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FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

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Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#591

Post by Rebelgecko »

broptimist wrote: post #446
briandear wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes shouldn’t be used to get people to do things or not do things. Taxes should be used only to fund the essential services of the government: common defense, a legal system to enforce contracts, and that’s about it. When taxes are used as a means of control, that’s totalitarian. Tax policy should always be neutral.

So you wouldn't be in favor of a carbon tax? What about a tax on tobacco sales in a universal healthcare system? (to offset tobacco users' additional healthcare costs)

I believe that tobacco use is actually beneficial under a universal healthcare system. Dying early from cancer is a bummer at an individual level, but much cheaper than getting old and the additional care needs that come with that. So you'll be paying almost as much in taxes as someone who doesn't partake,while getting a smaller amount of retiree benefits in return.

Maybe there should be a tax rebate for smokers, so they can buy more cigarettes?

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#592

Post by jacobolus »

nybble41 wrote: post #590
jacobolus wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like anyone else, politicians respond to incentives. US crony capitalism is a large-scale systemic failure, and the tax filing system (and under-resourced IRS) is just one symptom. If you want a narrow target, you can blame the GOP activists on the US Supreme Court, or if you want to go beyond that, blame the GOP senators/presidents who appointed them, the Federalist Society, the GOP donor base, GOP-aligned media org…

> Like anyone else, politicians respond to incentives. Sure, but it's not like they don't have a choice. Regardless of any incentives, they're the only ones actually empowered to make these decisions. Lobbying, offers of bribes, campaign financing promises, etc. do not in any sense detract from their ability and responsibility to make the right choices.

Nearly everyone who takes any responsibility or even believes that there is such a thing as personal or professional ethics has been systematically purged from the GOP over the past few decades, and the GOP now has 6 votes on the Supreme Court and 50 Senators (=> effective veto of all legislation), and may well end up with congressional majorities after the next election.

You can’t un-screw a system by just telling the people inside who were selected for their mendacity and corruption to “make the right choices”.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#593

Post by nybble41 »

jacobolus wrote: post #592
nybble41 wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like anyone else, politicians respond to incentives. Sure, but it's not like they don't have a choice. Regardless of any incentives, they're the only ones actually empowered to make these decisions. Lobbying, offers of bribes, campaign financing promises, etc. do not in any sense detract from their ability and responsibility to make the right choices.

Nearly everyone who takes any responsibility or even believes that there is such a thing as personal or professional ethics has been systematically purged from the GOP over the past few decades, and the GOP now has 6 votes on the Supreme Court and 50 Senators (=> effective veto of all legislation), and may well end up with congressional majorities after the next election. You can’t un-screw a system by just telling t…

> You can’t un-screw a system by just telling the people inside who were selected for their mendacity and corruption to “make the right choices”.

Of course not, but it's still the politicians (on both sides of the aisle) who are ultimately at fault for abusing their position and failing in their duty to their constituents, not the lobbyists for merely making suggestions or offering deals in their own self-interest. Restricting lobbying or campaign contributions wouldn't do anything to improve existing politicians' "mendacity and corruption". They'll just find other, less public, ways to serve themselves rather than their constituents.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#594

Post by pfundstein »

zw123456 wrote: post #271

A few years back I got audited, and it was called an "electronic audit" by the IRS. Which basically meant that they had their computer systems scour a bunch of the bank records and discovered that I had forgotten to claim a 1099 for some contract work I had. OK, so they sent me a computer print out and they had cross checked everything on my return electronically, my property tax deductions, my stock dividends so on…

> just run that thing and send it to me and I can file an exception if there is something on it I disagree with.

This is how it works in Australia. Taxes are filed online with the government authority (ATO), and everything is pre-filled. You just need verify it's correct and make any claims you want.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#595

Post by DocTomoe »

w23j wrote: post #528
DocTomoe wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, why would you trust a piece of software created by your government to fill out the forms in a way that benefits yourself instead of them?

