TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes • Hacker News Board

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#281

Post by MagicPropmaker » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 11:51 PM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #127

MagicPropmaker wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lower income people with cash business are far more likely to cheat than wealthy people. (Of course the return for the IRS going after the small player may not be worth it.)

Do you have any evidence to support this? It could be true, but any cash business owner (low income or not) is likely to cheat precisely because it's not feasible for the IRS to prove exactly how much cash income you made.

Here's one data point. 24% of the people who claimed the "EITC" did so fraudulently (or, at best "in error") No high earner can claim this.

https://taxfoundation.org/earned-income-tax-credit-still-fac...

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#282

Post by midasz » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 7:07 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #270

ip26 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are we even having to file our own taxes? Supposedly a political gambit from the right. The idea is if paying your taxes is painless, you will cease to notice them. But the more painful paying them becomes, the more attention you will pay to what you are paying, and then the more you will object & vote to lower your taxes.

I've heard this too, but also that Regan supported this style of taxing. Which seems like part of the Republican ideal: cut out the middle man.

A Planet Money episode went into this. It's basically:

- We (R) don't want taxes

- We will make filing taxes the most cumbersome thing possible

- People will hate taxes

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#283

Post by testvox » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #243

nv-vn wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious as to what extra rights you believe they have?

Well, corporations have a level of immunity to punishment, for example. When a corporation breaks the law, the worst that happens to them is a fine -- which just makes it a cost of doing business. The corporate shield ensures the no human in the corporation will suffer consequences unless they also, individually, broke a law.

That isn't true, corporations can be charged with crimes and they can have their corporate charter revoked. Human individuals working for a criminal corporation do not have to directly break the law to face criminal prosecution.

> The responsible corporate officer (RCO) doctrine holds that a corporate officer is indirectly liable for a subordinate's criminal conduct when the officer is in a position of responsibility. The officer can be prosecuted if he has the authority and the ability to stop the offense and yet fails to act.

The RCO doctrine does not require proof that the officer either participated in or authorized the crime.