California tried to save the nation from tax filing, then Intuit stepped in

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-10-21/california-tried-to-save-the-nation-from-the-misery-of-tax-filing-then-intuit-stepped-in

by dv_dt • 5 years ago

509 279 5 years ago

latimes.com

brainwipe3• 5 years ago

Anyone got a tldr for a Brit staring at a paywall?

Macha4• 5 years ago

Reader mode works, in Firefox at least.

It's nothing new for a frequent reader of HN. California ran a trial of automatic tax filings in 2005, Intuit persuaded the IRS to adopt no such system, the government mandated a free file system run by the commercial providers for eligible people, the providers used dark patterns to direct free file eligible users to paid options. Current democrats and former california republicans are quoted as being for actual automatic filing, some anecodotes from people who had been pushed by the software companies to paid options.

Closi• 5 years ago

Basically, as a fellow Brit you will know that for most people your tax just happens automatically (typically through the PAYE system, so tax is taken before you get your paycheck, and we never have to even think about it).

Then in the UK if you have more complex tax affairs, then you have to fill in a self assessment on the government portal (where it already knows most of your tax information, and you are pretty much just making disclosures).

And it's VERY rare that people have to hire an accountant (only for people who own businesses, or individuals with the moxt complex tax affairs).

Well in the USA they don't have any of that, and everyone has to file their own taxes. The USA has the capability to do automated tax like in the UK, however the companies who sell the tax software petitioned the government to make sure that they didn't implement it so they can continue to get $$$ out of everyone else.

fighterpilot2• 5 years ago

Do private tax prep companies have an argument they advance about why automatic filing is a bad idea? Or is it just pure behind scenes lobbying?

mrep• 5 years ago

Oh the USA does do automated taxes, they just don't tell you what number they came up with until after you file.

mike503• 5 years ago

Just FYI, in the US there are actually not just accountants but tax professionals.

Accountants will tell you “I’m not a tax guy” and tax guys will tell you “I’m not an accountant”

Taxes are so convoluted and constantly changing that a separate class of number crunchers are maintained for it.

(I’m sure someone could wear both hats, but in my experience they don’t or can’t. Too many requirements for maintaining both?)

brainwipe3• 5 years ago

Thanks for the deets. I've never needed an accountant/tax person, even when I was working 2 tech jobs.

junon5• 5 years ago

Intuit is such an evil company. Now that I've moved to Germany, I know what it feels like not to have to file every year (I still have to for the US but it's trivial now due to FIEC).

There's nobody hounding you here, no stress regarding your taxes unless you're filing for a return or have extenuating circumstances, and even then there's a government-provided online portal for direct communication with the Finanzamt (finance department).

Every American should be upset with Intuit.

progx• 5 years ago

But only für employees! As an independent or small company owner you have todo it every year.

tanto• 5 years ago

In most cases your tax consultant does that for you and what they charge is regulated.

yisonPylkita• 5 years ago

I recommend hiring an accountant. For as low as 50€/month I don’t have to worry about filling taxes (I’m programmer on a contract)

Hamuko3• 5 years ago

According to the World Bank, the self-employed in Germany account for 9.6% of the total employment. So nine out of ten Germans can still avoid filing taxes, which is pretty good.

Interestingly enough, the self-employed actually make up a smaller percentage of total employment in the US at 6.1%. So if the US were to adopt a similar system, it'd be closer to 15 out of 16 Americans.

masa331• 5 years ago

And it makes sense because government might not have all the data even for basic tax filling. On the other hand employees data are already available from various other systems where you have to register them and report and pay social security, taxes, healthcare etc.. I co-own an accounting company in Czech Republic.

raverbashing• 5 years ago

But only für employees

You mean, most of the people then?

As an independent or small company owner you have todo it every year.

Well, obviously

junon5• 5 years ago

Right, most people are employees though. Germany has another problem though - getting a Steuerberater (tax advisor) to help you with the paperwork as a business owner is next to impossible.

Reason077• 5 years ago

"there's a government-provided online portal for direct communication with the Finanzamt (finance department)."

A government provided portal?! Surely this is a case of government over-reach: directly competing with hard working private-sector businesses (tax accountants, tax software makers), destroying jobs and stifling innovation? It would never be allowed in freedom-loving America!

notanormalnerd• 5 years ago

Funnily enough it isn't.

Because you can go out and buy one of the programs that are on the market. There is a public interface/api that can be used by the companies to file your taxes. We even have startups doing your taxes with a questionaire on your phone.

But the government provides you with a free, basic version, the same they did with the standard forms. There is little help, a bit of explanation but nothing more.

And since you have to hand it in digitally now, they are also providing the means to do so. Paper, but digital.

gigatexal2• 5 years ago

HEY! Fellow US ex-pat here in Germany. I do use germantaxes.de which offers a hand-holding experience and all in English but the fact that there's a simple government provided solution is how it should be.