This thread was not about deductions, but about the government pre-filling your tax-returns with data it already has about you. Parent was implying that does not exist in Germany, which isn't true. Or are you actually saying that the government will deliberately fill in wrong values, so that you have to pay higher taxes, even though the prefilled values are visible to you and discrepancies would be obvious (and a hug…

There are several ways in which a software can fill data "wrongly".

If you are legally able to claim deductions, pre-filled tax forms that do not contain those deductions are by definition wrong, even though you may agree with individual form items. While this can be related to innocent mistakes and the sheer inability of the state to know the necessary information, sometimes it appears to be deliberate: The classic example is the Pendlerpauschale, which does not appear in Elster pre-filled tax forms even though the state does have all necessary information (address of your flat / address of your employer) to fill it.

If you accept these faulty forms, you will almost always pay more taxes than you have to.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#596

Post by DocTomoe »

lexs wrote: post #495
rkachowski wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pretty much every other major developed country operates like this cries in German

As an employee doing your taxes is optional in Germany as taxes are already deducted by the employer.

This was semi-true until this year (if you didn't care about the often massive deductions you would have just for living somewhere other than your office desk, and only for as long as the tax office would not demand you to file taxes, which they could do for any reason, and often).

Now, with the 300 Euros of fuel relief, every employee will have to file taxes on said 300 Euros.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#597

Post by pm90 »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #591
broptimist wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you wouldn't be in favor of a carbon tax? What about a tax on tobacco sales in a universal healthcare system? (to offset tobacco users' additional healthcare costs)

I believe that tobacco use is actually beneficial under a universal healthcare system. Dying early from cancer is a bummer at an individual level, but much cheaper than getting old and the additional care needs that come with that. So you'll be paying almost as much in taxes as someone who doesn't partake,while getting a smaller amount of retiree benefits in return. Maybe there should be a tax rebate for smokers, so…

You don’t just drop dead of cancer. There is an extensive treatment process involved which is rather expensive and not guaranteed to work. So this argument doesn’t really hold.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#598

Post by jacobolus »

nybble41 wrote: post #593
jacobolus wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly everyone who takes any responsibility or even believes that there is such a thing as personal or professional ethics has been systematically purged from the GOP over the past few decades, and the GOP now has 6 votes on the Supreme Court and 50 Senators (=> effective veto of all legislation), and may well end up with congressional majorities after the next election. You can’t un-screw a system by just telling t…

> You can’t un-screw a system by just telling the people inside who were selected for their mendacity and corruption to “make the right choices”. Of course not, but it's still the politicians (on both sides of the aisle) who are ultimately at fault for abusing their position and failing in their duty to their constituents, not the lobbyists for merely making suggestions or offering deals in their own self-interest. R…

> politicians who are ultimately at fault

In a democracy, it is the voters who are ultimately at fault.

But perhaps more to the point, it is the system that is at fault, and the system is very complex: institutions, physical infrastructure, social mores, common beliefs, canonical media and stories, traditions, language, ....

You can’t just point fingers at individual people in a large imperfect system and pretend that swapping them would fix it. Troubleshooting and improving large complex systems is really hard and improvements are usually incremental, except sometimes in extraordinary crises.

Re: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

#600

Post by adwww »

nerdawson wrote: post #552
adwww wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even rental income has a fairly generous allowance before you need to file a full tax assessment. The first £1,000 is tax free (presumably the cost of admin makes it easier to let that go). And up to £2,500 you just have to phone / email HMRC.

The various allowances are certainly helpful but £1,000 doesn’t really factor in when you’re dealing with rental income. Almost every landlord will cross that threshold and should expect to fill a return in. Hearing about how taxes work in other countries makes me grateful for the system we have here. Most people never have to file a return. The people that do have a more complicated arrangement and probably need to…

Sure for any actual landlords, but at that point you're running a business and that's pretty different from 'normal' income.

The allowances are more so ordinary people taking in a lodger don't get caught up in tax requirements.

You could probably choose to pay yourself a PAYE salary from a limited company and not need to complete a personal tax return.

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