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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

#31

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

John23832 wrote: post #22
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it not wrong? These corporations are throwing around money to subvert the public interest. Surely corporations have some level of duty to the public which allows them to exist.

We elect our politicians to do what's best for the people. Yell at your politicians, hold them accountable for being a corporate shill.

We have written our laws to allow corporations to exist because this system is supposed to be better for the public at large. I'll yell at H&R Block and Intuit because they are subverting the public interest. (I'll yell at politicians too)

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

#32

Post by M_Grey »

dang wrote: post #25
M_Grey wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edited by poster to conform with rules When you consider that your argument seems to be that we should ignore the efficiencies of scale and the removal of a pointless profit margin, because it won't be absolutely free.

Insinuations of shillage without evidence are not allowed here, so please don't do this. Someone expressing an opposing view does not count as evidence. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&date...

I apologize, and won't do it again. Is there any way to report something like this?

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

#33

Post by goda90 »

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?

Their response would be to lobby for a more complicated tax code so that competitor's struggle to keep up to date. It could become an arms race.

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

#35

Post by John23832 »

mikeash wrote: post #28
John23832 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said we can't condemn the behavior of businesses. The prime objective for a business is to make money. All the ethics, right/wrongs, etc are things that we expect from the people who run those businesses. But the business is there to make money. It is up to the people in charge of making choices for society to make the right choices. It's not the responsibility of the business. They have every right to lobby…

How can we condemn something that's "never wrong"? They have no right to lobby for anything they want. They may have the legal right to do so, but it's still wrong in some cases.

You're conflating two different things.

If Company A wanted to lobby for the killing of all blue eyes babies, they could. They can make signs, start campaigns, attempt to get a meeting with a member of Congress.

All of that lobbying would be useless though because we all know that that idea is disgusting and wrong (hopefully we all know... with this current climate, nothing is certain).

The act of killing the babies is wrong, and we can pretty much all agree on that. But that company has every right to lobby for that position. No matter how crazy.

> They may have the legal right to do so, but it's still wrong in some cases.

You seem to agree here.

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

#37

Post by Spivak »

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?

Sure, but there wouldn't really be a meaningful difference between that and the existing players since non-profits still need revenue to operate.

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

#38

Post by John23832 »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #31
John23832 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We elect our politicians to do what's best for the people. Yell at your politicians, hold them accountable for being a corporate shill.

We have written our laws to allow corporations to exist because this system is supposed to be better for the public at large. I'll yell at H&R Block and Intuit because they are subverting the public interest. (I'll yell at politicians too)

You have every right to express dissatisfaction with their actions. I agree with you that their actions are scummy, but they have a right to lobby for their interests. Express enough dissatisfaction at your politicians so that they aren't bending to business.

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

#39

Post by yellow_postit »

gdulli wrote: post #27
yellow_postit wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a false equivalence. The IRS is already "doing taxes" for most people when they get their paystub and investment data electronically sent by those institutions and using that to compare against the self-willed returns. If anything for many individuals (not self-employed, minimal investments, basic mortgage) this plan would reduce overhead.

In theory, the goal of the government is to maximize your amount of tax paid while the goal of professional tax preparation is to minimize it. (In order to compete with other services.) In practice, I don't know whether there ends up being a net benefit to taxpayers or not in the current setup.

Outside of extreme wealth cases it appears that many "bulk" prepares operate on a volume business where turnover and automation is the focus. Given sufficient transparency and a way to manually file a return if you disagree with the auto-return (like in the UK) then I believe the efficiency problem you point out would be addressed.

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

#40

Post by senior_james »

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 yes, places like Sweden have much simpler tax code. But they also removed most ways to actually reduce your tax burden and grow your business (this applies to personal taxes too). You are also required to have a special black box on any credit card transactions, which sends everything straight to the government. This smacks of authoritarianism.

Simplicity might seem better, but it gives us less control over our own taxes.

It's also not really that difficult now. Everyone I know has been doing their own 1040-EZ form since they started to work. It's usually only one or two forms to fill out. If this is too complicated for our society, we truly have problems.

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