All this hate towards FB and others but we really should be reigning in the likes of Intuit because filing taxes should not cost anything for simple W-2's.

I recall reading that in Japan if you have just wage income it's more or less automatic. Imagine that!

elthran• 5 years ago

Not just Japan, also true for the UK with our Pay As You Earn system - you get assigned a tax code, and the appropriate amount is automatically deducted from your payslip. No need to file anything, and refunds/demands get generated automatically each year if you've been changing jobs/not working/other odd circumstances meaning that the amount you paid doesn't match what you were expected to

junon5• 5 years ago

Thanks for the rec. I've tried so many apps and they all tell me "we can't service US expats". I'll give this one a try.

missinfo2• 5 years ago

"They persuaded the Internal Revenue Service for more than a decade..."

"The tax preparation industry guided Washington down a different path."

Be even more upset with the IRS and politicians. They are literally responsible for this. They make the laws. Don't let them shift blame. They should have told Intuit to pound sand. This is like a kid that gets caught doing something bad and blames their friends. They told me to do it! It's their fault.

Here would be the honest translation: I took their money and went against the best interests of my voters, and now I'm going to shift all blame while accepting no responsibility for my actions. Furthermore, I'm going to reframe this as though I was the good guy trying to save you.

burkaman3• 5 years ago

If I found out my kid's friend gave them $1000 to jump off a bridge, I think I'd be equally mad at both of them.

terr-dav• 5 years ago

Why be mad at either party? They are both making rational choices given their circumstances.

I don't expect politicians to act on principles more than anyone else. They are just trying to keep their jobs, and they functionally depend corporate financing to do this, so they will naturally go to bat for the same people.

Intuit is a profit-making machine with side-effects that include creating a tax-filing product. The people running it are acting rationally to keep their jobs too.

This situation is a predictable outcome given the way the system works, and is one example of the failings and inefficiencies of the system to serve the common good.

tromp2• 5 years ago

Why assign all the blame to Intuit?

They persuaded the Internal Revenue Service for more than a decade to pledge in writing not to adopt California’s innovation or develop any other offerings that threatened their business model.

I think the IRS deserves much of the blame for yielding to Intuit's persuasion.

Every American should be upset with both Intuit and the IRS.

iammisc5• 5 years ago

I'm just upset with the IRS. The IRS officers hold a position of public trust. Intuit does not.

tehwebguy• 5 years ago

On the federal level almost every bad thing that happens and good thing that doesn't happen is the fault of the senate.

Retric• 5 years ago

The IRS doesn’t get to make these rules, that’s up to congress and then the president.

mmmBacon• 5 years ago

This isn’t the fault of the IRS. The IRS can only do what Congress allows them to do. It’s the fault of Congress. In fact the 2 key Congresswomen responsible are Zoe Lofgren and Anna Eshoo. I currently live in Eshoo’s district but I can tell you she is completely unresponsive to you if you don’t live in Atherton or Palo Alto. I have never seen her campaign once. Her district is sprawling and includes 3 counties in the Bay Area and communities that have almost nothing in common. Her district includes Atherton, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, MountainView as well as South San Jose and Scott’s Valley. The district is designed to ensure she never has to face a re-election challenge. It’s almost impossible to enact change with the way this system is arranged.

slg2• 5 years ago

Intuit is lobbying in defense of their entire industry. Almost every company of their size would do the same thing in their situation. The people who deserve the blame here are the people who are susceptible to those lobbying efforts.

Blame Congress.

jandrese• 5 years ago

There is a strong contingent in Congress that believes that it is only moral for it to be annoying and expensive to pay taxes, as they believe that taxes should be opposed by the masses. If taxes are too easy then people won't think about them, and will simply enjoy the services the government provides with them, which is tyranny.

This is also why the US keeps sales tax separate instead of rolling it into the price of the item like Europe.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/american-t...

guerrilla2• 5 years ago

but it's trivial now due to FIEC

What do you mean?

junon5• 5 years ago

Foreign Income Earned Credit. Basically since the US is one of two countries in the world to still collect taxes from people living abroad, you have to file taxes every year still but it usually amounts to a net of $0.00 as it's written off under double-tax agreements with Germany.

74d-fe6-2c6• 5 years ago

Being German it feels weird reading someone praise our tax system. The problem here is that you almost always pay too much tax and will be reimbursed when filing a return while at the same time the German Finanzamt already has the required information to do that on its own. But it won't. End of story is that tax returns are exclusive to people educated enough to take of it. And even if you take care of it in an informed way doesn't mean you will be reimbursed fully. For that you'd need to hire a tax attorney in many non-trivial cases.

locallost• 5 years ago

Living in Germany it's difficult to understand somebody saying nice things about their tax system :-). It almost caused a divorce for me, several times. But ok, if you don't file then it's understandable. But you should as you are almost always getting money back. For around 200 you can find somebody to do it for you and it will still be worth it.

atarian• 5 years ago

https://archive.md/v2lhW

0x0nyandesu• 5 years ago

This is why I always pirate TurboTax and deleted my Mint years ago.

