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

ftc.gov

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

#131

Post by skeeter2020 »

bushbaba wrote: post #65
notch656a wrote: post #45

The fact that our government doesn't have the collective intelligence to just mail the tax bill using the information it already knows, with the option for the recipient to submit corrections/deductions, is a testament to the utter failure of governance in the US. Fortunately having an ineffective government can often be a feature instead of a bug.

Idk. I think the IRS gets the better end of the stick here. They have you tell them how much you owe. If you report more than they knew about great they made money. If you tell them less than they knew about, then they'll audit you assuming the difference is large enough (and there being a high likelihood of winning)

this is not how taxes work with the IRS. If you make a calculation error in their favour they will correct it and issue you a refund. If you make a compilation error in their favour and get reviewed or audited, you will get a refund. They also audit based more on discrepencies vs. "likelihood of a big payout".

If they precalculated your taxes and sent you a bill (or refund) it would (a) be easier, (b) be more accurate and (c) encourage simplification of the entire system. I consider that both more effective and more fair.

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

#132

Post by [deleted] »

ngokevin wrote: post #106
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.

[deleted]

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

#133

Post by skeeter2020 »

cmelbye wrote: post #114
bushbaba wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk. I think the IRS gets the better end of the stick here. They have you tell them how much you owe. If you report more than they knew about great they made money. If you tell them less than they knew about, then they'll audit you assuming the difference is large enough (and there being a high likelihood of winning)

If you are audited by the IRS and they find that you overpaid, they will issue a refund. It's not a one-way street.

you can also claim refunds for years back; like an audit this is a 2-way street as well.

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

#134

Post by drdec »

wongarsu wrote: post #109
nickff wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

FYI, in the US, depending on the jurisdiction, some items are exempt from sales tax. E.g. necessities like food and clothing. In my jurisdiction, clothing is taxed by the county but not by the state.

Which is a long way of saying that even if you knew the total you spent at Amazon, you wouldn't be able to derive the total amount of sales tax paid.

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

#135

Post by dboreham »

lelandfe wrote: post #78
kn0where wrote: post #43

Good, but the situation is so much worse than just this. Most Americans could just use the IRS Free File system, which the article mentions, instead of ever giving money to Intuit or H&R Block ever again. But we don’t heavily advertise that system, because that would encourage people to use it, and if you’re going that far, you might as well let the IRS build its own tax software with all your information prefilled l…

TurboTax and H&R Block aren't part of Free File as of 2021, so the supported software under the program are now things most Americans wouldn't recognize, either. The problem truly is advertising, like you said. The government just cannot out-advertise companies that are doing $9 billion in revenue.

Of course the government could out-advertise them. It'd be like Google advertising its own products on its search engine -- the government controls all end-user tax related communications.

They just don't want to because someone bribed them to not do so.

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

#136

Post by itslennysfault »

kn0where wrote: post #43

Good, but the situation is so much worse than just this. Most Americans could just use the IRS Free File system, which the article mentions, instead of ever giving money to Intuit or H&R Block ever again. But we don’t heavily advertise that system, because that would encourage people to use it, and if you’re going that far, you might as well let the IRS build its own tax software with all your information prefilled l…

.... and just to be completely clear, this is only the way it is because of HUGE lobbying spends by Intuit.

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

#137

Post by a1371 »

Intuit is one of the few companies that I don't hear any good things about them. They always do something shady, last one I recall was sharing employee salary info with Equifax.

That's why despite my bookkeepers protests, we moved to another accounting service and when they bought MailChimp I pulled my whole company out of that too.

I understand workplace is not always a place for activism, but I could switch with reasonable effort and it made me feel good not to fund this sort of behavior.

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

#138

Post by itslennysfault »

notch656a wrote: post #45

The fact that our government doesn't have the collective intelligence to just mail the tax bill using the information it already knows, with the option for the recipient to submit corrections/deductions, is a testament to the utter failure of governance in the US. Fortunately having an ineffective government can often be a feature instead of a bug.

Blame Intuit for that one too. They're the ones that have spent millions to lobby to keep it this way.

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

#139

Post by jtc331 »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #131
bushbaba wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk. I think the IRS gets the better end of the stick here. They have you tell them how much you owe. If you report more than they knew about great they made money. If you tell them less than they knew about, then they'll audit you assuming the difference is large enough (and there being a high likelihood of winning)

this is not how taxes work with the IRS. If you make a calculation error in their favour they will correct it and issue you a refund. If you make a compilation error in their favour and get reviewed or audited, you will get a refund. They also audit based more on discrepencies vs. "likelihood of a big payout". If they precalculated your taxes and sent you a bill (or refund) it would (a) be easier, (b) be more accurat…

You’re missing the point. The point is that the IRS isn’t aware of a good amount of income (trivial example is tips) unless you tell them about it.

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

#140

Post by LinuxBender »

xtracto wrote: post #127
belval wrote: post #13

I know that ship has sailed, but I really wish politicians would go back to making promises that have an impact on everyone like abolishing tax fillings. It might be different in the US, but in Canada I file my taxes using the CRA's data directly. TurboTax even fetches it directly from their website. What's the point? They have my T4, my T2202 (studies) and everything else. Just send me a letter telling me how much m…

In México if you are an average employee earning less than around $50000 usd (I.e. most workers), your employer can "do" your taxes (very simple, they report what they have withheld from you). If you have some amounts you want to regain from losses, etc., you can still do your taxes manually. That means logging into the free MEX IRS platform, which shows all your tax info preffilled. Most likely the stuff you want to…

What would be required for the US to adopt this solution?
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