we see any results. As long as we keep voting in the same people, nothing will change and it will most likely only get worse. The current political power structure is great at telling us what we want to hear, then conducting business as usual.
The only political power the citizenry has is our vote, everything else can be ignored. Emails go unanswered, polls go unnoticed, protests get suppressed.
Occupy Wall Street was 10 years ago. Thing are worse today than they were back then.
Re: California tried to save the nation from tax filing, then Intuit stepped in
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
The nation is pretty tired of California and NY trying to save it.
Yeah let's run the country like Alabama instead. They're doing well! /s
Maybe we should let each state run the way they see fit... you know kind of like how the Constitution assumed things should be done until the Commerce Clause was used by the Federal Government to hammer every state into submission.