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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

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've become a nation of men instead of a nation of laws.

That is a reasonable conclusion to draw. But not the one I draw. However there were 20 years between the 2 events. And the first was found because of an audit, while the second I found and reported within a few months of filing. There’s a lot going on here. The lesson I draw is: different circumstances different results. But both good and bad results are possible, for fairly similar inputs into the process.

> the first was found because of an audit

The IRS audited a 10 year old?

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

#332
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a reasonable conclusion to draw. But not the one I draw. However there were 20 years between the 2 events. And the first was found because of an audit, while the second I found and reported within a few months of filing. There’s a lot going on here. The lesson I draw is: different circumstances different results. But both good and bad results are possible, for fairly similar inputs into the process.

> the first was found because of an audit The IRS audited a 10 year old?

If it became known that they wouldn't audit a 10 year old, bad actors would certainly exploit it.

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

#333
post #89

OMG big business is trying to ruin my life! The government are not incentivized to do a good job preparing your taxes. I'm not a tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorist. I don't think the US government wants to institute a program to systematically defraud the population. But I do believe that governmental inefficiency and incompetence is nigh-limitless, and the very people who may need their tax returns the most could end u…

So, to extend your analogy, if flight was just invented and a flight transport system was being proposed now, you would argue against it because TSA would start violating your liberties when you use it and deterioration of existing horse carriage-based infrastructure will make opt-out a non-option?

Sure, if you want to convert my argument into straw-man form to more effectively belittle it, that is a very effective way to do so.

A more accurate way to extend the analogy to transportation would be a company starting a free bus service for lower-income neighborhoods. All you have to do is link your grocery store rewards card and scan it every time you use the bus, which will authorize the company to access all your purchase data from that card.

You could very easily argue that this is a good thing, and perhaps at the outset it would be. But if it turns out that the company is doing something sleazy--rewards cards sometimes also encode personally-identifying information which could be used unethically, for example--then at that point a person's livelihood could very well depend on continuing to use that bus system, especially if the convenience of the system forced other free or low-cost alternatives to stop serving those neighborhoods.

In both of these cases (the IRS preparing your taxes and the company holding your personal information), the organization is not incentivized to do a good job. In fact, especially in the IRS case, the worse a job they do, the more tax money the government takes in.

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

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we saying that since the system apparently works in Denmark it therefore works everywhere and that there never be any government-is-evil considerations?

What a bizarre exaggeration of the parent comment. The comment about Denmark appears to serve as an existence proof, demonstrating that there isn't any inherent property of tax systems that means they must necessarily be convoluted and evil.

I would agree with you if it weren't for the "government-is-evil hyperbole" line. I took that as an example of saying "that person must be wrong about their experience because this other thing I experience is actually good." That line says to me "you are wrong" with a description that tries to explain why. I admit I could be mistaken but that's the way I read it. I saw nothing in the comment along the lines of this is how it could be if some things were different.

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

#335
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a reasonable conclusion to draw. But not the one I draw. However there were 20 years between the 2 events. And the first was found because of an audit, while the second I found and reported within a few months of filing. There’s a lot going on here. The lesson I draw is: different circumstances different results. But both good and bad results are possible, for fairly similar inputs into the process.

> the first was found because of an audit The IRS audited a 10 year old?

That they did. I assume it’s for the reason that maxerickson stated. These where some /really/ simple taxes.

Other than the huge (for me) fine, it was a fairly painless experience. My parents did handle it - but even for them other than the stress of knowing it was happening, I think it involved not too much work for them, and as far as they where concerned had not too bad an outcome.

I do suspect my parents double-checked my filings from then on a lot more closely than they had before.

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

#337
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??" That's why Grover Norquist and others are lobbying against this. If taxes weren't a hassle, their movements would lose an important emotional touchstone that fuels many peo…

Exactly, instead of having a convenient -option- that could save many Americans time and money Norquist and people like him are forcing the rest of the country to use a less efficient method. In other words they are taking away people "freedoms" in order to force them to fight to get their "freedoms" back. Norquist is of course more than happy to provide helpful guidance on what freedoms should be fought for.

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

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, to extend your analogy, if flight was just invented and a flight transport system was being proposed now, you would argue against it because TSA would start violating your liberties when you use it and deterioration of existing horse carriage-based infrastructure will make opt-out a non-option?

Sure, if you want to convert my argument into straw-man form to more effectively belittle it, that is a very effective way to do so. A more accurate way to extend the analogy to transportation would be a company starting a free bus service for lower-income neighborhoods. All you have to do is link your grocery store rewards card and scan it every time you use the bus, which will authorize the company to access all yo…

Ah, that is much better analogy, yes. I don't think IRS _necessarily_ has no incentive to do the job properly though. If government didn't want those deductions and tax cuts used, they would not introduce them in the first place. Excluding the cases where the cuts were made based more on politics than on policy. No idea what proportion that would be.

Tax deductions are (supposed to be) made not because government wants to give people a break and be nice, but because it wants to influence certain behaviors. If those cuts are not used then they don't serve their original purpose, so that is an incentive for IRS to count deductions properly.

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

#339
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden already has a form of this. There is a black box many retailers need to install which submits all of their daily transactions to the government.

Sure, perhaps we should also station TSA outside every retailer and have them search our bags. That sounds like a privacy nightmare.

Of course it is. I would never live in Sweden because of things like this. I was just pointing it out.

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

#340
post #111
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they were fighting against online access to IRS data. I think they fought against pre-filled 1040 forms becoming default return without you actually having to do almost anything. The former is innocent and useful, the latter may be a bit more controversial, since the incentive of the IRS is to maximize the taxes, having IRS create the returns may not provide the best option for the people who use it.

> the incentive of the IRS is to maximize the taxes I'm not sure this is the case. IRS funding is not a static percentage of tax revenue. Sure, the tax money goes into one big pot, but IRS funding is not dependent upon the money they bring in.

Don't oversimplify. Prosecutors also aren't pay percentages of the sentences they get, still many prosecutors are zealous to get longer sentences. Because it's their job. The job of IRS is to extract taxes, more they do, more successful they are. People like to be successful.
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