Fuck intuit.

Oh and before someone asks me why I feel comfortable doing that security wise...I do it on an airgapped machine and print the return out and mail it in. Ezpz

sseagull2• 5 years ago

Also why I was disappointed when Intuit bought Credit Karma.

I will never use Turbo Tax, just out of principle. I cannot support a company like that.

divbzero• 5 years ago

I try to avoid QuickBooks and will avoid Mailchimp for the same reason.

micromacrofoot2• 5 years ago

Credit Karma was really disappointing for me... their tax service is quite good for simple filing.

burkaman3• 5 years ago

FYI the DOJ wouldn't let Intuit buy the tax preparation part of Credit Karma, so that service is owned by Square now.

footlose_3815• 5 years ago

This just reminded me to go back and delete my Mint account.

The process wouldn't complete in Firefox, I had to use Edge.

coldpie• 5 years ago

I just do it by hand on paper. For folks with just some W-2s and maybe some light investing stuff (no, this isn't everyone, but it is a lot of people), it only takes an hour or two to do by hand and the instructions are actually pretty decent.

PennRobotics• 5 years ago

Imagine the productivity boost if an automated system handled the W2 + light investing case for "a lot of people"

dpweb2• 5 years ago

At the risk of being a non-popular opinion, I don't find tax filing to be particularly difficult. Maybe its because my job is to solve pretty hard problems all day. But the average person/family who doesn't itemize have a Sched C, it's quite easy.

The thing to understand about filing is that (particularly for W2 wage earners) you're not telling the Government how much you made and how much you owe. They know that already.

If you make a mistake in your filing, good or bad, they will send you a friendly letter correcting your mistake. The filing is just acknowledging the debt to them.

webkike• 5 years ago

So? Because you find something easy, the rest of the country is supposed to be okay with a large company lobbying for less QoL for them?

spywaregorilla2• 5 years ago

Filing taxes isn't especially difficult. Knowing that filing taxes isn't especially difficult is not so easy.

If you have absolutely no clue how it works, you're probably going to have to pay someone to do it for you.

halgir• 5 years ago

There is considerable overlap between people who have no clue how taxes work and people who cannot afford to pay professionals to do it for them.

enumjorge• 5 years ago

They know that already and calculate it in your account. You're acknowledging that debt to them.

But that’s part of the problem. What is the purpose of making people acknowledge that debt? Why not send a bill showing the calculation that the government already knows? Even if it’s just a few hours, accumulate that for every person that pays taxes for every year of their adult life and now you’re wasting millions of person hours just to let a couple of companies sell products/services that are not really needed.

matheusmoreira• 5 years ago

They know that already and calculate it.

Why waste people's time with this stuff then?

xeromal2• 5 years ago

Real talk though, how are they going to know that you bought an energy efficient AC unit for your house that you can deduct off your taxes?

ghaff2• 5 years ago

Yes. For people with super simple tax returns, e.g. a few W2/1099s/standard deductions/no cost basis issues/etc., I suppose it would be convenient to have taxes auto-filed but it really isn't a big deal and doesn't require software. Once you get into the complexities that make tax filing a big deal and may involve accountants or multiple evenings with tax software, auto-filing isn't going to work.

barkerja• 5 years ago

You vastly underestimate the number of people that:

1. Don't even know they have to file taxes.

2. Don't even know where to begin.

neural_thing• 5 years ago

Have you ever had an even minor non-standard issue? Foreign dividend paid in stock rather than cash for example.

rtpg• 5 years ago

I had one non-“salary” event one year. I spent so long staring at the instructions during filing, failing to get any of the software to work for my case, and at the end of all of it I ended up overpaying a significant amount.

I later (2 years) found out about some tax exemption I qualified for and applied for it. They sent me a refund after I filed an amended return. I miswrote my zip code. The check got sent and returned. No phone call to me or attempt to contact me to my knowledge.

Only after 8 months of waiting did I reach out. Person was real nice and resolved it all real quickly (for which I’m grateful), but still a bit annoying that this was a thing.

Meanwhile in many other countries you have 1 (one) form to fill out if you have to. None of the billions of tax exemptions you have to file for correctly (mainly cuz you don’t have to give tax credits when your social programs are semi-universal) or other headaches.

The filing is annoying and can be error prone. The underlying system is something right out of Brazil (the movie). The sort of bureaucracy that Americans like to imagine infect every socialist nation is totally present in the tax system of the US

_jal• 5 years ago

I don't find tax filing to be particularly difficult.

That's nice.

You still might care that we collectively waste an enormous amount of time doing it, unnecessarily, for the benefit of Intuit (and some cranks who want people angry about taxes).

