They pay off a lot of politicians to keep tax filing complicated.
https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...
Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?
101–110 of 135 posts
Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
For many if not dare I say most TurboTax is among the cheapest because it is free. The fact is if your situation is simple (a W-2 and the standard deduction) then you can get away with just about anything. The truth is the IRS doesn't send reports because this country is obsessed with deductions. Your income (which the IRS does know about) is a small factor in the entire equation. Ironically, under Trump's tax cuts,…
I remember there was a huge issue among the teachers unions that teachers wouldn't be able to deduct up to 500 dollars anymore for classroom expenses (I may have the number wrong). I was thinking, you teachers should be good at math and realize your deduction being doubled is way nicer than having that classroom supplies deduction. Also, why isn't the school paying for your expenses (but that's a whole separate conve…
You are thinking about this wrong. When you are in a situation where you take the standard dedication then you suddenly lose the benefit of doing any tax-deductible actions. So teachers across the board were immediately disincentivized from buying school supplies because it’s effectively not tax deductible anymore.
I rant about this all the time with charitable donations. Any behavior the government wants to incentivize through tax policy — charitable donations, student loan interest, IRA contributions should be credits that apply in addition to the standard deduction because otherwise there’s no incentive for most people.
Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I assume because nobody would file taxes for things that the IRS was absent from their report, because now you know the IRS doesn't know about it and won't be missing it. That's not why. The IRS is underfunded and overworked, so even if it had the information it needed to generate a report for everyone, it still couldn't do it. But it doesn't have that information anyway! A lot of taxable income is derived from sou…
> This includes things like cost basis for RSUs, state and local taxes (including property tax), and various kinds of investment income. Assuming the political will to make tax prep easy (which I know does not exist), the fix for this would be pretty simple for Congress to legislate. Sure, it would likely take a few years for all municipalities to come into compliance, but it's not like this would be difficult. > On…
To a paraphrased an old saying, “it’s hard to get a politician to pass laws to make something easier when he gets paid to make it harder.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...
Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember there was a huge issue among the teachers unions that teachers wouldn't be able to deduct up to 500 dollars anymore for classroom expenses (I may have the number wrong). I was thinking, you teachers should be good at math and realize your deduction being doubled is way nicer than having that classroom supplies deduction. Also, why isn't the school paying for your expenses (but that's a whole separate conve…
You are thinking about this wrong. When you are in a situation where you take the standard dedication then you suddenly lose the benefit of doing any tax-deductible actions. So teachers across the board were immediately disincentivized from buying school supplies because it’s effectively not tax deductible anymore. I rant about this all the time with charitable donations. Any behavior the government wants to incentiv…
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Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
That was my point. They know the money you make, they can make it free and easy but they don't want to cut the middleman.
Even were this not the case—short of an arrest, there is no way for the federal government to “serve you” in a contactable manner—whereas my sense is that this is not the case in Estonia and a growing number of spam nations, ie the government can mandate that citizens be reachable digitally (e.g. portal login is sufficient). The IRS has no inexpensive and scalable way of proving that the person on my end of the Inter…
I think the bigger issue is the complexity of personal taxes in the US. The technology is a solved problem. Australia has had a government provided free tax client since 1998 with pre-fill facilities, which was retired & moved to a web portal in 2016.
You have entrenched interests keeping the whole process as difficult as possible.
Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?
#106So many people offering explanations, and yet not a single one of them answers the OP's question. If you're upset that Intuit is engaging in lobbying (as you should be!), that might be an appropriate answer for a different question (eg: why doesn't the IRS just send us their own reports for us to approve?). Again, I am not defending Intuit's involvement in politics, but that's not the answer to the dark patterns ques…
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Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?
#107People only file their taxes once a year and just want to move on. Industries with infrequent transactions are more prone to abuse like this.
It isn’t a coincidence that Tax Day (April 15) is about as far away from Election Day (November 6) as it’s possible to be!
It is. Election Day is codified in the Constitution, and has been for centuries. Tax Day, in order to give people enough time, has to be a few months after the new year. No conspiracy. Having Tax Day in, say, October doesn’t make sense.
Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
"why doesn't the IRS just send us their own reports for us to approve?" I assume because nobody would file taxes for things that the IRS was absent from their report, because now you know the IRS doesn't know about it and won't be missing it. I think TurboTax has too many partnerships and offers. It gets people because it's free or only $10 or whatever. It would be pretty easy to switch to other software, like HR Blo…
Because the tax firms lobbied to bar the IRS from doing so. Other countries I've lived in make the common case this easy.
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Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?
#109Why would I be mad at Intuit? They’re an amoral profit-seeking company seeking profit. I’m furious at the IRS and Congress for not providing me with a free, simple federal tax filing solution. I know there are free file programs for certain income brackets or tax situations, but it’s outrageous that the IRS has colluded with Intuit (and other paid tax preparers) by strongly recommending that taxpayers file electronic…
This is like if you were getting violently mugged and you stopped in the middle and said "why would I be mad at the muggers, they are just optimizing their own finances". You can expect people to do what is in their own interest without supporting them. I expect that the muggers will mug me. I don't support them in mugging me. They are an amoral profit seeking company who is screwing you and I over so they can benefi…
I read the comment as agreeing with you more than it disagreed. Gp is rightfully mad at Congress and IRS because ,regardless of Intuit's own interests, levying federal taxes is solely a power of Congress. If neither Congress nor the IRS are making tax filing simpler, then either there's some hidden agenda or they're just plain incompetent. They're not victims of anything other than themselves.
Re: Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used FreeTaxUSA with a Wealthfront account that had stock trading. Wasn’t charged.
FreeTaxUSA is strangely under-mentioned on these threads. I’ve used it the last couple years with a complex-ish situation. Not a single complaint.
didn’t know about it until i browsed /r/tax