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H&R Block and Intuit Are Lobbying Against Making Tax Filling Free and Easy

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Re: H&R Block and Intuit Are Lobbying Against Making Tax Filling Free and Easy

#181

Post by burkaman »

dcherman wrote: post #136
imgabe wrote: post #58

Filing is always free. Online filing costs money, but you can always mail in a paper form. If everyone did that, the IRS would pretty quickly want to make sure people can file online easily and cheaply. Stop using HR Block and Turbo Tax. For most people, taxes are not very complicated. The IRS publishes detailed instructions that literally explain what every box means and what should go in it for every form. Just rea…

The AMT calculation is tedious as hell. Considering that the yearly cost for H&R Block is something like 20$, it's well worth the money just to avoid needing to do that by hand, and that's not even taking into account all of the other time savings features of it. And the cost for the software itself is tax deductible as tax prep costs.

AMT only really affects people who make like $200,000+, right? It's a reasonable point, but I think it only applies to 5% or so of taxpayers.

Re: H&R Block and Intuit Are Lobbying Against Making Tax Filling Free and Easy

#182

Post by jandrese »

coldpie wrote: post #168
arebop wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would gladly match my tax prep fee with a donation to the counter-lobby, if one existed. Where can I buy tax-complexity-offsets?

Senator Warren has introduced bills in the past to simplify the tax filing process. I'll let you do the homework to figure out for which party you should vote to help this kind of legislation pass. https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2016/04/13/elizabeth-wa...

The two (D)s on the top of that bill means it goes nowhere for at least 2 years, and probably 4. It won't even get to the floor of the House.

Re: H&R Block and Intuit Are Lobbying Against Making Tax Filling Free and Easy

#183

Post by jandrese »

blackguardx wrote: post #53
senior_james wrote: post #40

The government would actually love this. Most people are ignorant of tax laws and would just sign a piece of paper to get all of their taxes done. It would be an instant pay raise because most people would never even know if they could write something off. It would also allow them to easily remove the ability to write anything off, without too many people complaining. What many people don't like to talk about is that…

Have you ever actually done your taxes by hand? The 1040EZ is supposed to take 7 hours. Back when I did paper taxes and couldn't do the 1040EZ, the 1040 long form took me about 20 hours to do, slightly beating the IRS estimate of 22 hours. The government has all the information about me. Why do I have to gather it all up and tell them again? A friend in Finland tells me it takes him 10 minutes to approve the tax docu…

How the hell can it take 7 hours to fill out the 1040EZ. The only people who can use that form are the ones with super-simple tax situations. Literally a W2 and maybe a 1099 from your bank. You fill in a couple dozen fields or so and punch some numbers into your calculator and you're done.

I can believe 7 hours for a 1040, because leafing through the 200 page instruction book is hugely time consuming and there is a lot of confusing stuff in there.

Re: H&R Block and Intuit Are Lobbying Against Making Tax Filling Free and Easy

#184

Post by jandrese »

senior_james wrote: post #161
blackguardx wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever actually done your taxes by hand? The 1040EZ is supposed to take 7 hours. Back when I did paper taxes and couldn't do the 1040EZ, the 1040 long form took me about 20 hours to do, slightly beating the IRS estimate of 22 hours. The government has all the information about me. Why do I have to gather it all up and tell them again? A friend in Finland tells me it takes him 10 minutes to approve the tax docu…

"The 1040EZ is supposed to take 7 hours" Huh? I've had my business for a few years, but I did my 1040EZ by hand many times. It took at most, 3 hours. Most people have one job and you basically just copy all of the info you have from your W2 (which is provided by your employer). "The government has all the information about me. Why do I have to gather it all up and tell them again?" So does the government also have al…

If you have writeoffs you can't use the 1040EZ anyway.

Besides, it should be a fairly simple matter for the government to prefill the W2 and 1099/1098 sections and let you fill in the miscellaneous deductions yourself.

Re: H&R Block and Intuit Are Lobbying Against Making Tax Filling Free and Easy

#185

Post by jandrese »

senior_james wrote: post #162
jakelazaroff wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like you couldn't still go to Intuit or H&R Block if you didn't trust the IRS. There's literally no downside to the government providing this service.

Like I said, the downside is that most people are lazy and will just fill out the form and send it in because they don't want to deal with it or think about it. You can't get most people to do simple math.

Isn't this a good thing? People shouldn't have to think about this stuff, there's no reason unless you are doing something special. If you have a simple tax return then why bother making everybody go through the motions of filling in the paperwork to calculate the same thing the government already knows?