If you still don't care, I'll be taking a few hours of your labor per year for my around the house work. It isn't particularly difficult work, no big deal, right?

dpweb2• 5 years ago

I won't argue that the whole system is stuck in the 20th century, but there is a little bit of "big companies and taxes are evil and I'm oppressed!" going on here.

I understand not everyone has an easy time with it. But today, 70% of Americans can file for free. Some version of optional auto-filing I have no problem with.

As far as a private company trying to protect it's revenue, there are far more egregious examples of that, out there right now.

Hamuko3• 5 years ago

Cleaning isn't that difficult and yet I keep putting it off for as long as I can.

yankoff• 5 years ago

The system is very complex and it's very easy to make a mistake once you start having more complications like selling property, dealing with stocks, handling additional income, etc.

Correcting mistakes is expensive, you'd likely need tax attorneys to figure this all out and you will also pay penalty.

BurningFrog• 5 years ago

It's not that difficult, but as you point out, the government already knows the info you have to give them.

That's the crazy part.

LurkingPenguin3• 5 years ago

The thing to understand about filing is that (particularly for W2 wage earners) you're not telling the Government how much you made and how much you owe. They know that already.

But they don't necessarily know how much you owe. Even many W2 wage earners are eligible for various credits, including but not limited to out of pocket charitable donations, moving expenses, child and dependent care expenses, student loan interest and post-high-school courses you pay for that improve your work skills.

LurkingPenguin3• 5 years ago

Intuit is the worst kind of company, but anyone who has dealt with the tax authorities in California would probably tell you to take the state's stated intentions with a grain of salt, or 1000.

The California FTB would love to tell you how much money it thinks you owe them, have you not question them, and make your life hell if you think they messed up.

While it's fair to say that lower-income W2 taxpayers are probably easier to calculate for, don't assume that the California FTB would go out of its way to help taxpayers.

Just a sample of the nastiness and incompetence that is the FTB: https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2017/11/21/franchise-tax-boa...

Macha4• 5 years ago

The California FTB would love to tell you how much money it thinks you owe them, have you not question them, and make your life hell if you think they messed up.

Isn't this already the case? They know how much they think you owe. The only difference now is if you will out the form differently and they disagree they can also accuse you of intentional defrauding them.

LurkingPenguin3• 5 years ago

Yes it already does this, in error for many people. Example:

https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/state-taxes/discussion/why...

The FTB and Intuit exist on the same plane of hell.

bogota2• 5 years ago

I hate wasting at least a day if not more of my life every year filing. As time goes on and i have more assets the time to file goes up as well and gathering all the required documents with every bank having different timelines is a nightmare.

But what can I do about it? I would imagine if it went to a vote overwhelmingly people would say no I don’t want to file like this every year. But here we are and honestly I don’t have much energy left these days to be mad about anything as it’s wearing on my health.

nightski2• 5 years ago

If you have all these assets and your time is valuable I imagine you can cough up a few $ to pay a local tax accountant. I do this for my single member company, it costs $150 each year. Very worth it and a small price to pay. They even do a quick review of my books.

At this point I am familiar enough with all the forms that I could probably do it myself in less than an hour. But I don't mind supporting the accountant, it's fun to chat with him each year.

harikb• 5 years ago

My tax person charges several times that amount and I still have to scramble to get all the documents to then. Remember, all the above mentioned issues still exist. If I forget a certain item, it is still my fault

ericbarrett• 5 years ago

$150 is a stunning bargain. I think my accountant is up to ~$500 just for personal filing.

silexia2• 5 years ago

I have to pay $6,000 per year for tax. I hire a lot of employees in other states which means that I have to file a tax return in 30 states.

Intuit is pure evil.

mehphp• 5 years ago

Same, I have a full-time job and have a small side business, and my accountant does it all for $150. It's incredible and she saves me a lot of money.

ValleZ3• 5 years ago

I paid 600 usd last year fora tax accountant. He couldn't even do the most easiest part (1040 with stocks and dividend), and after struggling with him we didn't even proceed with the multistate reports I needed. It was complete waste of time and if I didn't check the result it would be also a waste of money and potential criminal action.

dionidium5• 5 years ago

This is the first year I've ever hired anyone to do my taxes. Got married, sold an investment property, started earning some rental income, and had a few other issues I didn't want to try to figure out myself. It was closer to $1500 than $150, for what it's worth.

groos• 5 years ago

I've always done my own (US) taxes but have been mulling hiring an accountant this year. But "doing" the taxes is the easy part with software. It's collecting all the needed information that is painful. Will I just be paying an accountant to use their software? Or is there a real difference in using software like Intuit's and a real accountant for individual returns? (I have investments, retirement funds, etc.).

vidanay• 5 years ago

The one and only time I used a "professional" tax preparer, I sat in their office and answered the questions they read off their "TurboTax for professionals" software. It was the same damn questions when I did it myself, except I was charged a fee, and I had to do it twice because I had to go home and retrieve some info I didn't have with the first time

bogota2• 5 years ago

I still have to collect all the documents and give them to the person. The time to file once i gather everything is negligible and unless i have a very complex year i just do it myself.

