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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

#101

Post by nickff »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #83
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.

As a counter-example, sales taxes (and VATs) are very simple, yet almost nobody knows how much they’re paying.

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

#102

Post by [deleted] »

mywittyname wrote: post #77

I found out from a friend that she paid $600 to have her taxes done because (presumably) she falls for the dark patterns that TurboTax uses. She's a low paid service worker whose tax return can probably be done for free. And it is a sizable portion of her income because of things like Earned income tax credits, child tax credits, etc. Fuck these companies.

[deleted]

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

#103

Post by UncleMeat »

Someone1234 wrote: post #17
ed_elliott_asc wrote: post #6

Is there a way to do your taxes without paying any money?

In theory, yes. But few people actually do because it is a painful experience. The IRS' documentation isn't actually bad, it is just that the tax system itself is incredibly (and needlessly) complicated. For example, you'd need to hand-enter every stock trade (even automated re-investments) even though your broker likely already electronically sent this information to the IRS. Using a digital solution they can often…

We used to have to hand enter everything anyway. The auto-import stuff is fairly new for all of the tax filing products. TurboTax also fucks up the auto import for my RSUs. Every single year there are a handful of people on the financial planning groups posting "wtf I got a letter from the government saying I owe $80,000" and it is uniformly because one of these services' autoimport system set all of the cost bases for RSUs to $0.

The end result is that I hand-enter anyway, even when paying $120 to Intuit for the privilege.

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

#104

Post by sitharus »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #83
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.

As a non-American who's not self-employed or a business owner I get a monthly payslip with my gross pay and the tax deduction. I see that every month, I know exactly how much I pay the government. All my investments also have tax deducted by the provider as well, when applicable.

I never have to think about calculating or filing tax, but I always see it and know exactly how much it is.

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

#105

Post by nickff »

techsupporter wrote: post #63
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…

> 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 The argument I've heard is that so righteous indignation over the "staggeringly high" taxes "stolen from the hardworking American people" or whatever. This is one of the same arguments as to why sales taxes shouldn't be included in the shelf price of an…

I think there is room for a reasonable agreement which could result in a simplified filing system, without making it opaque. My modest proposal would be that each voter’s registration card (or equivalent voting voucher) be attached to a statement showing all the taxes they’ve paid since the last election, and where they went, along with some information on how many taxpayers there are, and the amount and percentage of income and payroll taxes paid by income decile.

I think this would provide the transparency that conservatives want, along with the simplicity that liberals want. My only concern is that the data would be fudged, like the social security “statements” are.

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

#106

Post by ngokevin »

mywittyname wrote: post #77

I found out from a friend that she paid $600 to have her taxes done because (presumably) she falls for the dark patterns that TurboTax uses. She's a low paid service worker whose tax return can probably be done for free. And it is a sizable portion of her income because of things like Earned income tax credits, child tax credits, etc. Fuck these companies.

The government has enough information to process the taxes for most of us or at least publicly make it super easy. TurboTax just lobbies the government to not do so.

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

#107

Post by rurp »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #93
mywittyname wrote: post #77

I found out from a friend that she paid $600 to have her taxes done because (presumably) she falls for the dark patterns that TurboTax uses. She's a low paid service worker whose tax return can probably be done for free. And it is a sizable portion of her income because of things like Earned income tax credits, child tax credits, etc. Fuck these companies.

Realistically, how would you do your tax return for free? Keep in mind that every service worker is terrified of an audit. The cost is much higher when you don’t have resources. EDIT: I think I didn't phrase this very well. My point was that the average service worker is trained to be terrified of the IRS. These people are already usually paying hefty fines because they missed their returns in prior years. That's why…

There are many free filing options for anyone with an average salary from a straightforward W2 source. I went years without paying to file, until I got into freelancing and a higher tax bracket.

Being audited isn't much of a concern if your only source of income is a typical W2 job. The average service worker isn't throwing money around in stocks, crypto, blackjack, and corporate entities.

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

#108

Post by lastofthemojito »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #9
ed_elliott_asc wrote: post #6

Is there a way to do your taxes without paying any money?

> Is there a way to do your taxes without paying any money? Do them yourself. The IRS has guidance and resources for those who are interested [1]. [1] https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-f...

You can absolutely do your own taxes, either on paper and mail the forms or (possibly) via the Free File Fillable forms mentioned on the page you linked (as long as you don't hit a corner case). The Free File Fillable forms page [0] says "Make sure we fully support the forms you need" and links to another page with a lengthy list of limitations [1].

So yeah, we're in a place where the IRS says taxpayers "should file electronically with direct deposit if at all possible" [2] but also informs taxpayers that not everyone can use the IRS's forms to file electronically.

0: https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...

1: https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...

2: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-begins-2022-tax-season-urge...

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

#109

Post by wongarsu »

nickff wrote: post #101
Ajedi32 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

As a counter-example, sales taxes (and VATs) are very simple, yet almost nobody knows how much they’re paying.

In Europe VAT is a line item on every invoice. And apparently in the US you have to do some mental gymnastics to manually add sales tax to the listed price to figure out how much to pay in the first place.

Of course most people have no idea how much VAT they pay for Amazon purchases in a year, but that's mostly a product of them not knowing how much they spend on Amazon in a year. If they know the latter, the former is trivial to figure out.

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

#110

Post by arebop »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #83
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.

The exact amount doesn't matter for this, all that matters is that you vote against taxes. It is sufficient that you suspect you may owe some amount and realize that you are required to figure it out. If it's hard to figure out, that serves the purpose of those who want you to associate negative emotions with taxes so that you'll vote against taxes.
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