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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

#351

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…

German efficiency!

I like it, my city government sends me a statement once a month, says you owe this amount for police, that amount for fire, some other amount for sewer and water, some amount for schools. Maybe I disagree with some of the amounts, fair to discuss, that's democracy. But they don't play that idiotic game the feds do, you owe a certain amount, if you guess it correctly, or if you on purpose short it but we don't catch you at it, then nothing happens. But if we randomly catch you getting it wrong then we fuck with you. I hate that.

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

#352

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.

What’s crazy is that unreasonable taxes is one of the main reasons _why_ the British settlers rebelled against the Crown and went on to found America. The fact that nearly 250 years later we have an absurd, convoluted tax system, that literally requires specialists and companies with absurd market caps, for example Intuit has a $137B market cap, shows just how broken the system has become.

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

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Obviously it's a joke, but if you get it wrong, they send you the right amount and then you pay it (or they pay you). As long as you are close with your on-time payment, the interest is very reasonable on small differences. It's probably cheaper than paying for turbotax if you would have to pay for that.

The best is the 50 cent check in the mail… literally the postage cost more to deliver the return check.

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

#354
post #275

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.

Switch to FreeTaxFileUSA for now if you’re not willing to go for this open source project.

Not only is it cheaper, more importantly, you’re not giving money that’s going towards maintaining the tax code that prevents the government from “competing” with TurboTax.

Obviously the Government already has what it needs to pretty much do all of your taxes, and they already must do this anyway. They could ask you like 5 short questions and your taxes would be done…they already have all your info.

Stop paying the lobbyists to continue lobbying against your interests. Start getting in the habit of calling or emailing your reps around tax time.

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

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

Awesome

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

#356

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... .…

The podcast might have been Planet Money: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/03/22/521132960/epis...

Priceonomics wrote an accompanying article: https://priceonomics.com/the-stanford-professor-who-fought-t...

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

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

you don't really go to prison unless you're going out of you way to do something really nefarious it's also super easy to setup a payment plan online now if you really mess things up

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

#359

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 absolutely absurd.

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

#360

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…

I had the same situation once (a missed 1099) and my biggest complaint is that they waited almost a year to let me know. And of course by then it was quite late so I owed them even more money! Even if they can't tell me what numbers they expect when I file, it seems like they could at least let me know within a few weeks if they're pretty sure I missed a 1099. Heck, I typically file at least a month early. They could…

Exactly my complaint as well!

They could send me a monthly statement like my city government does. Instead, they wait a year to let me know I slipped up and then charge me interest. Guys, if you know I slipped up now you could have told me a year ago.

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