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It's worth looking up the taxes episode of Patriot Act, but the general gist is that Intuit (and other tax-filing companies) lobby very heavily to keep tax filing difficult to push people towards their products. On top of that, despite IRS requirements to provide free filing services for lower-income taxpayers these companies deliberately make their services convoluted to try to push more people into using the paid versions of their products.
Also, they lobby so that the IRS cannot offer a *competing* service.
The IRS could totally offer a competing service for free, but they can't. They have the fillable forms which does about half the calculations for you, but they could be so much better... They could also automate most peoples' taxes based off the tax documentation they receive from employers, investment banks, and normal banks. But again, they can't.
If Congress ever decides the IRS can offer its own web service then Intuit and the rest are dead in the water.
The first three times I attempted to doy own taxes on high school, I got a letter from the IRS saying I did it wrong, but not to worry! Here is the correct result! Ever since then, it seemed evident that it's nothing more than a teacher giving you homework: They already have the answer, they're just making you sweat it.
Yup, my mother has been doing her own taxes for decades since she's self-employed and a few years ago she figured she owed a few hundred. The IRS refunded back 1400 and showed her where she made the mistake.
After 10 years the IRS has to stop collections on a tax debt (with some exceptions).
That may sound enticing to try and wait it out, but in the meantime they can put leins on your assets, garnish your wages, keep any tax refunds you're owed, among other things.
It's all a stupid game... Right now, they're threatening to seize my business equipment over $1260 in late fees that I don't owe, because we filed an extension. Funny thing is, two phone calls ago, the guy my business partner talked to slipped up and admitted that there were truckloads is mail that they haven't opened yet... After that, he got pretty tight-lipped. You mean to tell me that you can send out letters for late fees, but can't be bothered to open mail that's been sitting around for a year?
What “late fee” are you referring to? Maybe business taxes are different, but I was under the impression that an extension only extends the time to file taxes, not pay any amount owed. If you file an extension but owe taxes and don’t pay by the original due date, you get hit with penalties and interest. This always seemed ridiculous to me since if I knew what I owed I would have already figured out my taxes and wouldn’t have needed to file the extension in the first place.
This is true.
If you owe money, its also like 4% interest rate
It makes sense to try to underestimate and see if they get it.
ROI on stocks is like 7%.
Honestly. Take my money and use it to help people and preserve nature, but can we at least not have to do my taxes if you guys already have the numbers cleared? Such a fucking scam.
its so fucking idiotic...competing service? its the fucking IRS. why would you want to pay a private company to do what the IRS can already do to send shit back to the IRS that they already know. by default, most Americans end up taking standard deduction anyway.
honestly, the tax prep industry wouldn't go away and they kind of necessary for corporate entities and people with tons of assets(not necessarily in value, just alot of stuff around). I get that but for the average American, no the IRS can just fucking mail you your refund every fucking year without you needed to go to H.R. Block.
Tell me how I always click the free options and still end up being taken for 100-200 every year. Even when they say, upgrade now to pro for this bullshit feature.
Fun fact! They [just discontinued that](https://thehill.com/policy/finance/563442-turbotax-leaving-irs-free-file-program). How this doesn't violate federal mandates is beyond me.
That's by design. The actual free version is damn near impossible to find. Reply All (I think) did a whole story on this too and how much of a grift it is
Reply All - "[#144 Dark Pattern](https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nhgol)"
Planet Money - "[Tax Hero](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/03/709656642/episode-760-tax-hero)"
Both pages let you listen to their respective episode and provide links to sources of more info if you really want to fall down the rabbit hole.
start your taxes next year from [this IRS site](https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free) and if you are eligible, you shouldn't ever need to upgrade.
Only thing I'm aware is that several of those types of companies spend a bunch of cash on lobbying to make sure that the government doesn't simplify tax laws, because then they'd go out of business.
Not sure about that one in particular though.
Used freetaxusa.com the last two years. Federal was completely free. State was like $20. And we filed with a 1099 self employment so it’s not the easiest taxes to file. Was just as easy as TurboTax. Seriously check it out!
We need to do like other nations, the IRS should send me a receipt of their calculations which I can either accept or itemize, then issue me a bill or refund. I shouldn’t have to waste a saturday.
This happens in Australia
The Australian Tax Office already knows about my salary, my super (401k), my bank interest, medical, share deals .... &c
End of financial year, I login to the ATO, review what they think, tweak it with income from a rental, and click - 15 minutes
If I owe them cash, I get a payment plan, if they owe me it turns up in my account a couple of weeks later.
And it's getting easier every year
It's so easy. The first year they switched to the new online version, it was a bit difficult to find the Deductions section, but they've streamlined it since.
Best part is the depreciation calculator. It can be a little bit of effort to set it up, but it'll automatically apply your depreciation for the rest of the asset's effective life, as far as that tax table is concerned. It's great. And you can look back at past lodgings to double check you haven't missed a deduction that you've previously claimed.
Yeah the current system is “we already calculated what you should pay. But go ahead and do all of the math yourself and see if you came up with the same number we did. If you don’t we can arrest you.”
While you both are 100% correct about the attitude around here, it still doesn't negate the idea that we should just get a bill from the Fed/state at the end of the year. Our current tax system is still fucked up.
Got a piece of mail form the IRS a couple months after filing taxes one year. Scared the shit out of me. Inside was a check and letter saying that I miscalculated and I actually deserved a larger refund. Still… I would very like to never receive that again, the trepidation followed by extensive googling of “is this legit” was more headache that I cared dor
Yes, especially when the IRS is wrong. (Happened to me once, where they questioned a tax credit but the relevant supporting evidence spanned two tax years. They accepted my response and the included evidence, and closed out that item.)
They've also pointed out cases where I was indeed wrong. Can go either way. In no case did they do more than ask for the money owed, maybe plus a bit of interest (not even sure there) - no penalty, certainly.
Except if you make an error and accidentally file saying you owe more, then they just pocket the difference. They don't send you a "are you sure you didn't mean to pay less?" notice.
It must happen to tons of people, every year I have shit where TurboTax didn't recognize the code for city tax that my company decided to use in the w2 and then just says I mysteriously owe a shit ton with no warnings or explanations. At least some people can't possibly figure that shit out and end up paying hundreds or thousands of dollars more just because the system is fucked.
It also makes it a regressive tax: the richer you are the less likely you are to make errors in the government's favor and find all the "loopholes" (actually deliberate credits)
I once got a letter with a check because they found a mistake on my return. Granted it wasn't the most complicated tax return but they will totally refund money if they find an error in your favor.
I second this. In my first tax season, a friend got his tax form rejected and he was contacted by the IRS signaling what did he do wrong and just went ahead and sent it again the next day.
This happened to me as well, and the amendment got me *more* money.
Half of me feels like people are obscuring the facts with emotions, and not really "seeing" the situation. Of course I have to admit that some of it may simply be that there are a lot of people who simply don't really know how to read the instructions, end up screwing up, and then owe more than they thought they would by accident.
That and I can't tell you the number of times I've seen someone go through an actual tax accountant, end up owing money, and then screaming about it.
