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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?

#131

Post by davchana »

BostonEnginerd wrote: post #123
mwint wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FreeTaxUSA is strangely under-mentioned on these threads. I’ve used it the last couple years with a complex-ish situation. Not a single complaint.

I’ve done my taxes with FreeTaxUSA for a few years as well. The webapp is simple, with no swooshing animations - but it gets the job done for 1/4 the price of TurboTax these days. A few years ago I benchmarked the two together and they basically gave the same answers. They also don’t hold your past returns hostage. I’ve been recommending them to everyone that I talk to about taxes.

For me no animations (except a real loading circle) is a plus point. I don't want to spend time looking at a fake circus display of taxes. Its form filling, I just want to fill data and be done with it.

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

#133

Post by beej71 »

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).

What about the fact that such a thing would certainly start to eat into Intuit's profits?

You're right--there's no technical reason this couldn't be done. And it should be done. But too much money is greasing too many palms.

As to the OP's question, I don't know why more people aren't steaming mad about it. We're getting taken to the cleaners.

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

#134

Post by DangitBobby »

Spivak wrote: post #121
DangitBobby wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

By that reasoning there was never even a point to having the deduction in the first place.

If you believe incentives are the only point of deductions, then sure. I believe part of the reason for deductions is to provide some relief to people who are spending for their work or for the state. In any case, I'll take favorable taxes however I can get them, even if it means I no longer benefit more from itemized deductions over the standard deduction. Especially since the standard deduction is much easier.

I wonder how many teachers ever benefited enough from itemized deductions to take it?

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