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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

#311

Post by SilasX »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #145
ellyagg wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"2) Paying taxes is one of the few transactional relationships you have with your government. If you ask me, a government representative should come to your office and you should pay him in cash, not hide and automate taxes so that they disappear." Yep. My brother resists giving his credit cards to businesses to keep on file because it makes it much easier for them to get your money habitually, unconsciously, acciden…

You should love paying your taxes because you love your government. That means that you and the government should have some sort of transactional relationship. I give the government 100 bucks every payday, and I see the things it provides for me. Then, every election, I get to vote for folks to make adjustments based on my desires. We have a relationship. I understand and am reminded on a regular basis that there is…

Yeah, man, that's such a great point. I look around and see all the GREAT things the government does for me. I mean, who else but the federal government would put a massive army in the Middle East to blow up swarthy people that might think bad thoughts about me. I sure as hell can't afford that! So when I see thousands go each month to feed our democratically elected government, I smile -- because they're blowing up the darkies that none of us could afford individually to blow up.

Same thing with drug prohibition. I mean, my friends and I are clever and all, but there's no way in hell we could ever scrape together the money, material, and manpower to lock up a bunch of darkies for putting the wrong chemicals in their bodies. I mean, SOMEONE has to keep them off the job market and from providing for their families, and we can't trust them to just go attempt rape on a white woman anymore. That's lots of prisons we've got to put up and manage.

Golly gee, I'm just ECSTATIC to pay for these things.

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

#312

Post by khuey »

whitenoise wrote: post #203
ScottWhigham wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the point. The IRS has already received your 1099/W2/etc and thus it knows (a) your income, and (b) how much in taxes you've already paid. By then having the IRS start your tax return for you, you would no longer have to fill in that info. The IRS makes free forms available already. Besides, are there actually people so stupid that they would give their SSN/info to a site like that?

"Besides, are there actually people so stupid that they would give their SSN/info to a site like that?" Honest question. Are you saying that this particular site is less secure or all online e-filing services less secure? This is one of the options recommended by IRS[1] for e-filing. [1] - http://www.irs.gov/uac/Free-File:-Do-Your-Federal-Taxes-for-...

All e-filing services (include free file fillable forms) result in a third party seeing your data on the way to the IRS. This is true for both online and offline tax preparation software (e.g. TurboTax).

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

#313

Post by jebblue »

jebblue wrote: post #169
ajross wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one pays penalties for simple mistakes. That's what FOX news tells you, but it's not true. We've made five-figure goofs on taxes in the past and a simple letter explaining the mistake (assuming it's an explainable mistake and you didn't get caught in actual attempted fraud) is enough to get the penalty waved.

>> No one pays penalties for simple mistakes. That's what FOX news tells you, but it's not true. Citation needed.

Why are my points negative for my comment? Is it not true that he made a statement about FOX as though it were known accepted truth and did not back it up with a factual reference?

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

#314

Post by tanzam75 »

hmottestad wrote: post #300
rdl wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Many states in the US have strict laws against "unlicensed practice of law" -- which includes giving advice.

This is why many American commenters feel the need to add an "I Am Not A Lawyer" disclaimer when commenting on any legal issues.

I doubt if the IANAL acronym would be enough, though. Either spell it out, or leave it out.

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

#315

Post by tanzam75 »

sschueller wrote: post #254
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…

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. If you live in a county with an effective lower tax rate you have to pay the difference. I take home less money than someone with the same job and same expenses. In addition it's so cumbersome to file from abroad that I have to pay someone. It's like the king of England collecting taxes from the ones who…

> I don't think this will ever get fixed since Americans abroad also don't have any representation in congress.

Overseas Americans are theoretically represented in Congress at their last American domicile. In practice, this is difficult to achieve. For example, many places will not mail absentee ballots overseas.

And of course, the Congressman for your last American domicile probably isn't that concerned about your interests overseas. This makes it disturbingly similar to the "virtual representation" that the colonies had in Parliament.

