Finally. Turbotax is fraud on so many levels I cannot even get started.
FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
121–130 of 198 posts
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#122God I hope this suit is successful. Lots of people here are discussing the regulatory trap they've got, and that's a big problem. But the actual problem mentioned in the suit is deceptive marketing. TurboTax is the worst in this regard. Last year, I, at every step of the process, declined the expensive options that say "maybe you'll save more money if you permanently switch into this paid mode". Yet after a couple ho…
Seems like TurboTax is probably not worth the hassle of trying to use for free. They try to steer you at every turn into accidentally accepting the paid features, and if you manage to make it through the maze there doesn't really seem to be much left that makes them better than any of the simpler competitors if you stick to the free tiers - no saving your information year over year, no automatically importing the super complex statements from robo-advisors like Betterment, etc.
It also seems like most software engineers won't qualify for free file anyway, because it has an income limit of $69,000 a year as far as I can tell.
One thing I genuinely wonder, at what point will digital/web-based services become the default for handling information by the government and every other large institution? Will it ever happen in my lifetime? Why are we still having to pay for 3rd party software to fill out physical forms? Even docusign, while it has become very prevalent for most contracts these days and is very convenient, is still requiring that you fill out a scanned image of a physical piece of paper, instead of just making the contracts web-based. Why?? Why doesn't the IRS just have a web app like turbotax for everyone to file taxes through? And if the answer is that the tax code is way too complicated that it's prohibitively expensive for the government to build a site as comprehensive as Turbotax, then fix it!
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact is that the government, like a thief, says to a man: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the road side, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly an…
> The fact is that the government, like a thief, says to a man: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. Yes, but I like civil society, infrastructure, paved roads and what little social safety net we have in this country, so...
Ahh yes, the running joke of "But who will pave the roads", this has be debunked so many times it is now a meme in libertarian circles yet people still bring it up anyone some mentions that income based taxation is theft.
Sad reality is most private roads are better maintained than the public roads which driving to my home everyday is like a obstacle course.
Then there is the fact the vast majority of Roads (in the US) are paid for not with Income taxes but with User Fee's such as Gas Taxes, Car Registration, Wheel Taxes, Tire Fee's, Sales Taxes on Cars, and many other sources
But hey let keep up with the narrative that with out income taxes we would all be driving on mud paths
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#124Why are we bothering with the small potatoes in the room (TurboTax not putting URLs to free tax filing, etc. etc) when the elephant is: "Why isn't the IRS giving people a way to prepopulate and file taxes for free with the financial info that the IRS already has on everyone?" Well, I suppose it's just a product of the corporate interests and congressional deadlock that prevents us from doing a multitude of things rig…
Because we know the answer: the IRS is prevented from doing that by law. Lobbied by Intuit. If you google around, you can find stories on it. edit: save_ferris linked to an excellent story below: https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre...
Yep. One such story is a podcast episode from Planet Money https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/03/709656642/epis...
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>>And just to add to this, the IRS software could be significantly easier to use than the commercial offerings. Someone has never worked in government contracting or developing Software from Government Committee a IRS Tax Software would look more than the universally hated Unemployment Systems, or the government healthcare markets Not a easy to use streamline system If you want something to be inefficient, have the…
> a IRS Tax Software would look more than the universally hated Unemployment Systems, or the government healthcare markets Consider that your opinion on what is "universally hated" is mostly shaped by the sources of information that you consume. Yours happens to be wrong. Overall the country views ObamaCare ~50% favorably, with some specific parts close to 90% approval. > Following Republican efforts to repeal the Af…
>>Consider that your opinion on what is "universally hated" is mostly shaped by the sources of information that you consume.
Clearly I was not commenting on ACA but on the Websites people use to Sign up for Government Subsidized Plans under the ACA which have continually been reviewed poorly by the people needing to use them.
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same idea here in Ireland. Reasons you might need to interact with the income tax system here: 1. You have significant (>€5000) non-employment income. 2. You worked for less than 12 months and are claiming your tax refund. 3. You disagree with the government assessed tax reciept (which is based on what your employer fills in). For 90% of people then, they don't need to interact with it. Their employer reports their i…
> Their employer reports their income, deducts an appropriate amount of taxes, and sends it to the government. How does your employer know what "the appropriate amount of taxes" is? In the US I have always had trouble setting this to where I'm not at least 5% off in one direction or the other, and I know more than my employer about what my withholding rate should be.
My employer pays all my income (I don’t have any side gigs). Unless I do something unusual like take a few months off for parental leave or similar, they know I make 12x my monthly salary exactly so they deduct my taxes from the table of income tax for someone having my yearly pay. It’s going to be almost exactly correct.
Reasons for deviations on the final tax would be non-income taxes/deductions (selling stock, income or deductions from interest).
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought the official IRS form filler was discontinued? Does this just take you to another intuit competitor? EDIT: it just sends you to the free version of turbo tax and has links for the competitors heh
> I thought the official IRS form filler was discontinued? IRS's own service was discontinued after an agreement with tax preparation companies that they would provide such a service (the IRS Free File Program) if your AGI is below 69k (nice). Which they do, but try to hide as much as they can via negative SEO and various dark pattern, so that you unknowingly get directed towards "free" offers which quickly require y…
Unfortunately, Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj was canceled[0]. The last episode was June 28, 2020: "Why Doing Taxes Is So Hard"
It's too bad. I thought it was a really worthwhile show.
---
[0]: https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/hasan-minhaj-patriot-act-ca...
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
If taxation is theft, so are the vast majority of jobs.
I have a choice of jobs, including working for myself. I have no choice in paying taxes.
You can move to a place with no income tax. Now, you might argue that is impractical, but so getting a non-shit job for many people.
I happen to think the government should impose taxes, and tax evasion is a moral failing, but I also recognized people were born into a contract with the government, and I'm not going to argue that's fair.
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#129Why are we bothering with the small potatoes in the room (TurboTax not putting URLs to free tax filing, etc. etc) when the elephant is: "Why isn't the IRS giving people a way to prepopulate and file taxes for free with the financial info that the IRS already has on everyone?" Well, I suppose it's just a product of the corporate interests and congressional deadlock that prevents us from doing a multitude of things rig…
Because we know the answer: the IRS is prevented from doing that by law. Lobbied by Intuit. If you google around, you can find stories on it. edit: save_ferris linked to an excellent story below: https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre...
It's outright ludicrous how a private company is able to introduce a law that prevents a government agency from doing its job.
Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices
#130God I hope this suit is successful. Lots of people here are discussing the regulatory trap they've got, and that's a big problem. But the actual problem mentioned in the suit is deceptive marketing. TurboTax is the worst in this regard. Last year, I, at every step of the process, declined the expensive options that say "maybe you'll save more money if you permanently switch into this paid mode". Yet after a couple ho…
Seems like TurboTax is probably not worth the hassle of trying to use for free. They try to steer you at every turn into accidentally accepting the paid features, and if you manage to make it through the maze there doesn't really seem to be much left that makes them better than any of the simpler competitors if you stick to the free tiers - no saving your information year over year, no automatically importing the sup…
> And if the answer is that the tax code is way too complicated that it's prohibitively expensive for the government to build a site as comprehensive as Turbotax, then fix it!
"Fix it" only makes sense for bugs. It doesn't make sense for features. TurboTax, accounting firms, entire professional organizations (CPAs) live off of the fact that the tax code is hard to understand. Maybe it needs to be difficult to properly align incentives. Maybe it doesn't. But it's absolutely intentional.