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Blame Intuit for that one too. They're the ones that have spent millions to lobby to keep it this way.
Or blame the people who take the money and bend over in front of lobbies.
I know, I know, there’s so many dark patterns in TurboTax that it’s cliche to point them out… …but man, this was a particularly egregious example I came across this year. https://imgur.com/ojpLvRW You can pay for TurboTax using your refund…with an additional $39 processing fee . That is just wild.
Doesn't H&R block do that too? And they try to trick you at every step to "upgrade" to the paid version...
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How are states prioritized? Population and complexity? Or personal priorities of contributors?
Currently, it's states that contributors live in because our resources are limited
Government: You must provide a free way for those that qualify. Intuit: OK. Intuits exec to its employees: Make this free system, but hide it from the public. Provide links that are broken, make sure it doesn't show up on search indexes. Scott Cook and all those involved should have all of their assets seized. About as slimy as you can get as a person. Made billions off of scamming United States citizens.
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…
I was not allowed to use the free file because I made >70k if I recall correctly. It seems really stupid and arbitrary to not allow people above a certain income to access software that helps them fill out govt. forms. Only lower income people deserve help filling out their taxes??! Bizarre.
So it's not totally arbitrary, but I certainly agree that the US tax system is messed up.
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What are you actually referring to? In my experience, it takes a pretty serious mistake to get charged a fine (it’s never happened to me despite mistakes). The IRS just charges (fairly reasonable) interest if a mistake results in underpayment. And IIRC, they pay interest to you when you overpay too.
Much of my experience may have been shaped by my experiences with Chicago. I vividly remember how painful it was to have to call them up every month in order to pay them. It was 2016, and I forget exactly what the reason was. But autopay was somehow sufficiently painful to set up that the path of least resistance was to set a reminder in my phone of "Pay taxes to city" and deal with sitting on hold. If it sounds unbe…
I think in reality, a way to get the “civilized country” (as referred to by another poster) tax experience is just file an incomplete return, the IRS will bill you the correct amount along with a negligible “fee” (interest) a few weeks or months later.
Maybe doing this repeatedly would upset the IRS, I don’t know. But it definitely works a few times without issue.
That said, I wouldn’t do this on purpose :)
1 https://twitter.com/frantzfries/status/1505942638704345094?s...
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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.
About two weeks ago, I got a letter from the IRS telling me that I owe an extra eight-thousand dollars from my 2020 return, with a $1000 fine and $200 interest as a result. [1] I'm not mad about owing the money, but what annoys me is if they have enough information to know that I underreported, then why am I part of this equation to begin with? Clearly they have enough of my tax data to know I screwed up, so why don'…
Because Capitalism, in essence, is the optimization of one particular group’s ability to alter how people live their lives in a way that transfers the most wealth from the working class.
America’s economy is a house of cards built around financial middlemen.
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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.