Also, the United States now practices more "taxation without representation" than the United Kingdom. Commonwealth citizens residing in Britain can vote in British elections. EU citizens cannot vote for the British Parliament, but they can vote for the devolved Scottish and Welsh Parliaments.

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

#316

Post by tanzam75 »

vacri wrote: post #294
mgkimsal wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But her US passport also makes her a bigger target.

I would've thought the British passport would've offered the best tradeoff. Large enough to do something, small enough to escape notice.

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

#317

Post by tanzam75 »

krschultz wrote: post #117
MatthewPhillips wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever been to the DMV?

DMV in New Jersey is great . It really is. Completely painless for everything I've done there including getting a license, buying/selling cars, trailer registration, etc. DMV in Connecticut is horrific. One of the worse "customer service" experience. Which says to me, all of the reflexive "DMV sucks" comments are missing the real question - why does it suck in some states and not others?

The DMV in New Jersey is not great. It is, however, better than it was ten years ago.

It also depends greatly on which office you go to. Trenton is, unsurprisingly, horrible.

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

#318

Post by frogpelt »

loeg wrote: post #125
frogpelt wrote: post #90

Frankly, anyone who does trust any government hasn't had very much experience with them. At best, governments are inefficient and incompetent. At worst, they are run by politicians absorbed with self-interest. There are already scads of people trusting too much to other entities rather than figuring it out on their own. These people leave their tax withholdings at default levels, then walk down to the local Wal-Mart…

How many people make (And re: "default", I've looked and looked, and can't find such a thing. How do you determine a "default" withholding from a W-4 other than just taking your expected income tax for the year and dividing by pay days? If you do that, you shouldn't have a $10,000 refund...) For what it's worth, in 2012 I made less than $100,000 in AGI, withheld the W-4 default for my filing status (Single, Independe…

Honestly, my examples were based on true stories about people that I know that I've heard in the very recent past. One person makes far, far less than $100K and received just below a $10,000 refund.

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

#319

Post by frogpelt »

lhc- wrote: post #150
frogpelt wrote: post #90

Frankly, anyone who does trust any government hasn't had very much experience with them. At best, governments are inefficient and incompetent. At worst, they are run by politicians absorbed with self-interest. There are already scads of people trusting too much to other entities rather than figuring it out on their own. These people leave their tax withholdings at default levels, then walk down to the local Wal-Mart…

"The solution is not more government nanny-state ideas" "requiring every person who receives 10% or more...to attend classes" This seems like a bit of a non-sequitur. Don't provide an easy (and free) way for people to submit their taxes without going to a CPA, but do force people to go to some classes? How is that less of a "nanny state"?

I admit it sounds contradictory. I guess I equate a nanny-state to the government taking care of something FOR you so you don't have to worry about it.

To me, a required educational course about taxes and personal finance would be akin to a driving course--not so much absolving you of responsibility as preparing you to accept it.

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

#320

Post by kscaldef »

Glyptodon wrote: post #271
kscaldef wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't manually entered more than a trivial amount data into TurboTax in years. Most banks and brokerages seem to be on the direct-download bandwagon these days.

Are you endorsing TurboTax as some sort of appropriate monopoly on tax prep? My bank can tie in to TurboTax, but why should I have to support a private company lobbying to make the tax code worse on purpose just to do my taxes easily? I went through the same thing as the commenter above and it was OBNOXIOUS. Even worse, there's no real reason for it be done the way it is. Oh, and then I realized I'd made a really stu…

I was replying specifically to this paragraph:

> I don't care about the 30 dollars turbotax charges me, I'll send 30 dollars straight to the CEO or promise to burn it. What bothers me is that I've been forced to do manual data entry - a pet peeve of mine as a programmer - because the government has been lobbied specifically to be less efficient.

in which the author reveals that he or she uses Turbotax, but finds the manual entry of data into the program onerous. I found this interesting as a criticism, since my own experience is that I virtually never have to manually enter anything into Turbotax. There was no endorsement of Turbotax or other judgement about the primary question under discussion in the article.

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