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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

#271

Post by zw123456 »

A few years back I got audited, and it was called an "electronic audit" by the IRS. Which basically meant that they had their computer systems scour a bunch of the bank records and discovered that I had forgotten to claim a 1099 for some contract work I had. OK, so they sent me a computer print out and they had cross checked everything on my return electronically, my property tax deductions, my stock dividends so on and so on.

Ok, so if they can do all that automatically for an "electronic audit" why am I filing a return, just run that thing and send it to me and I can file an exception if there is something on it I disagree with.

I think the answer has already been identified in several other comments here, a heavy lobby effort on the part of Intuit, H&R and whoever else to keep it tricky and complex so you have to buy their B.S> software or services.

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

#272

Post by aidangrimshaw »

TimSchumann wrote: post #234
aidangrimshaw wrote: post #151

I'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!

I volunteer to handle all the forms, compliance, and upkeep for Washington State income tax filings.

lol so kind! For those not familiar: https://dor.wa.gov/taxes-rates/income-tax#:~:text=Washington....

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

#273

Post by twiddling »

rurp wrote: post #129
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…

I've heard a slightly different version of that rational, which I think is more more plausible but cynical. Tax collection is deliberately painful to justify cutting IRS funding and passing tax cuts (mostly for the very wealthy). It doesn't really make a lot of sense rationally, but might be effective as a manipulation tactic.

Well if you work from an assumption that taxation is theft and gov't is an existential threat to liberty then it makes sense why filing for taxes is terrible.

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

#274

Post by Arubis »

Many users of this site aren’t especially price-sensitive; if you’re one of them and in the habit of using tax filing software, I urge you to consider hiring an accountant for your taxes. You’ll pay a couple hundred bucks, which may be offset by the CPA finding deductions or credits that your software didn’t highlight, and that money goes to someone you’ve picked out and hired rather than a corp that’ll use your money to lobby against your best interests. And you’ll save a bunch of time, which may be enough to make this worthwhile in and of itself for you!

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

#275

Post by scrubs »

aidangrimshaw wrote: post #151

I'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!

Amen to that. I use turbo tax but the sooner I never give then another dollar so much the better.

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

#276

Post by csb6 »

bschwindHN wrote: post #246
aclindsa wrote: post #208

I recently started an open-source tax solver, partly because I'm not a huge fan of Intuit: https://github.com/habutax/habutax It isn't perfect since its a young project, but I've attempted to simplify and modularize the process of creating/maintaining forms to allow for that part to be crowd-sourced as much as possible (and I'd love your help!).

Seems like you should combine forces with ustaxes.org? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30848936

Here is another similar project that has been around a while for anyone interested

http://opentaxsolver.sourceforge.net

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

#277

Post by downrightmike »

zw123456 wrote: post #271

A few years back I got audited, and it was called an "electronic audit" by the IRS. Which basically meant that they had their computer systems scour a bunch of the bank records and discovered that I had forgotten to claim a 1099 for some contract work I had. OK, so they sent me a computer print out and they had cross checked everything on my return electronically, my property tax deductions, my stock dividends so on…

That's exactly it.

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

#278

Post by chungy »

aidangrimshaw wrote: post #269
heavyset_go wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AGPL just means that users can fork the project if they have access to older AGPL code, but CLAs that assign copyright mean that the rights holders can change the license whenever they want and make it difficult to find old AGPL code by removing repositories and scrubbing the web of it. It's entirely possible for the rights holders to say "we're going private now" and pivot the project into a for-profit business.

Do know of a better license alternative that prevents that from happening? Would be interested!

There isn't one, because copyright holders have all the legal right to do whatever they want. The legal owner of a copyrighted work is not beholden to the license they release the work under.

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

#279

Post by aidangrimshaw »

Metacelsus wrote: post #242
aidangrimshaw wrote: post #151

I'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!

Thank you so much! I used it this year and really appreciated it.

Glad to hear!

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

#280

Post by marcianx »

aidangrimshaw wrote: post #269
heavyset_go wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AGPL just means that users can fork the project if they have access to older AGPL code, but CLAs that assign copyright mean that the rights holders can change the license whenever they want and make it difficult to find old AGPL code by removing repositories and scrubbing the web of it. It's entirely possible for the rights holders to say "we're going private now" and pivot the project into a for-profit business.

Do know of a better license alternative that prevents that from happening? Would be interested!

You don't need another license. You just need to either (1) not require a CLA, or (2) if you do, write the CLA so that it prevents you from doing that with others' contributions.
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