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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?

#111

Post by giantg2 »

kelnos wrote: post #88
twblalock wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I assume because nobody would file taxes for things that the IRS was absent from their report, because now you know the IRS doesn't know about it and won't be missing it. That's not why. The IRS is underfunded and overworked, so even if it had the information it needed to generate a report for everyone, it still couldn't do it. But it doesn't have that information anyway! A lot of taxable income is derived from sou…

> This includes things like cost basis for RSUs, state and local taxes (including property tax), and various kinds of investment income. Assuming the political will to make tax prep easy (which I know does not exist), the fix for this would be pretty simple for Congress to legislate. Sure, it would likely take a few years for all municipalities to come into compliance, but it's not like this would be difficult. > On…

"the IRS doesn't know X because Y isn't required to report X".

They are required to report it. Only the current reporting is that an individual is being sent numerous pieces of mail. It could instead be that the IRS gets these (systematically) and sends a person the compiled tax form for validation.

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

#112

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

kerneloftruth wrote: post #57
dottrap wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No post body was provided.

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

#113

Post by LynxInLA »

bpodgursky wrote: post #68
rkk3 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TurboTax is among the cheapest because it is free Free? Haha in what world?

It's free if your taxes are covered by: * W-2 income * Limited interest and dividend income reported on a 1099-INT or 1099-DIV * Claiming the standard deduction * Earned Income Tax Credit (EIC) * Child tax credits * Student Loan Interest deduction basically if you don't sell any assets, have employee stock compensation, or donate a ton of money you can file for free.

Also if you aren't filing your state taxes.

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

#114

Post by modriano »

Consumers are frustrated, or at least I am frustrated (eg when they mislead me into upgrading my plan and entering many expenses before learning the standard deduction will still grant me the biggest refund), but I'm vigilant enough to avoid granting them permission to sell my data to Mint and Credit Karma, and the amount of money I could save by going elsewhere is not great enough to make up for the inconvenience of doing my taxes some other way.

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

#115

Post by DangitBobby »

Spivak wrote: post #102
satronaut wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember there was a huge issue among the teachers unions that teachers wouldn't be able to deduct up to 500 dollars anymore for classroom expenses (I may have the number wrong). I was thinking, you teachers should be good at math and realize your deduction being doubled is way nicer than having that classroom supplies deduction. Also, why isn't the school paying for your expenses (but that's a whole separate conve…

You are thinking about this wrong. When you are in a situation where you take the standard dedication then you suddenly lose the benefit of doing any tax-deductible actions. So teachers across the board were immediately disincentivized from buying school supplies because it’s effectively not tax deductible anymore. I rant about this all the time with charitable donations. Any behavior the government wants to incentiv…

Are you really suddenly not going to spend $500 on your students because now only $450 of it goes towards goods instead of the full $500? That doesn't really make any sense to me. Especially if the standard deduction grants you an additional $1k that you wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

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

#116

Post by pcurve »

Are you using online version or Amazon downloadable one? I've been using the latter for 20 years and have never felt like it was being deliberately misleading.

I just say no to everything. I don't even e-file. I still print and mail in my tax form. All the data is stored locally on my computer.

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

#117

Post by sofixa »

kelnos wrote: post #88
twblalock wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I assume because nobody would file taxes for things that the IRS was absent from their report, because now you know the IRS doesn't know about it and won't be missing it. That's not why. The IRS is underfunded and overworked, so even if it had the information it needed to generate a report for everyone, it still couldn't do it. But it doesn't have that information anyway! A lot of taxable income is derived from sou…

> This includes things like cost basis for RSUs, state and local taxes (including property tax), and various kinds of investment income. Assuming the political will to make tax prep easy (which I know does not exist), the fix for this would be pretty simple for Congress to legislate. Sure, it would likely take a few years for all municipalities to come into compliance, but it's not like this would be difficult. > On…

> Sure, but there's no reason why the IRS couldn't have a website where everything it does know is pre-filled, and then could ask you about things they don't know about (and even hint at the kind of things that they wouldn't know).

Just the way it works in saner countries like France. Things the tax authority knows are pre-filled, and I'm asked about the rest. So yes, there's no reason besides the fact that many companies would lose their business ( like TurboTax), so they lobby against it.

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

#118

Post by sofixa »

boplicity wrote: post #97
Darmody wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my point. They know the money you make, they can make it free and easy but they don't want to cut the middleman.

I have to disagree here. It's not about the middleman. They probably know the income you made -- but they may also not know all the income you made. Self reporting of taxes is standard in many countries for this reason. People run small businesses, freelance, get cash payments, tips, etc that are outside their normal (reported) income. You are required to report this, even if the IRS doesn't know about it. That's why…

> Self reporting of taxes is standard in many countries for this reason.

A person up the comment chain in Spain said that's not the case there, and i can confirm the same for France - everything they know is pre-filled, and it's up to you to declare the rest. Of course some people will underreport, but so will those willing to in the American system ( for tips, cash payments, freelancing they can be fairly certain the IRS can't know). Nothing changes besides middlemen lining their pockets and regular people losing time.

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

#119

Post by sofixa »

unosama wrote: post #60
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.

> Most of Europe also had a very effect "green passport" scheme where all medical information was logged and tracked

Nope. A "green pass" is a QR code saying FirstName LastName (born on X, only available for border crossings) has had 3 doses of Pfizer, last one on date Y OR has had a negative PCR on date Y. The apps used to read and validate those QR codes don't track anything and there's no other medical or personal information.

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

#120

Post by sircastor »

teraflop wrote: post #25
TillE wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, you can still e-file for free. Only for certain definitions of "you". All the available offers have various restrictions.

AFAIK there are no restrictions on who can use the IRS's Free Fillable Forms, though there are a few fairly obscure forms it doesn't support. https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...

That’s correct. The filling is free for everyone. The tax preparation is not.
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