61–70 of 717 posts
There must be powerful forces at work because Republicans have touted a flat tax or a return the size of a postcard for decades but when they controlled all three branches of government couldn't get anywhere near enough votes to pass it.
It's truly an abysmal system and I hope my kids don't have to do a giant math problem every year when they're adults.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
(in the US) I would trust the government provided tax-return software to provide the smallest refund possible. It will also take $50 billion and 3-4 years to develop, and it will be down from April 1st to May 7th due to overload on the system. Your confirmation emails won't come through, and the database will be hacked and all records leaked within the first 18 months of operation.
https://designsystem.digital.gov/ https://federalist.18f.gov/ https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/lobby.php?id=D000026667
Weak security: [1]
Cost overrun: [2]
Inability to design a highly available website From [3]: > The basic architecture of the site, built by federal contractors overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, was flawed in design, poorly tested and ultimately not functional.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/06/epic-... [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/obamaca... [3] http://swampland.time.com/2013/10/24/traffic-didnt-crash-the...
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Michael Lewis wrote about the NOAA and this exact type of thing in his last book. In essence the NOAA spends lots of tax payer money to collect weather data but can’t do much with it other than give it away exclusively to a handful of entities that can repackage and sell it. The eventual dystopian end state could be where the NOAA can’t alert people to tornados and only those subscribing to a weather service would be…
You can get an emergency radio capable of receiving VHF NOAA weather alerts. There is typically at least one of the frequencies within range where ever you are. You can subscribe to weather alerts through RSS on their site as well. https://alerts.weather.gov/ You can even pass lat/long points to the forecast page and it will pull up the closest weather station, even points in the ocean work. https://forecast.weather.…
Even worse, when the user calls the H&R Block help number, a computerized voice does offer the user the option to downgrade, but notes that it will have to delete all of the data the user entered!!!
Talk about sleazy.
I feel sorry for people living in the US, how can they call this a democracy anymore? Demos means people. You are ruled by companies at this point.
> The Free File Alliance, a private industry group, says 70% of American taxpayers are eligible to file for free. Those taxpayers, who must make less than $66,000, have access to free tax software provided by the companies. But just 3% of eligible U.S. taxpayers actually use the free program each year. Critics of the program say that companies use it as a cross-marketing tool to upsell paid products, that they have d…
This statistic is misleading. Throughout the filing process consumers are bombarded with opportunities to upgrade to a paid tier. They make paying more the default option and demote the controls to continue using the free version to have secondary or cancel-like styling. I had to constantly back out and go back to the free version, because I accidentally opted into a paid tier. Another reason might be that "automatic…
Oh man, I've had government provided automatic filings for ages now (Finland). US is really odd how it emphasizes the benefit of the middleman over the benefit of the individual citizen (it seems). Or have I completely misunderstood what's going on here?
This is pure anecdote, but... A NOAA employee told me about the time their boss caught holy hell from a Senator because the NWS had the gall to update a particular weather product they offered by adding color to the map. Evidently someone had a business essentially downloading the free NOAA data and improving it by coloring the maps and selling that as a product. When NOAA made it free, they called their Senator in a…
In 2017, the current administration named the lobbyist and co-owner of Accuweather, who's fought the NWS as the head of the NOAA, the parent organization of the NWS: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-14/trump-s-p...
The fox watches the henhouse when it comes to your weather. Your taxes will pay for Accuweather's profit at your expense.