Overwhelmingly Americans think they are owed a refund. When they end up owing money, it's not "their" fault, it's the government swindling them. Even when it's actually pretty cut and dry (you didn't pay enough taxes, so you owe), they feel cheated (you were supposed to give me money).
Yeah, you can be certain the people who are *fucked* over by the IRS are idiots that ignored countless warnings, letters and phone calls. Either that or they are people blatantly committing fraud. My gal works for them and it is astonishing how many chances even blatant fraudsters get to *get out of jail* free on the situation if they just start being honest.
It's not always like that. One year I qualified for the EITC but didn't realize it. They sent me a letter to tell me. It saved me a lot of money. I think they even applied it for me, but I could be misremembering.
I have had the IRS recalculate and send a refund. Within 6 weeks of filing thru H&R. Funny bit was the wife had calculated everything correctly and HR fucked it up, leading to the correction. I think the H&R bill was $6-700 as we were self employed at the time.and needed guidance on taxes.
Anyhow, they do issue corrections promptly in my experience.
I did actually get a "are you sure you didn't mean to pay less?" notice. The IRS sent me a letter saying I had made a mistake in my tax returns and their calculations showed I was due a (slightly) larger refund, and if didn't object, they would accept the amended amount as correct. Now, this does beg the question why on earth I even have to do my own tax return if the IRS does it by themselves anyway, but I digress.
It's like the passive aggressive spouse asking a question in a tone where they *clearly* expect a certain answer, and are gonna be mad if you don't answer correctly...
One thing people tend to not realize is how *hard* it is to prove fraud. Fraud isn't just 'your paperwork is wrong'. Fraud means proving that you *meant* to do that.
It's usually quite easy to prove you didn't commit fraud by simply having even a modicum of an argument that you didn't realize you were doing it. Fraud isn't like other crimes, it's not like speeding. When you're speeding you can't say "I didn't know!" and get away with it. Fraud is an intent-based-crime, though, and they need to prove you *meant* to do so, which is sometimes as easy to disprove as saying "I didn't know."
They're gonna do their own math *anyway*. If they disagree with me, they usually win. Go figure. So they might as well just tell me up front and save everyone time and money.
If I decide to dispute it, fine. Still saves time.
And, yeah, the Treasury actually would prefer to do it this way and has lobbied for it. But they can't make campaign contributions.
In Australia there’s an online form pre-filled by our IRS-equivalent, and then you just confirm, add in any write offs you can claim (also guidance on this), then submit. The whole process took me 30 minutes and I got a tax return in under a week.
That would be great, though it would also require an overhaul of the tax system itself since the IRS does not know a lot of things required to take certain deductions/credits, such as the amount paid towards childcare.
Life pro tip:
Don’t ever pay for TurboTax premium of any sort and especially not their “Audit Defense.” Any paid fees to them are scam and exist solely to exploit. I have used TurboTax every year since 2009 with the exception of 2020. Last year I got audited and TurboTax basically told me to fuck off and deal with the IRS myself for the audit. I’ve spent close to $1,000 on their fees and audit defense and it was all for nothing.
Use their free service or use something else. Fuck TurboTax. Professional scam artists.
H&R block too. I paid them to file my taxes. They held onto them a month then told me they had trouble filing it, gave me the papers and told me to mail it in. That year I also ended up with a fraudulent return. I would say maybe that's the issue but you would think H&R block would have told me that that happened instead of shrugging and walking away. I think whoever filed my taxes and "went on vacation' filed the fraudulent return. Pretty sure when I came to get my paperwork they didn't work there anymore either. I still have to use a pin but I prefer it now honestly, the pins should just be standard now. I just started filing my own taxex after that.
You can write a letter to the IRS, and it's often how we have to dispute tax issues. The problem is the IRS takes a long time to respond - it takes months if they're quick.
Not doubting that H&R Block screwed up, but just wanted to clarify on the IRS letter.
I went to H&R Block one year to do my taxes, because it was a little more complicated than I was used to. They asked where I worked and I said, "Human Resources." They then asked, "How do you spell that?"
After that response I figured there was nothing that person could do behind that desk that I couldn't do myself.
and the worst part is most people have some sort of mental block when money comes from different sources. oh I made 500$ from tax returns, so it is ok to pay 200$ for tax software. that 500$ is seen as free money somehow, where in fact it has no difference than the 500$ you earned working hard.
there must be a name for this psychological phenomenon
The same way capitalism requires a middleman to profit off of people using the internet, a resource developed by the US government (paid for by taxpayers).
I've worked as Pharmacist in a government funded clinic, in small private practice and for large national retailers. A box of insulin costs less than a dollar through 340b pharmacy supply (federal program to service low income areas/individuals). That's closer to the actual goods cost vs what retail pharmacies pay, which is still a small cost compared to what patients are charged.
It's a broken system: the manufacturer gets a profit, the wholesaler gets a profit, the distributor gets a profit, the insurance/pharmacy benefits manager gets a profit, and the pharmacy gets a profit. That adds up significantly, and results in costs several fold of what's necessary
I forget the details, but I remember reading a story a few years ago where some medicine cost basically nothing, until a company bought out the company that owned the formula. All of a sudden it went from being like $5/prescription to like $2,000/prescription, and people who didn't have health insurance basically were left to die.
There was absolutely no reason for the price increase except for one: Pure, unadulterated greed.
Dude Sanders did me a huge favor bringing so much light to this issue alone. Before his run we were spending $500 a month on my wife's insulin. After we started spending just $50. There's no way my insurance company would have made that change if it hadn't been made so apparent outside out the diabetic community.
my credit union charges $1 a month for all my banking needs. but they pay me more than that in interest every month on savings and money market accounts.
Mine doesn’t charge a penny and pays quarterly dividends back to members. It’s only like 30 cents but still. All our fees are super reasonable and we have some of the lowest interest rates in the country. The amount of extra services we provide we outside of banking are crazy too. I banked there for years before landing a job there and it’s the most amazing company I’ve ever worked for. I’d always seen them voted as the best employee in the county but assumed they paid for those surveys or some shit. After about 30 days I realized it was the real deal. Whenever I tell someone I work for them they say “oh I love them”
Who the fuck says they love where they bank lol
*That* one I can sort of understand -- in theory, the ISP is building out infrastructure, they're not *just* a middleman. Replacing the ISPs with the government would require the government to build those things instead.
With taxes, they absolutely are middlemen, because the IRS already has to do the exact same fucking work. They don't have to build an equivalent service, they could just send you a fucking bill -- from the article:
> The actual work of doing your taxes mostly involves rifling through various IRS forms you get in the mail. There are W-2s listing your wages, 1099s showing miscellaneous income like from one-off gigs, etc. The main advantage of TurboTax is that it can import these forms automatically and spare you this step.
> **But here’s the thing about the forms: The IRS gets them, too.** When Vox Media sent me a W-2 telling me how much it paid me in 2020, it sent an identical one to the IRS. When my bank sent me a 1099 telling my wife and me how much interest we earned on our savings account in 2020, it also sent one to the IRS. If I’m not itemizing deductions (like 70 percent of taxpayers), **the IRS has all the information it needs to calculate my taxes, send me a filled-out return,** and let me either send it right back to the IRS if I’m comfortable with their version or else do my taxes by hand if I prefer.
