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FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

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Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#81

Post by heavyset_go »

belval wrote: post #32
crooked-v wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, the Republican Party has a history of intentionally pushing for cumbersome tax filing as part of encouraging people to hate the idea of taxes in general.

I don't think it's a Republican thing, the Liberal party and the NPD in Canada are both left-leaning and they have a majority yet they aren't pushing for this. Pretty sure it's just run-of-the-mill lobbying and corruption unfortunately. A typical "think of the jobs!" type of thing.

Republicans and the Liberal party in Canada are both neoliberal when it comes to their economic policies, they mostly only diverge on social issues and social services.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#82

Post by rootusrootus »

zentiggr wrote: post #62
crooked-v wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, one might ask "why doesn't the IRS just send you a pre-filled copy of the forms, and you only correct them if they're wrong?". The answer is "because Congress passed a law saying they can't".

Doing the next step of the root cause analysis leads to "Intuit lobbied Congress and the IRS hard enough that they passed a law, and the IRS conspired to change their procedures".

Except Intuit hasn't paid anywhere near enough in lobbying money to have that kind of effect. Grover Norquist is the last step in your root cause analysis.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#83

Post by Ajedi32 »

sofixa wrote: post #61

As i mentioned on another thread[1], that's one of those American things that really don't make any sense after spending more than a few seconds about it. There is no legitimate excuse for things to be this bad. The best I've heard is that paying taxes being hard is good because it reminds you how much money you give the government, so you are more attentive how it's spent, but it doesn't really make sense either. ht…

> paying taxes being hard is good because it reminds you how much money you give the government

Wouldn't it be the opposite? Having a complicated tax system makes it harder to find out how much you're paying. If things were simpler it would be much more apparent.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#84

Post by sagarun »

tzs wrote: post #40
foxyv wrote: post #7

Did my taxes this year using TurboTax like always. Sold some stocks this year and all of a sudden I am paying $90 for TurboTax "Premium" to put a couple additional entries in the 1040. What a racket. Next year I'm going to file using something else. This has gone on too long.

I used Cash App Taxes. I sold some mutual fund shares in 2021 and it handled it fine. Here's a page describing forms and situations it does not handle [1]. One thing that might annoy some people is that to login to the Cash App Taxes website you must use their mobile app. The website shows a QR code which you scan from the mobile app. It uses the approach of asking you various questions in order to figure out what fo…

Cash App taxes has a bug where mortgage interest deduction is not handled properly with state vs federal. If your mortgage is more than 750000$ and your state is California or a state allows deduction up to a million $ in mortgage interest then you will end up getting a lower refund.

I'd double check by filing with another software just to make sure (i.e https://www.freetaxusa.com/)

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#85

Post by pvarangot »

tomc1985 wrote: post #52
rajup wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FreeTaxUsa is great for most usecases, including stock sales. It is free for federal filing, state is a bit extra ($10)

FreeTaxUsa forced me to manually enter my stock last year, I had to provide a supplemental PDF form outlining each transaction. Obnoxiously, this year TurboTax's integration with Binance is broken. I haven't checked in a few weeks but it won't accept Binance CSV's either. This needs to be fixed soon.

TuboTax web or the desktop application? Last year their Schwab integration was broken on the web version but not on the desktop version.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#86

Post by ratsmack »

istjohn wrote: post #49
jeffwask wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intuit and HR Block spend way too much on US lobbying for that to change. The first step has to be repealing Citizen's United. https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...

Take 5 minutes to complain to your elected representatives every time you file taxes.

The only people that your representative listens to is the ones that fill their political war chest with a lot of money.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#88

Post by slavik81 »

belval wrote: post #32
crooked-v wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, the Republican Party has a history of intentionally pushing for cumbersome tax filing as part of encouraging people to hate the idea of taxes in general.

I don't think it's a Republican thing, the Liberal party and the NPD in Canada are both left-leaning and they have a majority yet they aren't pushing for this. Pretty sure it's just run-of-the-mill lobbying and corruption unfortunately. A typical "think of the jobs!" type of thing.

It kinda already had been addressed. SimpleTax was released as donationware and the CRA introduced NETFILE and Autofill. Filing a return today is way easier than in, say, 2011. Buying TurboTax has been unnecessary for a decade.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#89

Post by tppiotrowski »

markc wrote: post #3

I was 80% done with my taxes this year when TT suddenly demanded an additional $119 to list deductible expenses on income. That’s on top of $140 to file Federal plus 1 state. I’ve been using TT for 20 years. Never again.

taxact.com did the same trick. Raised prices for a few consecutive years for no apparent reason.

They have your previous filings so switching to another provider can be a pain since you need to know last year income when submitting your filing. I always make sure to at least download the PDF's.

As a consumer we're always free to vote with our wallet and I've been happy with freetaxusa so far but I'm also waiting for the "rate hike" to come...

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#90

Post by UncleMeat »

anamax wrote: post #72
jeffwask wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intuit and HR Block spend way too much on US lobbying for that to change. The first step has to be repealing Citizen's United. https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...

> The first step has to be repealing Citizen's United. Citizen's United was a group that made a political-advocacy movie and the FEC wanted to treat it as regulated political activity.

It was. And the consequence of this ruling was nearly unlimited amounts money being spent on the reelection campaigns of various lawmakers by corporations, with the obvious intent being to install friendly legislators.
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