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Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?

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Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?

#51

Post by nightski »

aerosmile wrote: post #40

So many people offering explanations, and yet not a single one of them answers the OP's question. If you're upset that Intuit is engaging in lobbying (as you should be!), that might be an appropriate answer for a different question (eg: why doesn't the IRS just send us their own reports for us to approve?). Again, I am not defending Intuit's involvement in politics, but that's not the answer to the dark patterns ques…

For many if not dare I say most TurboTax is among the cheapest because it is free. The fact is if your situation is simple (a W-2 and the standard deduction) then you can get away with just about anything.

The truth is the IRS doesn't send reports because this country is obsessed with deductions. Your income (which the IRS does know about) is a small factor in the entire equation.

Ironically, under Trump's tax cuts, the standard deduction was made a lot larger (while removing the availability of some deductions). This pissed off the people who loved those deductions, but in the end it made the standard deduction applicable to a lot more people.

If you aren't taking deductions, then you can just use any of the services for free and don't really need to worry about dark patterns.

Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?

#52

Post by dottrap »

kerneloftruth wrote: post #7

The final straw for me was in 2019. My 3 year old version of QuickBooks Pro refused to import any more bank transactions until I upgraded to a newer version. Nothing had changed with data formats or anything -- it was simple extortion: upgrade or the software you own will cease working (fully). Fuck them. I just wrote my own. I first tried some alternatives like GNUcash, but found it best to just write what I needed…

I was in the same boat. QB refused to import for a year or two, and then after than completely ceased working unless I upgraded. I stopped using it. I didn't like GNUCash. I found a small indie commercial piece of software which was more like the old Quicken than Quickbooks, but it was good enough for my purposes.

But I've been worried if that indie is going to survive financially. Any tips on writing your own?

Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?

#53

Post by scottlilly »

Intuit forever lost my business when they tried to run my QuickBooks Payroll from a bank account I deactivated, after moving to a new bank (and updating my bank information in QuickBooks). They then charged me a $100 non-sufficient funds fee because they tried to pull the money from the deactivated account.

After 6-7 hours of dealing with the most aggressively-incompetent "support" I've ever had the misfortune to encounter, I cancelled every Intuit product/service I was using.

The reason they get away with this type of behavior is because we're all trained to fear the IRS to such a degree that we just want someone else who promises to "take care of everything" for us. And what recourse do we have when they behave badly? The court system? That's just as obfuscated and frustrating as the IRS. How much more of my time and money am I willing to put into dealing with Inuit? By the numbers, the smartest move is to just let this go.

It's everyone just settling for the lesser of evils/frustrations - until they get burnt badly enough.

Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?

#54

Post by rkk3 »

nightski wrote: post #51
aerosmile wrote: post #40

So many people offering explanations, and yet not a single one of them answers the OP's question. If you're upset that Intuit is engaging in lobbying (as you should be!), that might be an appropriate answer for a different question (eg: why doesn't the IRS just send us their own reports for us to approve?). Again, I am not defending Intuit's involvement in politics, but that's not the answer to the dark patterns ques…

For many if not dare I say most TurboTax is among the cheapest because it is free. The fact is if your situation is simple (a W-2 and the standard deduction) then you can get away with just about anything. The truth is the IRS doesn't send reports because this country is obsessed with deductions. Your income (which the IRS does know about) is a small factor in the entire equation. Ironically, under Trump's tax cuts,…

> TurboTax is among the cheapest because it is free

Free? Haha in what world?

Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?

#56

Post by tayo42 »

faangiq wrote: post #41

Remember there are boomers still paying other boomers 100-1000s of dollars to prepare their taxes for them. That and regulatory capture.

I was surprised to get quoted $800 to do my taxes, i just have me w2, rsu (which always screws me up every year some how) and some investment accounts. this tax software is all expensive to use because of the investments too. i think it costs a couple hundred

Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?

#57

Post by kerneloftruth »

dottrap wrote: post #52
kerneloftruth wrote: post #7

The final straw for me was in 2019. My 3 year old version of QuickBooks Pro refused to import any more bank transactions until I upgraded to a newer version. Nothing had changed with data formats or anything -- it was simple extortion: upgrade or the software you own will cease working (fully). Fuck them. I just wrote my own. I first tried some alternatives like GNUcash, but found it best to just write what I needed…

I was in the same boat. QB refused to import for a year or two, and then after than completely ceased working unless I upgraded. I stopped using it. I didn't like GNUCash. I found a small indie commercial piece of software which was more like the old Quicken than Quickbooks, but it was good enough for my purposes. But I've been worried if that indie is going to survive financially. Any tips on writing your own?

I wanted to like GNUCash, but I just didn't. I had the same concerns re: other apps. I used the situation as a reason to play with developing a standalone app using Go, with sqlite3 as the database (basically a localhost web app). It was actually a fun side project, with the satisfaction of being free from Intuit. With it being go and embedded sqlite3, there are basically no dependencies to worry about.

Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?

#58

Post by gigel82 »

There are a couple of open source projects like http://opentaxsolver.sourceforge.net/ and https://ustaxes.org/ ; perhaps we should support these to get to the point where they can actually replace TurboTax and H&R.

I bet the laws are unnecessarily complicated and they probably continue to get more complicated due to Intuit's lobbying but opposing that is a much more expensive proposition than supporting an open source project (with code, or financially).

Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?

#59

Post by witten »

RubberSoul wrote: post #13

I recently had Intuit delete all my personal data, across all their products. Doing this was exhausting. Their online process for deleting an account did not work. Contacting customer support resulted in unhelpful back and forth. Finally, I gave up and filed a complaint with the CA Attorney General. Within two weeks, I got a call from someone at Intuit who quickly resolved the issue and promised to delete all my Intu…

I can confirm that the online process for deleting an account still does not work! Gets into an endless loop sending repeated validation emails. (Firefox with all blockers disabled.)

Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?

#60

Post by unosama »

reincarnate0x14 wrote: post #2

They are frustrated, they're simply not aware that Intuit and other players have exercised regulatory capture to make it so awful and blame "the government" since the IRS is the face of it. Other modernized nations have nothing like this insanity, often sending people yearly reports they can accept (since for most cases they are accurate) or send in amendments. This is far from the only issue that business interests…

I prefer an incompetent yet inconvenient government. Most of Europe also had a very effect "green passport" scheme where all medical information was logged and tracked whereas in the states such efforts have been a lot more difficult to enforce.
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