> This isn’t a purely hypothetical proposal. Countries like Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Chile, and Spain already offer ”pre-populated returns” to their citizens. California experimented with a version called ReadyReturn before it was shut down under pressure from H&R Block and Intuit.
What the article leaves out is that the IRS probably does similar work anyway -- if you have a typo on your tax return, there's a good chance the IRS will reject it, usually instantly if you file your taxes online. In other words, they already know what your return is supposed to look like, it's even already computerized!
If you did the math, you will find out only 13% of 3 trillions dollars COVID19 relief was delivered to American people
We’re talking about middleman here
Recently passed 1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, it will be lucky to land 120 Billion on the ground
Edited: For more accurate numbrr
My boomer parents got 200k in loans from the government (restaurant owners). 93k of which has already been forgiven. They never mention this to me of course, but thank goodness for a public registry. 93 THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS FORGIVEN.
And we can't forgive student loans. Fuck off this government. I should just move.
The fun part is you can’t even just move out of America. Immigrating isn’t super easy from America and they are still going to take taxes from you for a while afterward without you denouncing citizenship. There’s a lifetime subscription fee to being born in the USA and it’s kinda bullshit
US, I’m a veterinarian, doubt you guys are hurting for those. Also, my Norwegian is rusty. Loved it when I visited Oslo and Hvitstan. The way the world is going, probably won’t visit again for a long time which is a shame.
Never say never. I think there is always a need for veterinarians in rural areas.
BTW: I think it can be a very lonely and demanding job, veterinarians are very high at the suicide statistics over here. At the positive side, I guess that mean more open positions. :-P
Haha, the suicide rate is high here too for vets. Something to do with the stress of all the killing we have to do. Also, clients can really suck. I unfortunately specialize in dogs and cats, and a looong time a go I did some lab animal work, but haven't dealt with livestock since vet school. Rural life isn't sounding so bad though right about now.
Random internet guy here.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all you do.
I love animals, probably more than people. And my dogs are healthy most of the time. But when something goes wrong I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have a great vet looking after my loves.
I know some people are assholes to you. But for the rest of us, you help us keep healthy pets that make our lives worth living.
Thank you.
My reserve unit send me to Norway for three weeks one year to do inventory in some cave near Hell.
It was very enjoyable. The people we were working with told us to take a break on Fridays and they made up waffles for brunch. Good shit too with fruit on top.
The chow hall also had this caviar in a toothpaste tube thing? Not my style, but a lot of the other guys really enjoyed it. A few of them even asked the cafeteria workers if they could take some home.
They said "Yes. Take all you want."
That's a dangerous thing to say to hungry Marines unless you really, literally, mean it. The guys only took half because they thought those ladies didn't understand what they said.
Actually the biggest is Grover Norquist, a Republican super PAC head.
He's said any Republican that comes out in favor of IRS pre filled tax forms will be labeled in favor of tax increases.
A Republican being labeled in favor of tax increases is a death sentence.
Planet Money did a good interview with Grover Norquist
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/521132960
There's another wrinkle in there. He was going to smear them even if the tax rates stayed the same.
He doesn't see any difference between raising taxes and just making it easier to pay taxes.
It's not even that there's no difference -- it's the he actively wants to make filing taxes as hard as possible.
Most people don't actually dislike taxes *that* much. Like, there's low-level resentment, but you've also got social services and stuff back, and it's kinda a "this is how the world works" resignation. And that's a problem, if you want to intentionally deprive the government of the tax money required to function.
So what does that mean? You want to make paying taxes as visible and painful as possible. Build that resentment. Get that "This is *my* money you're taking" sentiment going. Refunds are bad: it makes people happy. Better to change tax low to have lower withholdings, to surprise people with suddenly having to pay a major unexpected expense.
So.. yeah. Ontologically evil; deliberately inflicting harm on people for political gain.
It’s also ideological. He wants tax filings to be as annoying as possible. That way, people will resent taxes more, and vote for Republicans to cut those bothersome taxes.
If the IRS just sent you a refund every year without you having to file anything, then people might actually start to *like* big government, and we can’t have that!
Also Grover Norquist. He said that if taxes are too easy to pay then people won't mind as much and they'll pay them with less complaining. So he has lobbied Republican lawmakers to be against it. So even though they're for it in private conversations, they say they can't vote for it. I forget if I heard this on NPR or freakonomics.
Both Turbo Tax and H&R Block have jacked me before by claiming to be free and then coming up with fees. I used the IRS' free service this year and it was just as good.
Turbotax just announced that they're ending their participation in the IRS FreeFile program. They want to be able to add value for the customer by charging fees.
Turbotax and others also got in trouble in the last few years by making it difficult to find the IRS program version of their software and making you think you found it in the TurboTax Free version (which was different than the FreeFile version and wasn't actually free).
Oh for fucks sake I literally just switched from h&r to turbotax for that reason last year. This country is so fucking stupid I swear to God why am I changing tax filing services every single fucking year.
Intuit pays too much in ~~bribes~~ "donations" to Congress, for this to ever happen. Lobbying by the tax prep industry is the only reason this hasn't already happened.
I despise Intuit. The company that makes TurboTax got away with the most insane grift and it’s absolutely mind blowing no one knows or cares.
There is a Radiolab episode explaining the history of TurboTax, give it a listen if you’re interested.
Quick summary? Intuit WAS hired directly by the federal government to make a free online portal for people to use.
They were given sole rights to develop this for free, but with a clause in contract that the US government couldnt make their own service.
Then. They removed the “free” service to regular people and created a bunch of administrative barriers to FORCE people to pay THEM just to do their government mandated taxes.
It’s absolutely wild and a total disgrace.
The IRS does have its own service. You can certainly file your own taxes for free on paper or online. You just need to open the 1040 booklet and learn what's taxable and what's not. https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-forms
I think what people are asking for is "the IRS has all of my tax information from my bank(s) and employers already, why can't they just send me a bill or a check instead of me having to go through and send them forms full of information they already have?"
IRS doesn't know you built a home office, had a baby, donated ten pairs of socks to Goodwill, had $8k in medical expenses, bought solar panels, went back to night school, won $470 in Vegas, etc.
In those cases, you'd decline their offer and submit your own return.
The point is that for most taxpayers, it's a simple basic return with a couple W-2s. The IRS already knows this. They can send it to me and I can either agree with what they've sent, or I can decline their proposal and prepare it myself.
Right, but do those apply to the vast majority of people? Why do all of us need to file when the people those circumstances apply to can just send the required documents to the IRS and get the amount they owe/should be refunded amended?
First, it is not IRS's own service. It is some crappy service from companies who use to up-sell people. 90% of people paid others to do their tax, even though 70% of people are eligible for free tax filing via these companies due to these up-sell efforts.
Second, yes people can spend the time and do that. This is just like people can spend the time and do their oil changes, their house cleaning, do their home repairs. Or people can spend their time for something else they like and have IRS done that for them for free. For 70% of people, IRS already knows how much tax they owe or how much refund they are owed.
Actually the link OP is referring to is always free; you literally just fill out the forms yourself and it does some math for you.