If you do have a more complicated situation then the prefilled form at least gives you a starting point.

Re: H&R Block and Intuit Are Lobbying Against Making Tax Filling Free and Easy

#186

Post by rdudek »

mabbo wrote: post #52
atonse wrote: post #24

Could we not start a non-profit that builds software as good as H&R block and allows people to file their own taxes?

A lot of what H&R Block sells is experience in filing taxes, not just knowledge of how to do it. I have complex multi-country taxes to file (Canadian living in Canada, but with some income the IRS says is American income). H&R Block have a guy who has handled this exact kind of tax filing hundreds of times before. If I make any mis-steps in filing, the IRS is going to demand I give them thousands of dollars. I'm not…

But a lot of the folks who work for those big accounting firms like H&R are just seasonal data entry folks who just input all the data info their program.

I think to fight this, we need a good robust open source solution that could possibly be made automated. Only cost I assume would be for the user to e-file.

Re: H&R Block and Intuit Are Lobbying Against Making Tax Filling Free and Easy

#187

Post by kwhitefoot »

Maarten88 wrote: post #99

In the Netherlands we have had this for years. You login with the tax agency and download a pre-filled tax form. Wages and Income Tax is pre-filled, as are Bank savings and morgages. The pre-filled form is complete for over 90% of people. The 10% for who it is not can add or correct things that our IRS may not know correctly (i.e. foreign holdings or bitcoins). You then digitally sign and submit it. It's quite easy t…

Here in Norway i don't need to download anything, the tax authority website has all the tools I need and most of it is already filled out and ready to go. All I do is check that it is all correct things (rarely), add the bits that they can't get automatically (offshore bank accounts, stocks on the new York exchange, etc.), and hit the button to say submit it.

It immediately gives me an estimate showing how much I have overpaid or underpaid.

For people with simple tax affairs, nothing offshore and not self-employed, there is nothing at all to do.

Re: H&R Block and Intuit Are Lobbying Against Making Tax Filling Free and Easy

#188

Post by [deleted] »

jandrese wrote: post #179
thewhitetulip wrote: post #145

Every time I read that Intuit is lobbying against making Tax filing free and easy, I feel immensely grateful that Indian tax filing is simple and free. Yes, we might lack in 24x7 electricity or the first world infrastructure, but our tax filing mechanism is simple! I hope that the US makes this change to their tax process.

People in India pay their taxes? That's news to me.

[deleted]

Re: H&R Block and Intuit Are Lobbying Against Making Tax Filling Free and Easy

#189

Post by cheriot »

John23832 wrote: post #48
cheriot wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The prime objective for a business is to make money." A business is a way for people to organize and collaborate and it does not absolve those people of their moral and ethical obligations. Individuals are expected to prioritize family, community, country, religion, etc. We need to stop giving people a free pass just because they hide behind articles of incorporation.

What are you going to do, put a business in jail? Hold the people who have made you promises and then failed to follow through responsible. Aka, your politicians. They are your backstop. What makes Goldman, GSK, Haliburton, or any of the other shady, scummy businesses out there responsible to you? They are responsible to the law on the books. Our politicians are supposed to prevent business from screwing our society.…

Everyone in a society has an obligation to that society. America seems to be forgetting this. A business doesn't change the obligations of the individuals so put the individuals in prison if needed. Did someone sign off on dumping toxic waste or robbing people's savings? Would have been illegal if a person did it without getting a paycheck? Why does a paycheck change anything? Let them answer for their actions.

Stop expecting politicians to be perfect.

Re: H&R Block and Intuit Are Lobbying Against Making Tax Filling Free and Easy

#190

Post by [deleted] »

sp332 wrote: post #70
blackguardx wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever actually done your taxes by hand? The 1040EZ is supposed to take 7 hours. Back when I did paper taxes and couldn't do the 1040EZ, the 1040 long form took me about 20 hours to do, slightly beating the IRS estimate of 22 hours. The government has all the information about me. Why do I have to gather it all up and tell them again? A friend in Finland tells me it takes him 10 minutes to approve the tax docu…

The 1040EZ is a single page and has only 2 pages of instructions. How does it take 7 hours? http://datechguyblog.com/2011/04/15/7-hours-for-form-1040ez-... (Link from 2011 but I don't remember it being much different lately.) Edit: the IRS now says it takes 3 hours to fill out and submit the form, and 2 hours to collect the relevant paperwork, for 5 total. https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1040gi/ar03.html

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