[HN Gopher] Tax prep companies: $90M lobbying against free tax-f...
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Tax prep companies: $90M lobbying against free tax-filing
Author : everybodyknows
Score : 302 points
Date : 2023-09-02 17:32 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.opensecrets.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.opensecrets.org)
| reso wrote:
| It's interesting to think about the harm done by Intuit and other
| companies' lobbying on this file, and compare it to the language
| that people like Ben Horowitz have used to describe Bill
| Campbell, Intuit's chairman in this period.
|
| To hear it from people like Horowitz (in his book), Campbell is
| one of the best people he's ever met; one step removed from a
| saint. But the man's actions in stopping free online filing to
| become a reality in the US have caused incredible harm.
|
| It's easy to confuse a nice person with a good person.
| dave333 wrote:
| Maybe a compromise that would keep both sides happy is for the
| government free file program to apply only to those who owe tax,
| but if you want a refund you have to pay for tax prep. Would
| maximize both tax and tax prep company revenue.
| notyourwork wrote:
| No. That's absurd, deductions for using the tax system to my
| advantage should not cost me money. e.g. Donations, mortgage
| insurance, credit for solar and home efficiency.
| dave333 wrote:
| Then file your own taxes no need to pay for convenience.
| saxonww wrote:
| Why do we need to keep the tax prep software industry happy and
| maximize their revenue?
| dave333 wrote:
| Why have any capitalism? Because the alternatives like
| communism are disastrous. If we want a complex tax system tax
| prep companies serve a useful function.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| [flagged]
| chucksmash wrote:
| Thats quite a leap to go from "why should we care about
| keeping these particular companies happy?" to "why do you
| hate capitalism?"
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I promise you there is a middle ground between govt.
| propping up a valueless industry, and outright communism.
|
| ...wait.
|
| Anyway, plenty of other capitalist countries have
| significantly easier filing.
| landemva wrote:
| [flagged]
| Clubber wrote:
| And that's hyperbole.
| landemva wrote:
| Hyperbole is "speaking or writing that makes someone or
| something sound bigger, better, more, etc. than they
| are". https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english
| /hyperbol...
|
| IRS can lien assets, sieze assets, and imprison people.
| IRS is hiring armed employees.
| https://www.jobs.irs.gov/resources/job-descriptions/irs-
| crim...
| Clubber wrote:
| Let me guess, you think forcing children to have an
| education is also slavery.
| landemva wrote:
| Being forced into paying the federal government a portion
| of wages because a person happened to be born within the
| federal government land mass is taking the fruits of a
| person's work. Slaves are born into the slave owner's
| plantation. Don't pay and be punished by the slave
| master.
|
| https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/sl
| ave...
|
| Going to school, at no charge to student with free lunch,
| is probably preferrable to working in the mines or
| factory at age ten. If you are concerned about
| government-run education, you can home school your
| children.
| cumshitpiss wrote:
| [dead]
| lossolo wrote:
| If their product is better than the free government app,
| and users find the government app not good enough, they
| will win anyway. If it's not better, then they will not. I
| don't see a problem here.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Why do we need to give leaches like Intuit anything? We want to
| minimize the income of companies like that.
|
| The tax code and filing process should be optimized for
| efficient use of government resources and tax payer time. There
| should be zero consideration for maximizing the profit of
| leaches like Intuit. If anything, we should be working to
| minimize the profit of such unethical companies.
| dave333 wrote:
| And what happens if your taxes are so complex you can't file
| and get a refund or even if it takes you a week to figure
| them out. I'm all for simplifying the tax code but we have
| what we voted for.
| GrinningFool wrote:
| Then you pay someone to help, of course. That's the value
| add they can offer - no 'compromise' to appease them
| required. If they don't offer enough value to enough
| people, then they don't get to stay in business. No reason
| for the government to artificially sustain these businesses
| if they can't offer enough value without government aid.