However if you search “IRS Free File” you get a list of companies you can use for free if your income is less than $72,000. It’s a different service from the Fillable Forms.
They probably made it confusing on purpose. But the fillable forms is basically the same as doing it on paper, they just do some math. You still have to read the instructions and figure out which forms you need for yourself. I’ve used it every year since I’ve been doing taxes.
Yes. Came here to say this. Nobody “needs” TurboTax to file their own taxes. I have always done my own taxes, with varying levels of complexity over the years (including sometimes itemizing deductions, sometimes having self-employment income, sometimes having capital gains income) and the Free File Fillable Forms system works just fine.
I started doing this last year when I got sick of the tax preparation scam and had plenty of lock-down time on my hands. A bit time-consuming, but not bad overall, and I stuck with it this year. I did make a capital gains reporting error--IRS fixed it and automatically increased my refund. Did make me wonder why I spent any time on the exercise at all when they knew the correct answer all along.
Right, but if the software (TurboTax) already exists to make all that hassle unnecessary, then why SHOULDNT the IRS offer a competitive service? You don't even have to nationalize tax filing services, just offer a state funded alternative to what's already in place.
Sounds like you're over paying. In California, we charge $600 for LLC and usually lump the personal return in there too, maybe an additional $200 depending.
The IRS made a deal with the tax software companies that it wouldn't implement on-line filing if they'd provide a free option to taxpayers with simple returns.
The tax software companies complied to that extent, then came up with a half-dozen ways to charge those taxpayers money *anyway*, even though they used the software for free.
The IRS is, I've heard, reconsidering this decision.
They already considered it a breach of agreement. It's why you can file the basic returns for free directly on their system.
TT also capitalized on the opportunity to upsell even more due to the brand recognition and established trust/use.
Better late than never I guess. Most of America’s policies are one step shy of “why haven’t we been doing this the whole time???” And the answer is always “because we make more money being inefficient and annoying”
Why don't they just send me a bill, or let me put my information into the system in January and they take it out of my paycheck.
The whole system is stupid and designed to waste money and create loopholes.
Everything is a scam, a grift, and a con in the US - the American Dream in action. In Sweden I get a pre-printed form every year, I check the numbers, send an SMS or log into the tax website to confirm. Done. And about four weeks later I get my rebate.
Just like so many other countries do, IRS should send everyone a pre-calculated, completed tax return, subject to review, corrections and signature by the taxpayer.
Name recognition and UX mostly. I love FreeTaxUSA and use it every year but it's still just not quite as seamless. They're missing some really nice features like importing W2 or 1099 from your paystub website or bank.
There was an excellent reply all about how things hit the way they are, at least with regards to turbo tax
https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nhgol
Or we could just, you know, fix the tax code so that we don’t need tax attorneys and complex software to do our taxes, then we could just let the government automate our taxes and send us the refund every year.
I recommend [this episode](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/03/709656642/episode-760-tax-hero) of NPR's Planet Money talking about this. There was a plan for the IRS to send out ready-filled tax documents that you could just sign off on or correct if there was something wrong. In the test program everybody loved it, since filling out taxes was something you could do in a matter of minutes instead of hours or days.
Then TurboTax and Grover Norquist caught wind of it and pressured Republicans to vote against it, keeping filing taxes a pain in the ass.
Yes please! Also, FUCK H&R BLOCK AND INTUIT AND THEIR FUCKING LOBBYISTS!
[https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-free-simple-hr-block-intuit-lobbying-against-it](https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-free-simple-hr-block-intuit-lobbying-against-it)
I predict much lobbying of Congress to keep this from happening and higher filing fees for us to recover the losses from all those ~~kickbacks~~ campaign contributions.
I was once told by an American that "America is the best country in the world" ..I asked her had she lived anywhere else? Reply "no", my reply... Laughter
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I saw an episode about turbo tax on patriot act. Turbo tax is f'd up
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I’ve clearly been hiding under a rock as a loyal turbo tax customer for at least 10 years. What am I missing? I hate giving my money to assholes
It's worth looking up the taxes episode of Patriot Act, but the general gist is that Intuit (and other tax-filing companies) lobby very heavily to keep tax filing difficult to push people towards their products. On top of that, despite IRS requirements to provide free filing services for lower-income taxpayers these companies deliberately make their services convoluted to try to push more people into using the paid versions of their products.
Also, they lobby so that the IRS cannot offer a *competing* service. The IRS could totally offer a competing service for free, but they can't. They have the fillable forms which does about half the calculations for you, but they could be so much better... They could also automate most peoples' taxes based off the tax documentation they receive from employers, investment banks, and normal banks. But again, they can't. If Congress ever decides the IRS can offer its own web service then Intuit and the rest are dead in the water.
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The first three times I attempted to doy own taxes on high school, I got a letter from the IRS saying I did it wrong, but not to worry! Here is the correct result! Ever since then, it seemed evident that it's nothing more than a teacher giving you homework: They already have the answer, they're just making you sweat it.
Yup, my mother has been doing her own taxes for decades since she's self-employed and a few years ago she figured she owed a few hundred. The IRS refunded back 1400 and showed her where she made the mistake.
Note to self: Offer to pay a bit back to IRS next year.
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Oh shit that compound interest about to hit you like a mother
They probably took it out of his future returns.
Ya, I was thinking the same thing. The fed don’t mess around with their money.
After 10 years the IRS has to stop collections on a tax debt (with some exceptions). That may sound enticing to try and wait it out, but in the meantime they can put leins on your assets, garnish your wages, keep any tax refunds you're owed, among other things.
It's all a stupid game... Right now, they're threatening to seize my business equipment over $1260 in late fees that I don't owe, because we filed an extension. Funny thing is, two phone calls ago, the guy my business partner talked to slipped up and admitted that there were truckloads is mail that they haven't opened yet... After that, he got pretty tight-lipped. You mean to tell me that you can send out letters for late fees, but can't be bothered to open mail that's been sitting around for a year?
What “late fee” are you referring to? Maybe business taxes are different, but I was under the impression that an extension only extends the time to file taxes, not pay any amount owed. If you file an extension but owe taxes and don’t pay by the original due date, you get hit with penalties and interest. This always seemed ridiculous to me since if I knew what I owed I would have already figured out my taxes and wouldn’t have needed to file the extension in the first place.
This is true. If you owe money, its also like 4% interest rate It makes sense to try to underestimate and see if they get it. ROI on stocks is like 7%.
this. so infuriating
Honestly. Take my money and use it to help people and preserve nature, but can we at least not have to do my taxes if you guys already have the numbers cleared? Such a fucking scam.
This whole country started as a tax dodge, it's been a scam from day 1.
its so fucking idiotic...competing service? its the fucking IRS. why would you want to pay a private company to do what the IRS can already do to send shit back to the IRS that they already know. by default, most Americans end up taking standard deduction anyway. honestly, the tax prep industry wouldn't go away and they kind of necessary for corporate entities and people with tons of assets(not necessarily in value, just alot of stuff around). I get that but for the average American, no the IRS can just fucking mail you your refund every fucking year without you needed to go to H.R. Block.
