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Killing TurboTax

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Re: Killing TurboTax

#421

Post by chrisseaton »

lupire wrote: post #277
chrisseaton wrote: post #102

Are accountants prohibitively expensive in the US? I don't use any tax software myself in the UK - I just pay an accountant $250 once a year and he does it for me (using some software I presume.) It's not really on my radar as things worth trying to automate or use software myself for, let alone building my own software! I'd have to be able to do it in just a few hours to be cost effective.

At that price point, your accountant is just charging you to do the data entry into Turbo Tax or equivalent. It's more work to coordinate, and and provide all the info, and costs more.

> At that price point, your accountant is just charging you to do the data entry into Turbo Tax or equivalent. It's more work to coordinate, and and provide all the info, and costs more.

People in this thread are talking about literally writing their own software to do it. Half an hour to collect up my payslips and email them to an accountant for $250 can't possibly be more work and cost more?

Re: Killing TurboTax

#422

Post by samstave »

coldpie wrote: post #414
samstave wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>**the taxes they are due** Please explain to me why they are *DUE* said taxes... What is the gas tax for, what is it intended to perform What is the lottery tax for, what is it intended to perform What is income/state taxes intended to perform Where are the metrics for what tax==intent==outcome results? Please - give me a detailed response.

Paying for stuff like roads, highways, snowplows, schools, government workers, the military, that kind of thing. If you'd like a detailed response, you can look up the federal budget, and the state and city budgets relevant to your area.

Sure buddy. Let me ask you:

Why are our roads so fucked up?

Why are our teachers so underpaid? (Did you read the entire 1.9 TRILLION stimulus bill from Harris Biden? - I DID.

Guess what they only gave $800 million toward edu packages which DID NOT EVEN CALL FOR OR REFERENCE TEACHER PAY INCREASES)

Why are government workers not answering phones.

Why is the military un-auditable.

You are a fucking idiot.

Let me tell you something,

The gas tax has done nothing for actual roads.

The lottery has done nothing for schools

The government workers are only in it for their own benefits

The military is NOT on your side.

Your taxes are used to thwart you - not build you.

If you disagree - then, please explain to me. EDUCATE me. on how I am wrong.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#423

Post by woobar »

codegeek wrote: post #398
bob1029 wrote: post #298

"Killing TurboTax" is essentially a meme until we meaningfully simplify the tax code. There is no software development team on earth who could catch up with the full capabilities of TurboTax without some sort of fundamental shift in the business. I really hate to say this as someone who makes a living out of it, but dealing with the current amount of complexity in the tax code with a piece of software that a non-expe…

Agreed. This is primarily not a "software" problem. Unless we simplify our tax codes in the US, tools like turbotax will stay. In fact, to be honest, turbotax was great when I used it last in 2009ish (I know they got acquired by Intuit and have gone downhill due to Intuit ) but the point is that it is overall an excellent software that really makes it easy to calculate and file things based on current tax codes. I wo…

TurboTax was sold to Intuit in 1993. Not sure why do you think it would get worse under Intuit, considering you liked it in 2009.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#424

Post by executesorder66 »

zo1 wrote: post #412
executesorder66 wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have this in South Africa. It was always easy to do your taxes before, but since last year they do what they call an "Auto assessment". The South African Revenue Service collects all the documents they need (payslips, medical aid, pension etc.) from the respective organizations, fills out the tax form for you, and lets you know it's ready. I logged in to check that they did it correctly, which they did, and approv…

They don't simply collect all "documents" they need. They hoover up the data directly from various institutions. Your employer being one, your bank another, your medical aid, etc. Not only that, but they're getting involved with the IRS now via FATCA. It's actually awesome that they're probably doing a better job than the government itself when it comes to having an all-encompassing view of the tax-cattle that they o…

Oh, I am under no illusions that this was not a pursuit of excellence, but rather a way to make sure they get as much tax money as possible. Considering how 90% of all other government services are complete garbage.