| dave333 wrote:
| The complex tax code created by the government is the
| only reason they exist in the first place.
| GrinningFool wrote:
| True. You keep saying that we have the tax system we
| voted for - that was true, once. But what we have had for
| years now is the tax system that the lobby is preserving
| for their own benefit.
| dave333 wrote:
| The checks and balances system makes it hard to change
| things e.g. guns. But not impossible, e.g. Obamacare.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Tax accountants still exist in countries where self filing
| is easier. And they're still accessible to the every-
| person.
| SergeAx wrote:
| My friends from States for years encouraging me to move to the
| US. I am not doing it because something is really fucked there.
|
| I am currently is a tax resident of Serbia, which is really a
| third world country, and I mean it though I love the country very
| much. No offense. I don't have to file my taxes here, my primary
| income is automatically reported to the local tax authority. All
| I have to do is declare any extra income and file tax return
| form, if I am eligible,via government web service. The most
| painful process was obtaining a physical electronic
| key/certificate to access said website. Which is impressive by
| itself: it is literally government issued Yubikey alternative,
| accessible by any country's resident.
| conqrr wrote:
| If any billionaire wants to start real philanthropy, this would
| be a good start. Spend $100M or whatever to kill these companies
| and let free-filing happen.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I bet if the people had a simple way to simplify taxes, they
| would attack the billionaire and philanthropy, having a more
| effective way to understand what tax codes those entities use
| as well
|
| there isn't really a benefit in offering these tools when the
| alternative is another 100 years of "taxing the rich" by
| raising _income_ tax on the upper middle class
| nickjj wrote:
| Let's Encrypt for taxes. I'd love to see the day.
| kepler1 wrote:
| Maybe we should have as a public policy that when a certain topic
| is of sufficient public interest, and we observe some amount of $
| registered for lobbying, the government should be able to
| allocate a proportional amount of funds to have policymakers
| receive competent advice from other sides of the argument.
| (distributed according to some sound independent judgement)
|
| It seems that we're just leaving a lot of things to who can
| outgun in $ the other side lately. And sound government will
| never win in this race.
| [deleted]
| bastard_op wrote:
| No one can claim ignorance of the tax filing industry, mostly
| Intuit and HR Block, paying to block any such notion of easy IRS
| filings since the Internet and ecommerce took off. If IRS
| standardized e-filing for citizens, it'd remove what, 70% of
| Intuit's market value overnight, crippling net worth for how many
| employees and investors of such a fragile industry on the edge of
| collapse should _this_ happen? Now it _is_ , finally happening.
|
| Finally some common sense took hold to let someone in government
| see beyond themselves the lobbying cash and veritable bribery
| that single-handedly kept Intuit their ilk as behemoths in the
| industry with nothing more than our politicians willfully
| overlooking the industry extortion of every common US citizen.
|
| Sadly Intuit and like won't die overnight as sadly most silly
| accountants only know Quickbooks, same as people only know
| Microsoft Office or Windows itself, but it'll be fun to see them
| decimated soon once their services are no longer necessary to buy
| by de facto simply to pay taxes.
|
| Hell, I'm sure if I tell ChatGPT they're a really good
| accountant, they'd gladly do it for me soon enough too.
| underlipton wrote:
| Also health insurance companies lobbying against single-payer
| healthcare.
|
| Also telecoms lobbying against municipal broadband.
|
| Also banks and investors lobbying against regulation and
| oversight.
|
| Also firearms manufacturers lobbying against control amidst an
| epidemic of suicides and other gun-based violence.
|
| This seems to be a trend.
| doubt_me wrote:
| [dead]
| Clubber wrote:
| >Also firearms manufacturers lobbying against control amidst an
| epidemic of suicides and other gun-based violence.
|
| They do that, but the largest power block of the 2A is voters.
| Spivak wrote:
| People who run businesses being opposed to government coming in
| and messing with them is a trend in the way that firefighters
| being found near fires is a trend.
