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FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

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Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#171

Post by sokoloff »

supernova87a wrote: post #72

Why 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…

The IRS doesn’t have all the information needed to file our returns (they lack basis information for many securities transactions, they lack basis information for my real estate, they lack all/almost all the information about schedule C small business or schedule E real estate investments, they have no information about my charitable giving, etc.).

Even the information they do have is not all available on your account transcript until mid/late summer.

With some substantial investments they could probably generate pre-filled forms for the simple cases by late March. I’d support that, even though it wouldn’t help me at all.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#172

Post by sizzle »

koolba wrote: post #155
qppo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the wrong question too. Why do we have to file a tax return at all? Shouldn't the government be filing a tax return with us instead? Same answer of course.

It’s also FUD about how complex, or really how simple, doing your own taxes can be. Filling out a 1040 for the overwhelmingly common situation of a single job is a cake walk. The vast majority of people would be taking the standard deduction now as well.

What about a mortgage in another state? This always trips me up.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#173

Post by pdxandi »

bityard wrote: post #153
loosescrews wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have tried nearly all of the DIY tax offerings out there. CreditKarma has a relatively new completely free offering that I feel rivals TurboTax in ease of use. I also feel that it is superior to paid offerings such as H&R Block. Another completely free offering is freetax.com. I used them for a few years, and while not quite as easy to use, it works well. Note that both of these free offerings include free state ta…

Did you mean freetaxusa.com? (freetax.com goes to a site called DIY Tax which doesn't look like they offer free returns anymore.) I've used freetaxusa.com for the past couple of years. They don't do the same level of hand-holding that TurboTax and TaxAct are famous for. So what I have done in the past is fill out the tricky parts in TaxAct using a free account and if the number look right, copy them into FreeTaxUSA.…

I switched to freetaxusa.com this year after 15+ years in Intuit. I have more complex taxes than the average person and I felt like it went just fine. Really happy with the service. Went from about $150 per year to $15.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#174

Post by wrycoder »

loosescrews wrote: post #158
dragontamer wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use TaxAct personally.

I tried TaxAct. It was the hardest to use of the bunch. In many cases it just has you fill out the real tax forms. Anyone who wants to fill out the tax forms themselves can do that for free, and TaxAct isn't even much cheaper than its significantly easier to use competitors.

They used to have a forms method and an interview method. If you were familiar with the IRS system, the forms method was very fast. It would be great for a CPA.

Then they dropped the forms method. Now they look like TurboTax.

I remember that filling out paper forms back in the day - especially before small electronic calculators - was a real pain. Especially when you made a change and had to roll everything up again!

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#175

Post by jolux »

sokoloff wrote: post #171
supernova87a wrote: post #72

Why 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…

The IRS doesn’t have all the information needed to file our returns (they lack basis information for many securities transactions, they lack basis information for my real estate, they lack all/almost all the information about schedule C small business or schedule E real estate investments, they have no information about my charitable giving, etc.). Even the information they do have is not all available on your accoun…

Most people’s finances aren’t nearly as complex as yours.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#176

Post by wrycoder »

koolba wrote: post #155
qppo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the wrong question too. Why do we have to file a tax return at all? Shouldn't the government be filing a tax return with us instead? Same answer of course.

It’s also FUD about how complex, or really how simple, doing your own taxes can be. Filling out a 1040 for the overwhelmingly common situation of a single job is a cake walk. The vast majority of people would be taking the standard deduction now as well.

A paper 1040A would be faster than going through an online system for many. Just mail it in.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#177

Post by cookiecaper »

analog31 wrote: post #170
qppo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the wrong question too. Why do we have to file a tax return at all? Shouldn't the government be filing a tax return with us instead? Same answer of course.

They do anyway. One year, I must have screwed up my return, because I got a letter from the IRS saying: We think you screwed up, here's why, send us X amount, and we're good. Or you can file an amended return. I sent in X amount. We were good.

FYI those letters are, afaik at least, typically grossly overestimated. The number is meant to scare you into calling a CPA to straighten it out, essentially. So for anyone else with the same kind of letter, don't just pay unless you know that it's correct ahead of time.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#179

Post by ilaksh »

Personally I think that there needs to be fundamental structural tax reform. To the degree that Intuit's business model goes away.

But Intuit probably owns all of the decision makers somehow. Which to me means that there needs to be radical government reform.

I actually believe that government and money need to be radically modified and modernized.

Re: FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices

#180

Post by analog31 »

cookiecaper wrote: post #177
analog31 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do anyway. One year, I must have screwed up my return, because I got a letter from the IRS saying: We think you screwed up, here's why, send us X amount, and we're good. Or you can file an amended return. I sent in X amount. We were good.

FYI those letters are, afaik at least, typically grossly overestimated. The number is meant to scare you into calling a CPA to straighten it out, essentially. So for anyone else with the same kind of letter, don't just pay unless you know that it's correct ahead of time.

Thanks for that tip. In our case, the error was due to a missing form, and when I corrected it in Turbo Tax, my number was close enough to the IRS number, so I called it a day.
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