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FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign
251–260 of 610 posts
Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
So how does someone remain elected if they don't listen to their constituents?
Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign
#253I'm working with other contributors on https://ustaxes.org , an open source tax filing webapp https://github.com/ustaxes/UsTaxes . Currently, many Federal tax forms are supported, as well as tax filing for the state of Illinois. Filing for Oregon and California is under development!
This is amazing.
Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign
#254I 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.
Contact your congressperson and encourage others to do so too. Also contact their opponent in the upcoming election to make it a campaign issue.
Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign
#255I 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.
TurboTax's dark patterns charge people $50, not $600. How exactly did she end up paying that much?
Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign
#256Good, 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.
free file fillable forms is available to you (I use it). It's not a hand-holder, but it does get the job done (and it does quite a bit of the math for you).
Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign
#257Earlier 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...
CU will never be peacefully repealed.
peacefully
Well, corporations are people, people have the right to bear arms, and the country was founded on the idea that if you really really don't like your government, violence is an appropriate response to change it. Of course the Constitution pulled the ladder up behind the founding fathers on that bit of political philosophy, but in recent years I've heard some rhetoric citing the Declaration as inspiration for the path they should take now. Corporate personhood adds an interesting twist to things, especially considering that Alphabet or Apple could secede and have a larger GDP than many countries. Alphabet might quickly get labelled a hostile foreign power for all their spying. Apple might start a trade war with their extortionate tariffs but we'd still probably have reasonable diplomatic relations with them.
Maybe 200+ years with only one major civil war is a good record under these conditions, and maybe the next one will have official corporate sponsors.
Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign
#258I'm working with other contributors on https://ustaxes.org , an open source tax filing webapp https://github.com/ustaxes/UsTaxes . Currently, many Federal tax forms are supported, as well as tax filing for the state of Illinois. Filing for Oregon and California is under development!
damn it, i live in oregon and california
Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign
#259Any way to donate to the cause?
Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Contact your congressperson and encourage others to do so too. Also contact their opponent in the upcoming election to make it a campaign issue.
I actually did pour blood and sweat to a campaign that did have this as one of their policies. I don't think this can be solved until lobbyist money and the Senate is fixed. Even if there's 90% support for an issue, politicians follow the money.