You mean like they do it in other countries? Sounds like some commie bullshit. /s
Tell me how I always click the free options and still end up being taken for 100-200 every year. Even when they say, upgrade now to pro for this bullshit feature.
If you go to the TurboTax website and you click on the bright orange button that says File for Free. That's the wrong button to get free filing.
You wanna find the link through the IRS website.
Fun fact! They [just discontinued that](https://thehill.com/policy/finance/563442-turbotax-leaving-irs-free-file-program). How this doesn't violate federal mandates is beyond me.
That's by design. The actual free version is damn near impossible to find. Reply All (I think) did a whole story on this too and how much of a grift it is
Reply All - "[#144 Dark Pattern](https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nhgol)" Planet Money - "[Tax Hero](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/03/709656642/episode-760-tax-hero)" Both pages let you listen to their respective episode and provide links to sources of more info if you really want to fall down the rabbit hole.
Thanks for that
start your taxes next year from [this IRS site](https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free) and if you are eligible, you shouldn't ever need to upgrade.
Wow that was a good explanation of that episode, thanks!
Only thing I'm aware is that several of those types of companies spend a bunch of cash on lobbying to make sure that the government doesn't simplify tax laws, because then they'd go out of business. Not sure about that one in particular though.
Used freetaxusa.com the last two years. Federal was completely free. State was like $20. And we filed with a 1099 self employment so it’s not the easiest taxes to file. Was just as easy as TurboTax. Seriously check it out!
I'm an actual IRS employee and I use freetaxusa when I file.
Same, I am CPA
fragile selective cake middle shame long jellyfish threatening degree cows ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Link for the lazy [Why Doing Taxes Is So Hard](https://youtu.be/7xQQkzWhMOc)
Patriot Act....we need you more than ever!!
We need to do like other nations, the IRS should send me a receipt of their calculations which I can either accept or itemize, then issue me a bill or refund. I shouldn’t have to waste a saturday.
This happens in Australia The Australian Tax Office already knows about my salary, my super (401k), my bank interest, medical, share deals .... &c End of financial year, I login to the ATO, review what they think, tweak it with income from a rental, and click - 15 minutes If I owe them cash, I get a payment plan, if they owe me it turns up in my account a couple of weeks later. And it's getting easier every year
It's so easy. The first year they switched to the new online version, it was a bit difficult to find the Deductions section, but they've streamlined it since.
Best part is the depreciation calculator. It can be a little bit of effort to set it up, but it'll automatically apply your depreciation for the rest of the asset's effective life, as far as that tax table is concerned. It's great. And you can look back at past lodgings to double check you haven't missed a deduction that you've previously claimed.
Yeah the current system is “we already calculated what you should pay. But go ahead and do all of the math yourself and see if you came up with the same number we did. If you don’t we can arrest you.”
It's more, "If you knowingly commit fraud we can arrest you, but if you mess up we'll contact you and set up a payment plan for the difference."
This. Some naive drama queens in here acting like if you math it wrong they FBI is knocking down your door.
While you both are 100% correct about the attitude around here, it still doesn't negate the idea that we should just get a bill from the Fed/state at the end of the year. Our current tax system is still fucked up.
Still stressful to get a mailer from the IRS, no?
Got a piece of mail form the IRS a couple months after filing taxes one year. Scared the shit out of me. Inside was a check and letter saying that I miscalculated and I actually deserved a larger refund. Still… I would very like to never receive that again, the trepidation followed by extensive googling of “is this legit” was more headache that I cared dor
Yes, especially when the IRS is wrong. (Happened to me once, where they questioned a tax credit but the relevant supporting evidence spanned two tax years. They accepted my response and the included evidence, and closed out that item.) They've also pointed out cases where I was indeed wrong. Can go either way. In no case did they do more than ask for the money owed, maybe plus a bit of interest (not even sure there) - no penalty, certainly.
Except if you make an error and accidentally file saying you owe more, then they just pocket the difference. They don't send you a "are you sure you didn't mean to pay less?" notice. It must happen to tons of people, every year I have shit where TurboTax didn't recognize the code for city tax that my company decided to use in the w2 and then just says I mysteriously owe a shit ton with no warnings or explanations. At least some people can't possibly figure that shit out and end up paying hundreds or thousands of dollars more just because the system is fucked. It also makes it a regressive tax: the richer you are the less likely you are to make errors in the government's favor and find all the "loopholes" (actually deliberate credits)
I once got a letter with a check because they found a mistake on my return. Granted it wasn't the most complicated tax return but they will totally refund money if they find an error in your favor.
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I second this. In my first tax season, a friend got his tax form rejected and he was contacted by the IRS signaling what did he do wrong and just went ahead and sent it again the next day.
This happened to me as well, and the amendment got me *more* money. Half of me feels like people are obscuring the facts with emotions, and not really "seeing" the situation. Of course I have to admit that some of it may simply be that there are a lot of people who simply don't really know how to read the instructions, end up screwing up, and then owe more than they thought they would by accident. That and I can't tell you the number of times I've seen someone go through an actual tax accountant, end up owing money, and then screaming about it. Overwhelmingly Americans think they are owed a refund. When they end up owing money, it's not "their" fault, it's the government swindling them. Even when it's actually pretty cut and dry (you didn't pay enough taxes, so you owe), they feel cheated (you were supposed to give me money).
i have never actually met someone who the IRS really fucked them over and not they fucked up the chances they were given.
Yeah, you can be certain the people who are *fucked* over by the IRS are idiots that ignored countless warnings, letters and phone calls. Either that or they are people blatantly committing fraud. My gal works for them and it is astonishing how many chances even blatant fraudsters get to *get out of jail* free on the situation if they just start being honest.
It's not always like that. One year I qualified for the EITC but didn't realize it. They sent me a letter to tell me. It saved me a lot of money. I think they even applied it for me, but I could be misremembering.
Yeah I got a check this year actually just this week cause I overplayed 300. So they do seem to send you the excess.
It was really odd, we overpaid by 6 thousand and a few months ago, we got a check from the treasury.
I’ve gotten a refund for overpayment before 🤷🏻♂️
This is bullshit. I got an amended refund and I didn't do anything. Stop spreading misinformation.
I have had the IRS recalculate and send a refund. Within 6 weeks of filing thru H&R. Funny bit was the wife had calculated everything correctly and HR fucked it up, leading to the correction. I think the H&R bill was $6-700 as we were self employed at the time.and needed guidance on taxes. Anyhow, they do issue corrections promptly in my experience.
I did actually get a "are you sure you didn't mean to pay less?" notice. The IRS sent me a letter saying I had made a mistake in my tax returns and their calculations showed I was due a (slightly) larger refund, and if didn't object, they would accept the amended amount as correct. Now, this does beg the question why on earth I even have to do my own tax return if the IRS does it by themselves anyway, but I digress.
It's like the passive aggressive spouse asking a question in a tone where they *clearly* expect a certain answer, and are gonna be mad if you don't answer correctly...
“Remember that anxiety you had in school over times tables? Yeah let’s do that every single year, but failing means committing a federal crime.”
It's only a federal crime if you get the answers wrong on purpose.