Just paying someone to do stuff doesn’t solve everything unless you are some level of rich I don’t understand where someone has access to all your accounts and does it for you.

wincy• 5 years ago

You could be like me and not file it until the sheriff shows up at your door saying you owe money and that you have a month to pay. (Don’t be like me)

bee_rider2• 5 years ago

If only there weren't large penalties involved in doing this.

And hey, if we want progressive taxation -- "is it really worth it for them to send somebody down to bring me the bill" is a great filter that everybody's taxes should be passed through.

landemva5• 5 years ago

You can structure your personal life such that you don't qualify to file a personal IRS yearly signed inquisition document.

Then be like Clintons and live your life spending through foundations, trusts, and companies via speaking payments.

It does require upfront effort to set up everything. An unexpected benefit is the financial privacy it brings.

rmah• 5 years ago

If you have to spend hours doing your taxes, no gov run filing system is gonna help you reduce that. All these "I don't have to do anything to pay my taxes" things are essentially for wage earners taking standard deductions, minimal interest, minimal dividends, no mortgage, etc. And if you were in that situation, filing your IRS taxes would take 10 minutes, if that.

dmos622• 5 years ago

Not a great comment, but I misread the title and was really interested in what the Inuit people had against easier taxes.

Edit: I love how this is getting downvoted really fast. I feel like everyone is skimming and misunderstanding what I said :D

ols• 5 years ago

I made the same mistake reading the title and felt a rare emotional mix of being enraged and puzzled at the same time.

failrate2• 5 years ago

Intuit's business model is making tax preparation easier. If tax preparation wasn't so deliberately complicated in the US, they would no longer have a viable business model.

dmos622• 5 years ago

Well you made the reverse mistake...

mring33621• 5 years ago

Welcome to Reddit...er, Hacker News

mettamage• 5 years ago

Dutchie here, never had an issue with tax returns in my country. You just go to the website, fill it in, done.

I don't get the context at all. Is the ELI5:

CA wanted to create their own tax return software. Intuit said no, and now they use Intuit or something?

Normally I understand context and such, but in this case: isn't it the obvious thing to do? Does the USA not have the back of their citizens?

I'm sorry to say it so charged but this seems desperately simple on what ought to be done here.

epistasis• 5 years ago

Does the USA not have the back of their citizens?

In the US, at least one party requires its members to have the party's back, but not the other way. Which is why we have mass delusions about vaccines being bad, or COVID-19 not being a big deal. The party has decided its members need to provide blood sacrifices and the party members obliged. This is the same party that says that government can do no good, then asks for your vote.

For a less partisan example, for the past ~3 years, people with US phone numbers have been bombarded by spam phone calls, making the phone system nearly useless, and congressional action has been nonexistent.

When I see what is going on with national media and with federal inaction, I feel that the US is far past its peak years. We have chosen bad governance, and if we can't get a majority of people to even want to advocate for themselves, there's no way to get that back.

failrate2• 5 years ago

California offers the typical international option: they'll send you your estimated annual taxes, and you just jave to correct them if there's a discrepancy. This was supposed to be the default option for Californian state taxes. Instead, Intuit's army of lobbyists managed to almost get rid of it. It is now an opt in for people that is not advertised or easy to find on the gov website. Intuit's business model is making tax preparation easier. If tax preparation wasn't so deliberately complicated in the US, they would no longer have a viable business model.

slobiwan• 5 years ago

Can you provide some breadcrumbs to find opt-in ?

pokot0• 5 years ago

A country is made of people AND legal entities. Legal entities in the US have a lot of impact in what the country does (for example it's legal for companies to pay politicians, which is illegal almost everywhere else). Believe it or not, about half of the country believes these policies are great and it's what makes the usa so succesful. I am not making a stand, just trying to explain here.

kfprt• 5 years ago

It creates a strange disconnect. Voters in influence policy at election time and then lobbyists come in an undo everything.

elmerfud• 5 years ago

California tried to save the country from gasoline cars, then Ford and Chrysler stepped in and ended up bankrupting General Motors.

This is a common theme with big businesses. Instead of complying with "make people's life easier" initiatives they just pay off the politicians.

nightski2• 5 years ago

Or maybe it's a common theme with California's draconian politics being ineffective.

golemotron2• 5 years ago

The nation is pretty tired of California and NY trying to save it.

merrywhether3• 5 years ago

Are you really arguing that corporatocracy is a progressive form of governance? Or do you just believe that companies leeching off society via regulatory capture is better for everyone?

charwalker3• 5 years ago

This seems like an odd take given their progressive policy making an standard setting over the last 50 years ex automobile MPG. What policies are you referring to?

mullen• 5 years ago

Or maybe you are wrong and California's "draconian politics" are being effective and corporations are scared of that.

boringg• 5 years ago

And intuit is California company - not lost on anyone.

