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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

#341

Post by [deleted] »

Vespasian wrote: post #339
zw123456 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ya, so why not just send me a statement once a month, the power company does that, the cell phone company does that, the city I live in does that, etc. Just send me a statement, you made this, you get this much deduction for the other crap or whatever. No stupid W2, W4 1040, bunch of mumbo jumbo from the 1950's that a few companies are ripping us off over IMO.

That's basically how it works in Germany. There is a formula in the law that specifies how much if your salary gets deducted every month based on specific criteria such as your marital status, your religion (yeah church taxes), whether it is your primary or secondary job etc. That amount is calculated to be enough (a little bit to much in fact) to cover taxes for most people employed with a single job. Unless you hav…

[deleted]

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

#343

Post by perardi »

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.

That is, in fact, Grover Norquist’s position.

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-maker-of-turbotax...

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

#344

Post by perardi »

deathanatos wrote: post #243
jackson1442 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's actually somewhat standard- even FreeTaxUSA (my personal choice) does this because they're essentially letting you use their product on credit.

I think the objection is not that they're charging a fee, it's that the fee is $39. TurboTax (just the basic federal edition) is what, $30? And yes, this is essentially credit, extended for what, a month? So ($39/$30 * 12) is yearly rate of like 1,560% for that credit, aka., highway robbery — that, I think, is the parent's point. (I might be a bit off on the price, but not enough to change the result. TurboTax's loss…

Yes, the highway robbery of it, that’s my point. That is a huge percentage of the base price of TurboTax, and it is in no way less convenient than paying with a credit card, and they hide that fee down in the blah blah text.

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

#345

Post by zakpatterson »

throwawayboise wrote: post #213
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!

Very cool. Will give it a look, I am about to start my taxes. Last year I used http://opentaxsolver.sourceforge.net/ It did the job, mostly, but had some quirks and didn't quite get everything right with the rounding when I set it to use whole dollar amounts, so I had to correct a few totals that ended up being $1 off, which was annoying. Probably won't use that one again.

This is actually a bit of an annoying problem for us! All the 1040 instructions say to round all figures at the end. So it is expected that you would have a few cases of 1.49 + 1.49 = 3 showing as 1 + 1 = 3.

But the freefilefillableforms supported by IRS rounds all input and then does addition based on that. For now we just maintain all cents and do math with the precise numbers, then round at the end when the numbers need to go into the forms. We have some work in the pipeline now to make that user-configurable too.

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

#346

Post by junar »

pkulak wrote: post #117
mywittyname wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I don't file my HSA contribution I'm technically committing fraud, right? The IRS will send you a corrected tax return, you sign it and mail them a check and you'll hear nothing from them again. Maybe you didn't get the form, or didn't understand the software, etc, etc. There are lots of honest ways to screw up your taxes. The IRS isn't going to assume fraud unless you refuse to pay them when they point it out.…

I wonder if this is a backdoor into having the IRS mail you your completed form to sign and send back, like many other countries do. Just file a 1040-EZ every year with only your personal details and everything else zeroed out, and then look over what comes back in 6 months. :D

Would not recommend. If you happen to owe, you would most likely incur a 20% accuracy-related penalty. Also, interest accrues from the filing deadline on both the unpaid tax and the penalty.

https://www.irs.gov/payments/accuracy-related-penalty

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

#347

Post by IggleSniggle »

formerkrogeremp wrote: post #313
aidangrimshaw wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, yeah the project has a loose group of contributor volunteers but longer term we would probably have to have a larger, more formal structure. Right now, we're focusing on tooling to make onboarding new tax forms simpler and require a lower threshold of project understanding to allow a larger, less technical group of people to contribute

Huh, as an aspiring tax professional how do I get in on this?

Go to the GitHub link above, read the README, and pay special attention to the “CONTRIBUTING” section.

If you have questions and the README and CONTRIBUTING documents do not specify a way to communicate, then open Issues on GitHub with your questions. Try to avoid asking questions unless you’ve read everything and cannot figure out how to proceed: remember that everyone working on the project is volunteering their limited time, just like you, and try to be respectful of their time and energy.

I am unaffiliated with this project, this is just the general procedure for contributing to open source projects.

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

#348

Post by creakingstairs »

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…

They've even done a pilot program that literally did what you wanted. [1] And yes, it was much better experience:

> Almost all participants said that they would opt to use the service the following year.

And yes, as you have said, the answer is lobbying.

> Tax preparation services strongly opposed ReadyReturn and have lobbied against its expansion.

[1] https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-was-exper....

EDIT: I can't find the podcast I heard this in, but pretty sure the tax professor that spearheaded this pilot got followed by people hired by Intuit.

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

#349

Post by autoexec »

wnevets wrote: post #95
jeffwask wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. Large on people scale not corporation scale which is why treating corporations like people is a terrible idea.

maybe the rest of us should start a gofundme so we can pool together our funds and buy a few politicians.

American politicians can be bought off very cheaply by corporations, but the minute people try to crowd-fund bribes to get actual representation in government corporations will just start to offer more. Some companies and industries have more wealth than entire nations at their disposal. If it comes down to a bidding war between you and Google you will lose. If paying out a little more to congressmen will keep an industry making even greater profits they'll do it.

The only real fix is actual accountability for lawmakers. It means massive amounts of oversight to catch those who accept bribes in any forms (including "campaign contributions") and it means making it simple for the people to vote out anyone who refuses to represent their interests.

Right now, bribery is effectively legal, there is zero accountability and between the two party system, gerrymandering, and voter suppression even if you manage to get someone out of office you're probably not going to like the person you're forced to vote in to replace them. We're a very long way from fixing the problem and all of the people in power have zero incentive to start getting us there because they profit off the system being broken.

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