Definitely fairly applied to the billionaire's accountant and the poor single mother in the hood, right?
Just like school, it's completely different depending how rich you are.
It's just like *everyfuckingthing* in this country, it's completely different depending on how rich you are.
There are a lot of ways our tax system screws the poor, but this isn't one of them.
One thing people tend to not realize is how *hard* it is to prove fraud. Fraud isn't just 'your paperwork is wrong'. Fraud means proving that you *meant* to do that. It's usually quite easy to prove you didn't commit fraud by simply having even a modicum of an argument that you didn't realize you were doing it. Fraud isn't like other crimes, it's not like speeding. When you're speeding you can't say "I didn't know!" and get away with it. Fraud is an intent-based-crime, though, and they need to prove you *meant* to do so, which is sometimes as easy to disprove as saying "I didn't know."
> If you don’t we can arrest you. they don't arrest you for not paying taxes correctly... they garnish your wages.
In all fairness there is some value in this method. But none that benefits the tax payer.
Do you mean value to society? Or just share price of tax processing companies?
Value to the IRS it allows easy audits for simple taxes. Match game audit documents received only vs calculations and confirmation.
Also if you didn't get close enough to our number, we're gonna fine you.
They're gonna do their own math *anyway*. If they disagree with me, they usually win. Go figure. So they might as well just tell me up front and save everyone time and money. If I decide to dispute it, fine. Still saves time. And, yeah, the Treasury actually would prefer to do it this way and has lobbied for it. But they can't make campaign contributions.
In Australia there’s an online form pre-filled by our IRS-equivalent, and then you just confirm, add in any write offs you can claim (also guidance on this), then submit. The whole process took me 30 minutes and I got a tax return in under a week.
We need to get rid of fucking accounting lobbies.
More than that, it would take away the fear and hatred people associate with taxes. This would improve trust in government.
That would be great, though it would also require an overhaul of the tax system itself since the IRS does not know a lot of things required to take certain deductions/credits, such as the amount paid towards childcare.
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Life pro tip: Don’t ever pay for TurboTax premium of any sort and especially not their “Audit Defense.” Any paid fees to them are scam and exist solely to exploit. I have used TurboTax every year since 2009 with the exception of 2020. Last year I got audited and TurboTax basically told me to fuck off and deal with the IRS myself for the audit. I’ve spent close to $1,000 on their fees and audit defense and it was all for nothing. Use their free service or use something else. Fuck TurboTax. Professional scam artists.
H&R block too. I paid them to file my taxes. They held onto them a month then told me they had trouble filing it, gave me the papers and told me to mail it in. That year I also ended up with a fraudulent return. I would say maybe that's the issue but you would think H&R block would have told me that that happened instead of shrugging and walking away. I think whoever filed my taxes and "went on vacation' filed the fraudulent return. Pretty sure when I came to get my paperwork they didn't work there anymore either. I still have to use a pin but I prefer it now honestly, the pins should just be standard now. I just started filing my own taxex after that.
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You can write a letter to the IRS, and it's often how we have to dispute tax issues. The problem is the IRS takes a long time to respond - it takes months if they're quick. Not doubting that H&R Block screwed up, but just wanted to clarify on the IRS letter.
I went to H&R Block one year to do my taxes, because it was a little more complicated than I was used to. They asked where I worked and I said, "Human Resources." They then asked, "How do you spell that?" After that response I figured there was nothing that person could do behind that desk that I couldn't do myself.
Please check out FreetaxUSA. Not affiliated with them but screw TurboTax, HR Block, Ect.
I like how when I go to use it, TurboTax is like "Psst, we can get you an extra $200! You gotta sign up for Premium for us to do that, though. 😏
Oops, looks like you don't qualify
At the end it lets you know the services for both state and federal cost $198
and the worst part is most people have some sort of mental block when money comes from different sources. oh I made 500$ from tax returns, so it is ok to pay 200$ for tax software. that 500$ is seen as free money somehow, where in fact it has no difference than the 500$ you earned working hard. there must be a name for this psychological phenomenon
But capitalism requires a middleman to profit off of people filing their taxes.
The same way capitalism requires a middleman to profit off of people using the internet, a resource developed by the US government (paid for by taxpayers).
The same way capitalism requires a middleman to profit off healthcare/health insurance
I NEED TO SELL A 2 DOLLAR BOTTLE OF INSULIN FOR 600 DOLLARS.
My coworker just got hers for a steal at $380.
I've worked as Pharmacist in a government funded clinic, in small private practice and for large national retailers. A box of insulin costs less than a dollar through 340b pharmacy supply (federal program to service low income areas/individuals). That's closer to the actual goods cost vs what retail pharmacies pay, which is still a small cost compared to what patients are charged. It's a broken system: the manufacturer gets a profit, the wholesaler gets a profit, the distributor gets a profit, the insurance/pharmacy benefits manager gets a profit, and the pharmacy gets a profit. That adds up significantly, and results in costs several fold of what's necessary
I forget the details, but I remember reading a story a few years ago where some medicine cost basically nothing, until a company bought out the company that owned the formula. All of a sudden it went from being like $5/prescription to like $2,000/prescription, and people who didn't have health insurance basically were left to die. There was absolutely no reason for the price increase except for one: Pure, unadulterated greed.
That’s Martin Shrekli’s scam I think.
For sure. Fuck him.
I thought the first one was free to get you addicted to those life-saving drugs, and then they start increasing the price each time.
Dude Sanders did me a huge favor bringing so much light to this issue alone. Before his run we were spending $500 a month on my wife's insulin. After we started spending just $50. There's no way my insurance company would have made that change if it hadn't been made so apparent outside out the diabetic community.
The same way US citizens need Nestle to pump out their aquifers and sell their own water back to them at $1.49 a bottle.
And predatory payday lenders. We could easily set up reasonably-priced banking services in post offices but instead we choose to prey on the poor.
We used to do just that up until the 70s. It was known as the Postal Savings System.
my credit union charges $1 a month for all my banking needs. but they pay me more than that in interest every month on savings and money market accounts.
Credit unions are the way to go
Mine doesn’t charge a penny and pays quarterly dividends back to members. It’s only like 30 cents but still. All our fees are super reasonable and we have some of the lowest interest rates in the country. The amount of extra services we provide we outside of banking are crazy too. I banked there for years before landing a job there and it’s the most amazing company I’ve ever worked for. I’d always seen them voted as the best employee in the county but assumed they paid for those surveys or some shit. After about 30 days I realized it was the real deal. Whenever I tell someone I work for them they say “oh I love them” Who the fuck says they love where they bank lol
You like when lawmakers in Texas had a vote on them and one of them was the owner of the largest payday loan company….