Im also annoyed the intuit bought Mint -- which I like but now feel like it is a risky to have them access all my accounts / purchases etcs.

pwned1• 5 years ago

I for one am fine with taxes being a pain in the ass. That forces people to see what they're paying. If you think they're a pain in the ass, advocate for simpler taxes.

AnthonyMouse3• 5 years ago

If you think they're a pain in the ass, advocate for simpler taxes.

Intuit would lobby against that too.

Frost1x• 5 years ago

Not if simplifying taxes was as easy as paying Intuit the $89/yr toll to not deal with taxes.

Intuit just wants money, they really don't care about taxes or complexity of the tax system. The only reason they care about complex tax code is that they can make money from it. These large businesses of today don't have visions or value creation goals, they have markets, competitors, and revenue streams. Everything else they do is tangential.

If Intuit could continue to make their money or make more money by advocating for simpler taxes they would. We should pass the Intuit Tax Toll bill where everyone is required by law to just throw money at Intuit every year until they go away, except they'll only come back for more... because this is what Intuit and a mountain of existing businesses would foam at the mouth for, a world where they were just handed money.

jcranmer• 5 years ago

Except that I suspect the average taxpayer doesn't see what they're paying but instead sees the size of the refund check they get at the end of the process, which has relatively little correlation to the amount they paid.

1cvmask• 5 years ago

So we should continue to vote for the politicians who do the public such a service. I fail to see Intuit as the evil company. The politicians that the public votes for are not even responsible. It is the public that votes for them that is at fault. That is the real harsh truth. No one to blame but “ourselves”. I would always be baffled by friends who would decry outcomes but continue to vote for those who created the outcomes. So the politicians are rational as there is no cost to it at least in California and the Bay area.

silexia2• 5 years ago

Politicians are directly controlled by special interests. This is why we have John Deere using copyright laws to stop farmers from repairing their tractors, Intuit using tax law to protect it's expensive software, and patent trolls using abusive patent laws to extort entrepreneurs.

AnthonyMouse3• 5 years ago

The real problem here is structural. We need approval voting/range voting, and for more of the "executive branch but really still regulatory" positions to be elected rather than appointed.

Right now you say "vote for politicians who do good things" and then every politician is found to be doing some good things and some bad things with their opponent doing the opposite, and someone doing a higher proportion of good things can't get on the ballot because first past the post voting results in a two party system.

ClayShentrup• 5 years ago

Agreed

glitcher• 5 years ago

This feels like a bit of an oversimplification to me. Big lobbying money works, and it seems to me it tends to work no matter who you voted for the vast majority of the time. Finding politicians to vote for who can't be bought for any price are probably rare, and we have a lot of offices to fill across the country.

I agree that taking a hard, sober look at how we ourselves vote is a good thing, but I doubt it is the magic silver bullet to our problems.

mwint• 5 years ago

Since I’ve not seen it mentioned yet, https://www.freetaxusa.com/. Used it the last few years to do my taxes, which include investment and self employment income. No complaints. Intuit’s stuff would charge quite a bit for my “complex” taxes.

They charge a couple bucks to file state taxes, which gives me a bit of confidence they’re not making money by selling my info to someone.

ezfe• 5 years ago

Yup - I used this last year and it was great. They also charge a few dollars to file amendments, which is fine.

jpalawaga• 5 years ago

FTU is great, though startupees should be warned that it does not support ISO exercises in the AMT calculation, and you probably won't find that out until you get that far through your taxes.

toomanyrichies• 5 years ago

Just added a calendar event for April of next year to check these folks out. Thanks for the suggestion!

astura2• 5 years ago

I've been using them for more than a decade on their other domain https://www.taxhawk.com. I think their software is great and there's no dark patterns, you can even submit your federal taxes for free without paying to do your state taxes. I also really like that I can review my filled out 1040 before e-filing.

The price for state taxes is $15 where TurboTax would cost me over $100 (I have business income).

alecco2• 5 years ago

No mention of politicians? Let's search... https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/intuit-inc/summary?id=D0000...

That's the first result for https://www.opensecrets.org/search?q=intuit

dartharva• 5 years ago

I don't understand what kind of mental gymnastics it takes for policymakers to impede paying taxes. How absurd is it that the government would rather make it difficult for its citizens to give it money!? ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)

double_nan• 5 years ago

There is absolutely no problem to give money to the government. Filing in taxes with extra is fast and easy. Filing for the exact sum is hard.

rland• 5 years ago

There is a self-aware viewpoint among the libertarian right that if the government makes it a pain to pay taxes, then people will hate doing taxes, which will in turn direct them to push for a smaller government. It's called "starve the beast."

ashtonkem7• 5 years ago

Going to paraphrase a quote from a podcast that stuck with me.

