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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

#281

Post by ehsankia »

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…

It's well known fact that the government can auto-file for most people, it's not really a secret. Many other countries do it, it's been proven to work just fine.

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

#282

Post by remexre »

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!

Note that AGPL and _not_ having a CLA means that this _isn't_ the case, because... you don't have a CLA.

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

#283

Post by semiquaver »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #216
creato wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Out of curiosity, what monthly tax did you pay to Chicago? The city does not levy income or property tax. Most people will only ever pay Chicago sales tax or things like a yearly “city sticker” car license fee.

https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/fin/supp_info/revenue/...

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

#284

Post by ehsankia »

freedomben wrote: post #176
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!

That's really neat and I'm glad you're doing it. That said I worked on tax software once and the amount of changes each year are huge and often require expert analysis. Sometimes they get dropped on you with very little notice. How does the project plan to keep up with that? Will it require volunteers?

I assume the amount of changes is much higher for the more complex tax forms, which 99% of people don't need. If this free software can even just handle the free tier or semi-complex tier filing, it's still a huge step.

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

#285

Post by eropple »

ThunderSizzle wrote: post #267
_dujt wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> need to be part of this transaction at all 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.

I think you meant cronyism.

If you can find an example of the former that doesn't devolve in short order into the latter, I think you can "I think you meant" him.

I have looked, and I am still waiting.

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

#286

Post by ehsankia »

aidangrimshaw wrote: post #171
dataflow wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds awesome. How does the user handle the actual filing? I assume you don't have any way to provide e-filing, so would people have to print this out and mail it?

Yeah, currently the user would print out the PDF generated by the site and mail it in to the IRS. E-filing is on the roadmap, but registering as an E-file provider is a pretty complex process. One of the options we were thinking about is scraping and automatically filling in fields on the free fillable forms site https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...

> but registering as an E-file provider is a pretty complex process

Sounds like yet another thing the e-filing lobby worked to ensure their monopoly...

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

#287

Post by nathancahill »

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…

Government: You owe us money. It’s called taxes.

Me: How much do I owe?

Gov’t: You have to figure that out.

Me: I just pay what I want?

Gov’t: Oh, no we know exactly how much you owe. But you have to guess that number too.

Me: What if I get it wrong?

Gov’t: You go to prison

Source: https://twitter.com/jordan_stratton/status/11181414550616719...

I dig this one up every April.

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

#288

Post by cscurmudgeon »

andybak wrote: post #169
sillysaurusx wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Maybe look how other countries do it? Like with your health system, a lot of us are slightly baffled by how broken things are in the US.

Most other countries are comparable to US states rather than all of US. The US is incredibly diverse (in humans and govermental systems) in a lot of ways. So using one system is not easy as in other countries.

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

#289

Post by elihu »

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.

I've never been audited, but several times I've had the IRS just tell me I did my return wrong and give me a bigger refund.

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

#290

Post by stainforth »

belval wrote: post #32
crooked-v wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, the Republican Party has a history of intentionally pushing for cumbersome tax filing as part of encouraging people to hate the idea of taxes in general.

I don't think it's a Republican thing, the Liberal party and the NPD in Canada are both left-leaning and they have a majority yet they aren't pushing for this. Pretty sure it's just run-of-the-mill lobbying and corruption unfortunately. A typical "think of the jobs!" type of thing.

Your counter to is that the politicians in a different country with an entirely different governmental evolution didn't arrive at the same thing?
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