221–230 of 256 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
TurboTax's "competitors" are part of the same protection racket. Taking away business from any/all of them is a win. I do wish my approach were more scalable so that lots of people would do it. But for now I'll have to be content with personally not supporting the racket. Also, piracy is not stealing.
> Also, piracy is not stealing. How is piracy different from shoplifting shrink wrap software from a store?
Also https://cash.app/taxes
"The Department of Justice announced today that it is requiring Intuit Inc. and Credit Karma Inc. (Credit Karma) to divest Credit Karma’s tax business, Credit Karma Tax, to Square Inc. in order for Intuit, the creator of TurboTax, to proceed with its $7.1 billion acquisition of Credit Karma."
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-d...
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The number of people that it would work for would easily justify the cost of the IRS sending out prepared taxes. That some small sliver of people have complicated taxes or want to itemize their expenses is not a good reason to complicate the activity for the majority that have straightforward taxes. And then if you want to simplify, just eliminate deductions altogether (and shift brackets to compensate). Eliminating…
That’s my point: Americans spend a ton of time doing their taxes because taxes are complicated, not because the IRS doesn’t pre-transcribe their W-2. If all you need is the 1040-EZ, you can do that in 20 minutes.
This is already what happens, except you're paying a third party for the privilege of copy/pasting some fields from one form to another.
America isn't unique and special, solutions to problems in other countries aren't magically impossible here. The reason you think this is because you've been tricked into thinking our tax code is complex by necessity.
In reality, things are only this bad because TurboTax and other tax preparing companies have lobbied for more complex tax codes and less access to free automated filing.
If an independent company can produce software to file your taxes and charge you $150 for it, there's absolutely no reason the IRS can't do the same thing for free.
It's crazy to me that all Americans have to do their taxes every year and are charged for this. Many people in the UK go their entire lives without ever interacting with HMRC (our equivalent of the IRS) Self Assessment (doing taxes every year) takes about 20-30 minutes and that's when I'm claiming tax reliefs
I don't think the government should even allow your employer to automate the payroll deductions. If every family in the country got hundreds of dollars more in their take-home pay and had to write a check to the government like they write a check for their mortgage, it would allow (force?) citizens to really consider the value they get for their money.
A lot of those people would spend that money instead, and then be unable to pay their taxes at the end of the year. This results in people borrowing money to pay taxes, which is really just an opportunity for lenders to take advantage of people.
Consider automatic deductions as deposits into an account you can't see or touch and is only accessible for taxes. That's pretty much exactly what most people would need to save for their taxes in the first place. Once your taxes are withdrawn from that account, you are refunded the difference.
Relative of an employee of freetaxusa.com (TaxHawk). My relative is one of the people working on Free File. If you have any issues, don't hesitate to contact me [1]. Free File is something they are deadly serious about because they know Intuit, TurboTax, et al are scummy, and well, it brings in business. But Free File can be complicated (my relative complains about it a lot), so there may be issues. Please let me kno…
Does freetaxusa support expats? I've been using a CPA since I couldn't find a website that was better. All of the websites offering to file, charge around $500.
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How is “keep tax codes complex” not equivalent to “prevent the IRS from making it simpler”? Besides that, you’re definitely wrong. They do lobby to keep it complicated and actively try to confuse customers into thinking they need to pay more for no legitimate reason at all. Intuit causes great harm and so does anyone that works for them.
If keeping tax codes complex was the same concept as keeping the process of electronic filing complex, what would be the point anyone buying Intuit software to do it? By your logic, it would still be just as complex anyway.
This is generally how a lot of software works: a simple interface in front of a complex process
If you do this, set aside an entire evening and expect to do only taxes. It isn't exactly hard, but the number of documents you need available can get large quickly. Instructions are confusing and there's a lot of cross-referencing.
It's very tedious, but totally approachable for most people, I think.
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I don't think the government should even allow your employer to automate the payroll deductions. If every family in the country got hundreds of dollars more in their take-home pay and had to write a check to the government like they write a check for their mortgage, it would allow (force?) citizens to really consider the value they get for their money.
This is a terrible idea because people are generally horrible with money. No automatic deductions means that you personally have to estimate and save up for your tax bill at the end of the year. You have to be able to set aside several thousand dollars and not touch it ever. A lot of those people would spend that money instead, and then be unable to pay their taxes at the end of the year. This results in people borro…
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Which forms have been driving the need for that? I'm assuming you've tried and found lacking the standard tax software recommendations among expats.
For me, it wasn't the forms, but live person's advice about murky sections of the tax code. I used taxesforexpats.com
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a terrible idea because people are generally horrible with money. No automatic deductions means that you personally have to estimate and save up for your tax bill at the end of the year. You have to be able to set aside several thousand dollars and not touch it ever. A lot of those people would spend that money instead, and then be unable to pay their taxes at the end of the year. This results in people borro…
The idea that many people would wind up spending the money and not paying taxes is a feature, not a bug. Adding friction on tax collection and enforcement is the goal.