What (the left) needs to do is clear out rents. Not just housing rents, but rent seekers. The economy is riddled through with people who do nothing, but get paid because structurally that’s who gets paid.

Intuit is one of those companies. They produce a few real products, QuickBooks for businesses and Mint, but overwhelmingly their money comes from the fact that they charge rent on filling your taxes. They’re a parasite on our society.

Fortunately the podcaster wasn’t talking about the US; their country was worse off than America in this area by far. But unfortunately it seems like we’re on the same glide slope if we don’t do something about it.

Clubber2• 5 years ago

What (the left) needs to do is clear out rents.

Unfortunately in the US the rent seekers have an easy hack to make sure that never happens: lobbying.

The system will never change unless we vote out the current politicians, and then maybe it will change. We might have to clear out most, ideally all of the applicable congress every election cycle for a few years before we see any results. As long as we keep voting in the same people, nothing will change and it will most likely only get worse. The current political power structure is great at telling us what we want to hear, then conducting business as usual.

The only political power the citizenry has is our vote, everything else can be ignored. Emails go unanswered, polls go unnoticed, protests get suppressed.

Occupy Wall Street was 10 years ago. Thing are worse today than they were back then.

landemva5• 5 years ago

The federal system in regards to lobbying would change if we followed the constitution as written to allow House of Representatives to grow with census population count. And restore the not direct election of Senators. Then remove federal personal income tax. For icing on the cake, shut down the 3rd central bank known as 'Federal Reserve'.

This would require a nationwide general strike to show the people are serious. Most people are not serious about anything beyond TV, social media, and more personal debt.

pydry3• 5 years ago

The left doesnt really have any power in the US.

What passes for the left (the socially liberal corporate elites that run most of the democratic party) are pretty much just as invested in protecting the rentiers as the right wing.

Rentier money is structurally geared towards destroying any populist politicians who threaten their rents. It was a fluke that AOC won given her Democratic opponent (when she was unknown) outspent her something like 7:1. People like her arent supposed to slip through the early stage political filter.

If they do slip through there's also an enormously powerful and effective propaganda machine dedicated to character assassination.

thebigman4332• 5 years ago

This is so important and I think a lot of people miss it. The "left" that has power in the US (establishment dems) barely qualify as being left at all. They are very much invested in protecting power and wealth.

The only "left" that would push against the rentiers are people who will almost never see power. However, I wouldnt say AOC winning is a "fluke". Its definitely the exception, but progressives have been able to repeat it a few more times in democrat strongholds that have historically kept establishment candidates.

Right now the only "power" the real left has is withholding their votes from corporate dem bills like we're seeing with the BBB Act. This only even works because the rest of the party is interested in protecting power/wealth and is pretty inept at actually winning races.

sirtimbly• 5 years ago

How unsurprising that a government wanted to further obfuscate how much money they want to take from their citizens.

teekert• 5 years ago

The US is such a stressful country, tax filing, healthcare, none of these basic things just work. Add to that the lawyers culture and you get a good basis for emotion filled Netflix dramas, but not really for real life.

PaulDavisThe1st2• 5 years ago

There are actually less lawsuits per capita in the US than in most OECD nations. The "lawyers culture" is a false idea created, it seems, by popular media (films, TV, etc.)

kgin• 5 years ago

I’m really curious to dig into this and finding out what people in Europe are suing each other for.

It’s just so weird seeing the billboards here in the US encouraging people to sue for personal injury damages, featuring photos of happy people holding fans of cash like they just won the lottery. Maybe the celebration of lawsuits is the American thing, if not having greater total numbers.

shagmin• 5 years ago

Was curious about this, and from some quick Googling the US isn't much of a contender for lawsuits per capita, but a lot more of our GDP goes to law firms and litigation than any other country and we have one of the highest lawyers per capita.

nsonha• 5 years ago

lawsuits per capita

try legal transations per capita

dragonwriter• 5 years ago

There are actually less lawsuits per capita in the US than in most OECD nations.

That's because our inefficient and costly to access and high-risk legal system is optimized for resolving conflict by legal intimidation rather than actual adjudication.

frockington14• 5 years ago

Tax filing takes me a few hours and ~ $100 each year and I have multiple properties and businesses. For most people it's not that big of a deal but it's easy to jump on the anti-IRS bandwagon

Boltgolt2• 5 years ago

Imagine paying $100 just to be able to pay your government and thinking that's "not that big of a deal"

tnli• 5 years ago

For most Finns (bar the self-employed, business owners, and the very rich) filing taxes is like 15 minutes per year when you want to add some deductions the tax man wouldn't already know about.