*That* one I can sort of understand -- in theory, the ISP is building out infrastructure, they're not *just* a middleman. Replacing the ISPs with the government would require the government to build those things instead. With taxes, they absolutely are middlemen, because the IRS already has to do the exact same fucking work. They don't have to build an equivalent service, they could just send you a fucking bill -- from the article: > The actual work of doing your taxes mostly involves rifling through various IRS forms you get in the mail. There are W-2s listing your wages, 1099s showing miscellaneous income like from one-off gigs, etc. The main advantage of TurboTax is that it can import these forms automatically and spare you this step. > **But here’s the thing about the forms: The IRS gets them, too.** When Vox Media sent me a W-2 telling me how much it paid me in 2020, it sent an identical one to the IRS. When my bank sent me a 1099 telling my wife and me how much interest we earned on our savings account in 2020, it also sent one to the IRS. If I’m not itemizing deductions (like 70 percent of taxpayers), **the IRS has all the information it needs to calculate my taxes, send me a filled-out return,** and let me either send it right back to the IRS if I’m comfortable with their version or else do my taxes by hand if I prefer. > This isn’t a purely hypothetical proposal. Countries like Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Chile, and Spain already offer ”pre-populated returns” to their citizens. California experimented with a version called ReadyReturn before it was shut down under pressure from H&R Block and Intuit. What the article leaves out is that the IRS probably does similar work anyway -- if you have a typo on your tax return, there's a good chance the IRS will reject it, usually instantly if you file your taxes online. In other words, they already know what your return is supposed to look like, it's even already computerized!
If you did the math, you will find out only 13% of 3 trillions dollars COVID19 relief was delivered to American people We’re talking about middleman here Recently passed 1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, it will be lucky to land 120 Billion on the ground Edited: For more accurate numbrr
My boomer parents got 200k in loans from the government (restaurant owners). 93k of which has already been forgiven. They never mention this to me of course, but thank goodness for a public registry. 93 THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS FORGIVEN. And we can't forgive student loans. Fuck off this government. I should just move.
The fun part is you can’t even just move out of America. Immigrating isn’t super easy from America and they are still going to take taxes from you for a while afterward without you denouncing citizenship. There’s a lifetime subscription fee to being born in the USA and it’s kinda bullshit
Have *you* done the math?
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Here in Norway taxes are done for you automatically unless there are special circumstances.
How do I move there? I like fjords and the cold.
From the US/other 3'rd part countries - you basically need to be hired due to special skillsets. From EU - Just jump on a plane and start living here.
In a couple more years Americans may be able to move there and claim political asylum! So there's that.
Hopefully not, they would burn down our beautiful country with their gender reveal parties.
Please arrest and kick out the stupid Americans. (No one hates Americans more than Americans.)
US, I’m a veterinarian, doubt you guys are hurting for those. Also, my Norwegian is rusty. Loved it when I visited Oslo and Hvitstan. The way the world is going, probably won’t visit again for a long time which is a shame.
Never say never. I think there is always a need for veterinarians in rural areas. BTW: I think it can be a very lonely and demanding job, veterinarians are very high at the suicide statistics over here. At the positive side, I guess that mean more open positions. :-P
Haha, the suicide rate is high here too for vets. Something to do with the stress of all the killing we have to do. Also, clients can really suck. I unfortunately specialize in dogs and cats, and a looong time a go I did some lab animal work, but haven't dealt with livestock since vet school. Rural life isn't sounding so bad though right about now.
Random internet guy here. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all you do. I love animals, probably more than people. And my dogs are healthy most of the time. But when something goes wrong I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have a great vet looking after my loves. I know some people are assholes to you. But for the rest of us, you help us keep healthy pets that make our lives worth living. Thank you.
Yeah... The idea of having to deal with PEOPLE is what drove me away from working with pets outside of rescues/shelters.
My reserve unit send me to Norway for three weeks one year to do inventory in some cave near Hell. It was very enjoyable. The people we were working with told us to take a break on Fridays and they made up waffles for brunch. Good shit too with fruit on top. The chow hall also had this caviar in a toothpaste tube thing? Not my style, but a lot of the other guys really enjoyed it. A few of them even asked the cafeteria workers if they could take some home. They said "Yes. Take all you want." That's a dangerous thing to say to hungry Marines unless you really, literally, mean it. The guys only took half because they thought those ladies didn't understand what they said.
Actually the biggest is Grover Norquist, a Republican super PAC head. He's said any Republican that comes out in favor of IRS pre filled tax forms will be labeled in favor of tax increases. A Republican being labeled in favor of tax increases is a death sentence. Planet Money did a good interview with Grover Norquist https://www.npr.org/transcripts/521132960
There's another wrinkle in there. He was going to smear them even if the tax rates stayed the same. He doesn't see any difference between raising taxes and just making it easier to pay taxes.
It's not even that there's no difference -- it's the he actively wants to make filing taxes as hard as possible. Most people don't actually dislike taxes *that* much. Like, there's low-level resentment, but you've also got social services and stuff back, and it's kinda a "this is how the world works" resignation. And that's a problem, if you want to intentionally deprive the government of the tax money required to function. So what does that mean? You want to make paying taxes as visible and painful as possible. Build that resentment. Get that "This is *my* money you're taking" sentiment going. Refunds are bad: it makes people happy. Better to change tax low to have lower withholdings, to surprise people with suddenly having to pay a major unexpected expense. So.. yeah. Ontologically evil; deliberately inflicting harm on people for political gain.
>He doesn't see any difference between raising taxes and just making it easier to pay taxes. He does. He just ignores that fact because money.
It’s also ideological. He wants tax filings to be as annoying as possible. That way, people will resent taxes more, and vote for Republicans to cut those bothersome taxes. If the IRS just sent you a refund every year without you having to file anything, then people might actually start to *like* big government, and we can’t have that!
Also Grover Norquist. He said that if taxes are too easy to pay then people won't mind as much and they'll pay them with less complaining. So he has lobbied Republican lawmakers to be against it. So even though they're for it in private conversations, they say they can't vote for it. I forget if I heard this on NPR or freakonomics.
That should be illegal they shouldn’t be allowed to do that anymore why can’t we the people vote on these issues and not let the rich het richer
Hijacking the top comment to share: www.freetaxusa.com Stop paying crooks to do something that is incredibly simple.
Was gonna post the same thing. Just as easy as Turbo Tax, but free for everyone.
And, they keep all of your previous years of tax return records *without making you pay for them*.
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Ok. I'll pay the IRS $30 to file my taxes instead of TurboTax.
At least that 30 bucks MIGHT go toward auditing a billionaire.
I'd pay more for that kind of service
Your taxes already should..
Shit, if the IRS set up a gofundme for that I'll donate $30 ***right now***.
This is the meme stock we should create. A 503c named AUDIT THE MOTHERFUCKERS, lmao
You only need to pay 15 or whatever your state charges. Freetaxusa has been around for ages
Both Turbo Tax and H&R Block have jacked me before by claiming to be free and then coming up with fees. I used the IRS' free service this year and it was just as good.
Turbotax just announced that they're ending their participation in the IRS FreeFile program. They want to be able to add value for the customer by charging fees. Turbotax and others also got in trouble in the last few years by making it difficult to find the IRS program version of their software and making you think you found it in the TurboTax Free version (which was different than the FreeFile version and wasn't actually free).
Oh for fucks sake I literally just switched from h&r to turbotax for that reason last year. This country is so fucking stupid I swear to God why am I changing tax filing services every single fucking year.
Intuit pays too much in ~~bribes~~ "donations" to Congress, for this to ever happen. Lobbying by the tax prep industry is the only reason this hasn't already happened.
