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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

#371

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

randmeerkat wrote: post #352
nathancahill wrote: post #287

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.

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.

The central problem is the refusal of US governments (state & federal) to pay people money to do things they want to encourage rather than give them tax credits and whatnot.

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

#372

Post by sydbarrett74 »

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!

No post body was provided.

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

#373

Post by swozey »

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…

I have a $165k notice of defiecency bill from the IRS due next month that is a complete joke that I have had to spend days figuring out. I almost dropped thousands on a lawyer for it until I understood Tax Court better.

Why? They think I sold a house and kept all of the gains. Like I didn't have a mortgage, and like it wasn't my primary residence.

It's ridiculous. I can't explain how stressed out getting a $165k bill when that's practically my yearly income made me. I wonder how many wealthy people get these completely incorrect $165k bills and how often they come after the person with $10k in the bank.

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

#374

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #361
ehsankia wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The IRS can't even handle people e-filing. But don't worry, the project started in 2009 to replace their COBOL mainframe systems is kinda, sorta on track for completion...in 2030.

I've filed for years using FreeFillableForms. It works. A bit more cumbersome than if some ex-Amazon people had implemented it, but not too bad.

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

#375

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

tombert wrote: post #128
ngokevin wrote: post #106

Earlier 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.

About two weeks ago, I got a letter from the IRS telling me that I owe an extra eight-thousand dollars from my 2020 return, with a $1000 fine and $200 interest as a result. [1] I'm not mad about owing the money, but what annoys me is if they have enough information to know that I underreported, then why am I part of this equation to begin with? Clearly they have enough of my tax data to know I screwed up, so why don'…

> I'm not mad about owing the money, but what annoys me is if they have enough information to know that I underreported,

There's some chance that they didn't have enough information to know that until you filed. Maybe.

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

#376

Post by JSavageOne »

softveda wrote: post #328
nathancahill wrote: post #287

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.

This is how is works in Australia. The Australian Tax Office will pre-fill your tax return online with income from your wages, interests, managed fund distributions, dividends etc. That maybe enough for simple tax returns, you can just accept their values and submit. What they don't know is your income from sources like rental income or crypto. They also don't know deductions you are going to claim. In this case you…

Pretty much every other major developed country operates like this. Here in South Korea for example filing taxes is as simple as logging into some government portal, verifying that the information they already have on you is correct, and making any corrections if necessary. 10 minutes, done.

The U.S is unique in forcing its citizens to waste countless hours and pay hundreds/thousands of dollars every year doing the useless unnecessary work of "filing taxes". Why is the system still this backwards? Either plain ignorance of there being a superior alternative, or a broken political system that can't get anything done. My guess is it's a combination of both.

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

#377

Post by jahewson »

taf2 wrote: post #353
singron wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Tax is rounded to the nearest dollar though.

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

#378

Post by lakecresva »

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 a CLA. Github's ToS are set up such that contributions you get from other github users are licensed in the same manner as your repo unless the contributor gets you to agree to accept them under some other license : https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t.... People should not be worried about you "going private"; if you've accepted non de minimis contributions from other users, any future conveyance or network interaction stuff would require you to include the source materials to stay in compliance.

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

#379

Post by jrochkind1 »

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 is in fact how it works in many (most?) countries.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/dreading-taxes-countries-s...

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

#380

Post by btgeekboy »

nathancahill wrote: post #287
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.

It’s a nice, if overly simplistic sentiment.

It’d be nice if my 1099s were electronically filed with the cost basis. But they’re not. So the IRS, every year, thinks I’m going to owe way more than I do.

The IRS also has zero idea about the $4000+ of sales tax deductions I’m filing for this year.

And finally, if you do get it wrong, you don’t go to jail. They send you a CP2000 letter. (Remember those 1099s? I forgot one one year.) You fix the problem or show them their error. They’ll even waive the penalties the first time. It’s a somewhat easy process.

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