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How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing

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Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing

#291

Post by Symmetry »

This seems to suffer from the same main weakness as attempts to simplify the tax code. The people who most care about taxes and best understand alternative systems are those who know how to work the current system. No doubt the Grover Norquists of the world have accountants who can use differing opinions of the rules to shave their tax bill. If our tax system was simpler or easier more people would claim all the deductions to which they were entitled then taxes would have to go up, but effectively only on those who already knew about all the deductions.

We might all be outraged about this, but we're not going to change who we vote for based on whether a given politician supports tax reform or not, we reserve that for things that directly effect us like SOPA. Likewise people who prepare taxes for a living will change their vote to punish politicians who are taking away their jobs, but will ignore stuff like SOPA.

Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing

#293

Post by danso »

SilasX wrote: post #281
danso wrote: post #137

The fact that a tax-hater such as Grover Norquist opposes reforming the tax-filing procedures illustrates the complex dichotomy between giving government good responsibility without giving it dictatorship-like responsibility. In Norquist's opinion, making taxes too easy to file will make citzenry too complacent about how they're being nickel-and-dimed and will lull them into not pursuing reform. OK, fair enough. But…

>But what about a scenario in which for 30-50 million Americans file for their taxes by sending a SMS (as it's apparently done in Scandinavian countries)? And all the other taxpayers, they're wondering: "Why the f-ck can't my taxes be that easy??" How does your independent consultancy cram all of its income and expenditure items into an SMS? Less snark version: the main cause of complicated tax code is needing to hav…

> How does your independent consultancy cram all of its income and expenditure items into an SMS?

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough, so snark accepted...what I meant is that if there are Americans who are in the "SMS-and-done" category, then there is a group of Americans who are almost in that bracket. But because of our convoluted tax code, they are ultimately forced to use a third-party to deal with filing taxes.

In my imaginary unicorn world, this group of Americans would be the critical voting bloc toward either an overhaul of the tax code that makes tax filing simpler, if not SMS-simple. There will always be entities that need dedicated tax accountants...but tax reform is about reducing the overall number of entities

Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing

#294

Post by vacri »

mgkimsal wrote: post #247
cletus wrote: post #236

There are two things that disturb me about the US government: 1. As a whole, it seems to operate on the assumption of guilt; and 2. It seems bought and paid for by special interests, pork barrelling and so forth. As a foreigner I of course have foreign retirement and bank accounts. If they total more than $10,000 (at any point in the last calendar year) you need to report them. This is FBAR (Foreign Bank Account Repo…

As a US person who visits other countries, I get scared about making a mistake in immigration issues. Going through customs in a country where you don't speak the language (well or at all) is scary.

I knew a woman with three passports, US, UK and Dutch. She only ever travelled on her US passport because only the US has the resources to help out single private travellers in shitty areas when something goes wrong. They're not going to help everyone, but they're going to help a lot more than the other govs.

Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing

#295

Post by jmadsen »

KMag wrote: post #285
niggler wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Worst part is that we have to pay US taxes as well local taxes even if we don't live or make any money in the US." You can resign your citizenship. I remember hearing reports of people doing this last year (going to Singapore)

Be careful there. It's explicitly illegal to resign one's U.S. citizenship for the purpose of reducing one's tax bill. For instance, Saverin nominally gave up his U.S. citizenship in order to make doing business in S.E. Asia easier.

This is not entirely accurate. Read further:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renunciation_of_citizenship#Tax...

Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing

#296

Post by enduser »

Those of you who live in Silicon Valley might consider writing to Rep. Zoe Lofgren about this. The article mentions she is one of two Representatives who co-sponsored a bill to limit return-free filing. From the article:

"A year after Norquist wrote Bush, a bill to limit return-free filing was introduced by a pair of unlikely allies: Reps. Eric Cantor, R-Va., the conservative House majority leader, and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., a liberal stalwart whose district includes Silicon Valley."

Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing

#297

Post by brooksbp »

rm999 wrote: post #11

This stuff aggravates me. My taxes aren't abnormally complex (single, one state, very few deductions, one w-2), but I get several 1099s for my investments and end up spending an hour filling them in manually, importing CSV files from my brokerages, and double checking the numbers. What annoys me is all the forms clearly state the IRS has also been sent this information; I'm literally filling out forms in a slow, erro…

What about image recognition for tax documents.. auto-fill based on pictures of forms etc?

Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing

#298

Post by guelo »

cletus wrote: post #236

There are two things that disturb me about the US government: 1. As a whole, it seems to operate on the assumption of guilt; and 2. It seems bought and paid for by special interests, pork barrelling and so forth. As a foreigner I of course have foreign retirement and bank accounts. If they total more than $10,000 (at any point in the last calendar year) you need to report them. This is FBAR (Foreign Bank Account Repo…

FYI, the California fire retardants law was recently repealed after that nytimes article brought it to everybody's attention. http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Flame-retardant-law-ma...

Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing

#299

Post by eurleif »

brooksbp wrote: post #297
rm999 wrote: post #11

This stuff aggravates me. My taxes aren't abnormally complex (single, one state, very few deductions, one w-2), but I get several 1099s for my investments and end up spending an hour filling them in manually, importing CSV files from my brokerages, and double checking the numbers. What annoys me is all the forms clearly state the IRS has also been sent this information; I'm literally filling out forms in a slow, erro…

What about image recognition for tax documents.. auto-fill based on pictures of forms etc?

Turbotax has a smartphone app which does that, at least for W2s. I've seen TV ads for it.

Re: How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing

#300

Post by hmottestad »

rdl wrote: post #279
drstewart wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In Australia I think they can go back 7 years. No idea what it is in the US. It's 3 years. And fairly easy to look up: http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Em... Those records generally should be kept for three years from the date the tax return was filed. >Yes by all means send me to prison for failing to mention a $24,000 retirement account in Australia I can't touch until I'm 65 instead. Great us…

It's 3 years generally, 6 years for fraud, and infinite if you don't file. (IANALTAX, of course)

IANALTAX?

I'm sure it's not a lube from apple. However a quick google search didn't turn up anything.

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