TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free
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Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free
#2ProPublica seems to be singularly focused on Intuit to the exclusion of all the other powerful interests who benefit from a complex and opaque tax code. They may be fighting efforts to make filing easier under the current rules, but they aren't really doing anything to keep those rules a clusterfuck.
Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free
#3Free fillable forms[1] has been around for a number of years and van be used by anyone regardless of income level.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_File#Free_File_Fillable...
Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free
#4ProPublica seems to be singularly focused on Intuit to the exclusion of all the other powerful interests who benefit from a complex and opaque tax code. They may be fighting efforts to make filing easier under the current rules, but they aren't really doing anything to keep those rules a clusterfuck.
Who else lobbies like Intuit? Who else spends millions of dollars on defeating measures intended to make paying taxes simpler and easier?
Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free
#5The crux of this article is a PowerPoint slide from 12 years ago? Really?
Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free
#6Free fillable forms[1] has been around for a number of years and van be used by anyone regardless of income level. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_File#Free_File_Fillable...
Haven't read the article yet, but I assume they're probably talking about the lobbying to remove free filing or TurboTax's attempts to hide the free option as much as possible with a thousand ways to upsell you by using dark patterns during the tax filing process.
Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free
#7ProPublica seems to be singularly focused on Intuit to the exclusion of all the other powerful interests who benefit from a complex and opaque tax code. They may be fighting efforts to make filing easier under the current rules, but they aren't really doing anything to keep those rules a clusterfuck.
In this article on how Intuit is working to prevent free filing, ProPublica focuses on Intuit? Why is this surprising?
ProPublica seems really broad in the topics they cover: https://www.propublica.org/topics/
They also have multiple articles covering other types of tax reform and on closing tax loopholes if you search their database.
Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free
#8ProPublica seems to be singularly focused on Intuit to the exclusion of all the other powerful interests who benefit from a complex and opaque tax code. They may be fighting efforts to make filing easier under the current rules, but they aren't really doing anything to keep those rules a clusterfuck.
No one else really has the same lobbying might as intuit. Even HR Block is smaller (and targets a different market)
Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free
#9Just for comparison: in Brazil the _Receita Federal_ (IRS equivalent) provides a free multi-platform* Java desktop app for filing your taxes.
The UI isn't great* and if you do complex stock trading it can be a pain to add the necessary information, but for the vast majority of people it works just fine.
It also shows if it is better to use the standard deduction or the itemized deductions for your particular case and also calculates your effective tax rate.
In fact, the Java App has for years been the only way to file personal income federal* tax. The paper forms were abolished because (almost) no one used them and they had a large rate of mistakes.
* The Java desktop app runs on Linux, macOS and Windows. (And possibly others) * There is a separate mobile app but I haven't actually used it. * In macOS there was bug in last year's version: it used ctrl instead of command for things like copy and paste. * There is no state income tax in Brazil.
Re: TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free
#10ProPublica seems to be singularly focused on Intuit to the exclusion of all the other powerful interests who benefit from a complex and opaque tax code. They may be fighting efforts to make filing easier under the current rules, but they aren't really doing anything to keep those rules a clusterfuck.
Who else lobbies like Intuit? Who else spends millions of dollars on defeating measures intended to make paying taxes simpler and easier?
> Who else lobbies like Intuit?
Google spent $21 million in 2018. Facebook spent $12 million. Amazon spent $14 million. Microsoft spent $9 million.
https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/23/tech-companies-lobbying-...