But I still believe that paying taxes is the right thing to do (how else do you keep a country running, even a corrupt one?). And as someone who really hates doing any kind of admin, this was a breath of fresh air, and highly appreciated, even if their motives are not perfect.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#425

Post by codegeek »

woobar wrote: post #423
codegeek wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. This is primarily not a "software" problem. Unless we simplify our tax codes in the US, tools like turbotax will stay. In fact, to be honest, turbotax was great when I used it last in 2009ish (I know they got acquired by Intuit and have gone downhill due to Intuit ) but the point is that it is overall an excellent software that really makes it easy to calculate and file things based on current tax codes. I wo…

TurboTax was sold to Intuit in 1993. Not sure why do you think it would get worse under Intuit, considering you liked it in 2009.

Oh my bad then. I guess I got confused because for some reason, I always they were acquired after I initially used them. You are correct though. So I guess the software has always been good.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#426

Post by marshallward »

sjy wrote: post #415
marshallward wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Filing taxes online in Australia is free, and I'm sure it's of comparable complexity. This does not exist in the US the highest levels of government have no incentive to provide it.

From what I can tell, the system in the US is significantly more complicated for individuals (mortgage interest deductions, 43 different state income taxes, “alternative minimum tax,” gift tax, estate tax...)

As someone who has to file both, I found that the federal taxes to be comparable, perhaps I'd even say the Australian was more complex. The games played with real estate can be rather complex. But what I also saw was software doing most of the number crunching for me, and even fetching the numbers from my various employers and assets.

But your point about the state income tax is well taken, this does make it a much harder problem here than in Australia.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#427

Post by everybodyknows »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #219
ndiddy wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that's only for filing a federal tax return, and for filing your state tax return you still have to either use a tax preparation website or do it on paper.

California has a had a wizard-style site for... I'm not sure a decade or so.

Here:

https://www.ftb.ca.gov/file/ways-to-file/online/index.html

Maybe a bit of an open secret? Found with "site:ca.gov", halfway down the DDG page.

Other little-known, useful USA services:

weather.gov new.nowcoast.noaa.gov

Re: Killing TurboTax

#428

Post by macintux »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #170
motbob wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the basic premise that the IRS is nothing to be afraid of if you make a simple mistake. Though if you make a $5,000 error (which is getting out of "simple mistake" territory), they'll tack on a 20% penalty. That being said, audits are incredibly annoying if you didn't make a mistake, especially if children are involved. The Examinations department of the IRS is hard-headed, to say the least, and they wil…

Even besides the risk of pecuniary damage, the problem with an audit is that it can take a long time. It's a time sink for you where the best outcome is usually nothing different happens.

A long time with a lot of stress, I imagine.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#429

Post by alkonaut »

peter303 wrote: post #387
astura wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IRS themselves need to provide this "auto tax" service.

The tax prep industry lobbied Congress to prevent the IRS from auto-tax filing. The compromise was "free filing" for those with median incomes and below. For a majority, W2s, 1099s and the previous years return can provide an auto-filing framework. The IRS would send your their draft and you agree or modify. Other countries do this.

If I saw a proposal to make tax codes simpler, have people file taxes with a good app provided by the IRS etc and then I saw a politician vote against it, while being funded by companies benefiting from the status quo...

I'd just not vote for that person again.

Re: Killing TurboTax

#430

Post by drdeca »

ryandrake wrote: post #384
drdeca wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some people who are weirdly anti-charity, saying that all of it should be done through taxes? I don't understand their point of view.

Thread drift, but my objection to encouraging charitable giving is that the more you rely on charity to fund the public good, the more you rely on (largely) millionaires and billionaires to decide what counts as a public good. In other words the average citizen doesn’t get to vote on what good gets funded. This means givers’ pet causes get funded rather than projects that are democratically chosen.

It is possible (even likely) that I've misunderstood people who were just being hyperbolic and didn't mean to be taken literally, but my impression was that some were saying that literally no charity organizations should be necessary? I (somewhat..) understand the "but then the wealthy are determining what gets done" thing, as a reason to not rely too much on it, but it seems clear to me that there are also major inefficiencies in having to go through a consensus process of government democracy, rather than people simply acting in smaller groups, independent of a larger consensus, to further charitable causes. It seems clear that there are cases where charities work better than govt programs alone, and it is a clear error to think that all charities would be better handled as a govt service, even if some would be better handled by one.

Hmm, if the government were to run a quadratic funding of charities thing, with only rather limited requirements for eligibility, perhaps that would somewhat alleviate the "undemocratic" complaint? (It would have to make it illegal to pay someone else to participate in your stead though.)

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