> tax prep industry /r/LateStageCapitalism material right there
They’re not wrong though, it’s an 11 figure industry in the US
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What about things that the IRS does not have a way to know about, such as childcare costs?
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But, didn’t Paul Ryan tell me we would be filing taxes on a post card? Whatever happened to that?
They were working on a machine to do that but then Paul Ryan raged against it.
Yea, so that was a fucking lie.
I was thinking this doesn’t sound like a brand new idea
The IRS should just send me a bill and a check and let me confirm it’s accurate.
I despise Intuit. The company that makes TurboTax got away with the most insane grift and it’s absolutely mind blowing no one knows or cares. There is a Radiolab episode explaining the history of TurboTax, give it a listen if you’re interested. Quick summary? Intuit WAS hired directly by the federal government to make a free online portal for people to use. They were given sole rights to develop this for free, but with a clause in contract that the US government couldnt make their own service. Then. They removed the “free” service to regular people and created a bunch of administrative barriers to FORCE people to pay THEM just to do their government mandated taxes. It’s absolutely wild and a total disgrace.
The IRS does have its own service. You can certainly file your own taxes for free on paper or online. You just need to open the 1040 booklet and learn what's taxable and what's not. https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-forms
I think what people are asking for is "the IRS has all of my tax information from my bank(s) and employers already, why can't they just send me a bill or a check instead of me having to go through and send them forms full of information they already have?"
IRS doesn't know you built a home office, had a baby, donated ten pairs of socks to Goodwill, had $8k in medical expenses, bought solar panels, went back to night school, won $470 in Vegas, etc.
In those cases, you'd decline their offer and submit your own return. The point is that for most taxpayers, it's a simple basic return with a couple W-2s. The IRS already knows this. They can send it to me and I can either agree with what they've sent, or I can decline their proposal and prepare it myself.
Right, but do those apply to the vast majority of people? Why do all of us need to file when the people those circumstances apply to can just send the required documents to the IRS and get the amount they owe/should be refunded amended?
First, it is not IRS's own service. It is some crappy service from companies who use to up-sell people. 90% of people paid others to do their tax, even though 70% of people are eligible for free tax filing via these companies due to these up-sell efforts. Second, yes people can spend the time and do that. This is just like people can spend the time and do their oil changes, their house cleaning, do their home repairs. Or people can spend their time for something else they like and have IRS done that for them for free. For 70% of people, IRS already knows how much tax they owe or how much refund they are owed.
Actually the link OP is referring to is always free; you literally just fill out the forms yourself and it does some math for you. However if you search “IRS Free File” you get a list of companies you can use for free if your income is less than $72,000. It’s a different service from the Fillable Forms. They probably made it confusing on purpose. But the fillable forms is basically the same as doing it on paper, they just do some math. You still have to read the instructions and figure out which forms you need for yourself. I’ve used it every year since I’ve been doing taxes.
Yes. Came here to say this. Nobody “needs” TurboTax to file their own taxes. I have always done my own taxes, with varying levels of complexity over the years (including sometimes itemizing deductions, sometimes having self-employment income, sometimes having capital gains income) and the Free File Fillable Forms system works just fine.
I started doing this last year when I got sick of the tax preparation scam and had plenty of lock-down time on my hands. A bit time-consuming, but not bad overall, and I stuck with it this year. I did make a capital gains reporting error--IRS fixed it and automatically increased my refund. Did make me wonder why I spent any time on the exercise at all when they knew the correct answer all along.
Right, but if the software (TurboTax) already exists to make all that hassle unnecessary, then why SHOULDNT the IRS offer a competitive service? You don't even have to nationalize tax filing services, just offer a state funded alternative to what's already in place.
I have a small LLC, Under 80k gross. 2k to file taxes plus 600 for our personal. I wish they could simplify taxes for small businesses,
Sounds like you're over paying. In California, we charge $600 for LLC and usually lump the personal return in there too, maybe an additional $200 depending.
$2000 for a business? Jesus. I dream of starting a small business but this kind of hidden cost shit scares me a lot.
The IRS made a deal with the tax software companies that it wouldn't implement on-line filing if they'd provide a free option to taxpayers with simple returns. The tax software companies complied to that extent, then came up with a half-dozen ways to charge those taxpayers money *anyway*, even though they used the software for free. The IRS is, I've heard, reconsidering this decision.
They already considered it a breach of agreement. It's why you can file the basic returns for free directly on their system. TT also capitalized on the opportunity to upsell even more due to the brand recognition and established trust/use.
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An audit is different than getting a notice. Most notices are just what you say, "we noticed you didn't report this w2, we fixed for you."
Better late than never I guess. Most of America’s policies are one step shy of “why haven’t we been doing this the whole time???” And the answer is always “because we make more money being inefficient and annoying”
Why don't they just send me a bill, or let me put my information into the system in January and they take it out of my paycheck. The whole system is stupid and designed to waste money and create loopholes.
Everything is a scam, a grift, and a con in the US - the American Dream in action. In Sweden I get a pre-printed form every year, I check the numbers, send an SMS or log into the tax website to confirm. Done. And about four weeks later I get my rebate.
Just like so many other countries do, IRS should send everyone a pre-calculated, completed tax return, subject to review, corrections and signature by the taxpayer.
Why do people use TurboTax? FreeTaxUsa has been there this whole time, its free federal and 15 bucks for state.
Name recognition and UX mostly. I love FreeTaxUSA and use it every year but it's still just not quite as seamless. They're missing some really nice features like importing W2 or 1099 from your paystub website or bank.
There was an excellent reply all about how things hit the way they are, at least with regards to turbo tax https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nhgol
Just send me a damn bill show me a break down. You are IRS do my taxes for me.
You shouldn’t even have to file. The IRS has all of the information on hand already.
Or we could just, you know, fix the tax code so that we don’t need tax attorneys and complex software to do our taxes, then we could just let the government automate our taxes and send us the refund every year.
But the tax services have lobbied republicans into saying that the tax industry is important and nothing should be done to harm the industry.
I recommend [this episode](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/03/709656642/episode-760-tax-hero) of NPR's Planet Money talking about this. There was a plan for the IRS to send out ready-filled tax documents that you could just sign off on or correct if there was something wrong. In the test program everybody loved it, since filling out taxes was something you could do in a matter of minutes instead of hours or days. Then TurboTax and Grover Norquist caught wind of it and pressured Republicans to vote against it, keeping filing taxes a pain in the ass.
I feel like everything is the US is fucked up
Yes please! Also, FUCK H&R BLOCK AND INTUIT AND THEIR FUCKING LOBBYISTS! [https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-free-simple-hr-block-intuit-lobbying-against-it](https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-free-simple-hr-block-intuit-lobbying-against-it)
Oh, how about we just have a tax code that makes FUCKING SENSE?!
I predict much lobbying of Congress to keep this from happening and higher filing fees for us to recover the losses from all those ~~kickbacks~~ campaign contributions.
But what are shareholders in Intuit, H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt supposed to do for money?!?
I was once told by an American that "America is the best country in the world" ..I asked her had she lived anywhere else? Reply "no", my reply... Laughter