It's literally 0 minutes, if you don't have deductions.

mbostleman3• 5 years ago

I like finding approaches that don't necessarily "solve" a problem, but rather don't have the problem in the first place so that there's nothing to solve.

In this case, I would suggest dropping income tax altogether, decommissioning the IRS, and using the state infrastructure already in place to collect an equal amount of revenue from sales tax.

No filing. Broader tax base, including criminals and illegal activity. Everyone's checking account effectively becomes a 401k.

Sales tax is regressive, yes. But proposals like the FairTax suggest the idea of an annual "prebate" or credit up front in the form of a check that effectively eliminates taxes on spending up to poverty level income.

lbriner• 5 years ago

I guess the argument against this is that some super-rich don't spent on th emainland or not even at all, just bank a tonne of cash.

In that case, the overall income from tax would be lower than it is now.

I don't necessarily agree but the idea is normally that "rich" people should pay a higher percentage of their income as tax because "they can afford it".

I personally like the idea of a fixed rate from 0 to infinity like Russia iirc, which gives everyone skin in the game and avoids some of the tax avoidance that we see to avoid the thresholds.

mbostleman3• 5 years ago

>In that case, the overall income from tax would be lower than it is now.>>

No, because it's a requirement of the design that the revenue be the same. So to the tax rate goes up until the result is the same.

Boltgolt2• 5 years ago

This would have consequences for wealth inequality. Households with lower incomes spend much larger percentage of their money on goods with sales tax than more wealthy households. This plan would increase tax for low income families and majorly decrease it for families with where a lot ad money flows into investments or savings.

mbostleman3• 5 years ago

>Households with lower incomes spend much larger percentage of their money on goods with sales tax than more wealthy households>>

Right, I addressed this.

However, for the wealthy household, exactly what is the utility of all the money they have if they can't spend it? The minute any money is spent, the not-taxed argument comes apart because it is now taxed. How can you be wealthy if you do not have access to money?

iammisc5• 5 years ago

If you want to 'save the nation from tax filing', California should begin by simplifying its own tax forms.

I'm sorry... you can't say you're trying to save us from tax filing while simultaneously having a tax form that would put a blank excel spreadsheet to shame.

California and the federal government's willingness to write complex, byzantine tax rules, is ultimately what keeps intuit in business.

iudqnolq• 5 years ago

That is exactly what Intuit stopped them from doing as described in TFA.

runjake• 5 years ago

I'll just mention https://freetaxusa.com at this point.

I think about 100 commenters mentioned it over the years before I finally switched to it and I haven't looked back.

It's a great product and way cheaper and way easier than TurboTax.

frockington14• 5 years ago

Any experience using it with multiple LLCs and/or properties?

m463• 5 years ago

Remember that automated tax filing will lead to easy and silent tax increases.

This is something IMHO REALLY BAD, and is apart from red/blue or intuit's behavior.

aidangrimshaw• 5 years ago

Plug for ustaxes, an open source project aimed at helping tackle free and easy tax filing https://github.com/ustaxes/UsTaxes

snihalani• 5 years ago

Side issue: hate paywalls. pls use advertising to monetize

yyyyyyyy111• 5 years ago

If IRS provides a portal to file taxes easily, who do you think will pay for the infrastructure, support and staff? Government? Absolutely but how does government get funds? From taxes. Bingo! Now the options are : 1. everyone in the country to start paying more Tax so IRS can build and support such system or 2. only folks who have higher income pay a private company to file taxes easily and low income folks file for free

I’ll take option 2, thank you!

alecco2• 5 years ago

Why was this flagged out of the front page?!

pharmakom• 5 years ago

Don’t forget TurboTax… or is that also Intuit now?

leotravis10• 5 years ago

For those who can't read it: https://archive.md/v2lhW

djrogers• 5 years ago

It's all good to blame the private companies like Intuit here, but what really needs to happen is that the politicians and bureaucrats who took their money need to be outed.

A market will always have rent seekers, and people will always look for shortcuts. It's the job of our elected officials to ensure that doesn't happen.

musicale2• 5 years ago

The linked Reagan proposal is remarkable:

"We believe most Americans would go from the long form or the short form to no form.

Comparing the distance between the present system and our proposal is like comparing the distance between a Model T and the space shuttle. And I should know -- I've seen both."

Sadly the space shuttle suffered multiple disasters.

And we're still stuck with form 1040.

musicale2• 5 years ago

It's one of those weird things where you have to ask:

"Does the IRS not like money?"

What's annoying is they often seem to calculate your return anyway, but they keep it a secret unless they think you made a mistake.

theshadowknows• 5 years ago

So you know in the Hunger Games when the guy was like “what if just once no one watched?” .. what if there were a truly massive protest (millions of people) who just said fuck it and didn’t pay their taxes and instead wrote in that they demand proper tax reform

California tried to save the nation from tax filing, then Intuit stepped in

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