|
| I guarantee you won't be happy the first time something you've
| been doing for 20 years (like cooking on a ventilated gas
| range, smoking menthols, using a leaf blower, not using afci
| outlets) is suddenly declared illegal and you have to switch at
| your own expense and to something worse for no gain.
|
| Like what do you _expect_ someone 's reaction to be? "Thank you
| Mr. Government for completely erasing my market by providing
| the goods/services I sell to people for 'free' but paid with
| tax dollars which I can't possibly compete with."
|
| It doesn't mean that you shouldn't make the law or that it's
| not a net good for society but people will be pissed, they will
| push back any way they can, and will be right to do it.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| Would it be fair to nationalize the companies at an amount
| approaching market value? From the company's perspective, they
| did solve a real problem that was previously created by the
| government and it took a lot of time and resources to do it. The
| government changing the rules would be kind of a rug pull on
| those companies, even if the new rules are objectively better
| than the old ones.
| ghouse wrote:
| For most tax payers in the US, the government has all of the
| necessary information to calculate tax liability through W-2,
| 1099, and other filings from third parties.
|
| A pragmatic approach might be to use this information, populate a
| tax form, send out for signature confirming accuracy and
| completeness. The balance of the tax payers could continue to use
| Intuit, H&R Block and others to handle their circumstances.
|
| There is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make tax
| preparation easier because it aligns with their narrative that
| taxes are bad. The more painful tax preparation is, the more
| sympathy they find with this narrative.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > There is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make
| tax preparation easier because it aligns with their narrative
| that taxes are bad. The more painful tax preparation is, the
| more sympathy they find with this narrative.
|
| And yet we have paycheck withholding, which seems to be a
| relatively complex system and is also the thing that makes
| _actually paying_ your taxes easy.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Estimated withholdings are even worse IMO, especially for
| variable 1099 income.
|
| "How much should I pay?"
|
| "Enough"
|
| "What if I don't pay enough"
|
| "We'll fine you"
|
| "What if I pay too much?"
|
| "We'll refund you, in a year"
| Guvante wrote:
| That isn't what paycheck withholding is at all.
|
| Paycheck withholding guarantees you pay your taxes.
|
| Can't forget to file if you already paid all your taxes ahead
| of time.
| googlryas wrote:
| The US system is pay as you go, so it is just paying taxes
| on time, not ahead of time. Tax day is just the date when
| all your accounts are supposed to be settled up for the
| year.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Also, it shifts the responsibility for the _mechanics_ of
| income tax payment from individuals to businesses.
|
| Which... I can see an argument for. Especially when coupled
| with regular payments vs end-of-year.
|
| It's silly for everyone to individually have to think about
| "How do I get these dollars to the IRS?" all during the
| year.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| In Canada I push a button in my tax app to populate everything
| from the government database. I then add the things they don't
| know about like donations, make some choices about my RRSPs,
| and then file. Maybe ten minutes?
|
| One year I totally screwed up and they fixed it for me, giving
| me a considerably larger return than I filed. So I'm really
| happy that auto button exists now.
| tredre3 wrote:
| Data access is a good step, but it would be nice if the gov
| provided tools to do a declaration online. Of course the
| Provinces would need to get on board.
|
| I don't like relying on third party apps. Especially that
| they're now all cloud based so they keep a copy of all your
| financials and it sucks. Turbotax even does a credit check
| (via equifax) on me once a year for god knows what reason...
| jonas21 wrote:
| It's a similar level of difficulty in the U.S unless you have
| a really complicated tax situation. All the major tax apps
| integrate with the payroll companies, banks, and brokerages,
| so it's just a few clicks to authorize it to import your
| data.
|
| I used to do this and never spent more than 10 or 15 minutes
| on taxes either.
| underlipton wrote:
| You underestimate the number of people who a) work for
| crappy businesses that screw up payroll, b) don't have a
| bank account, and/or c) traded stocks with Robinhood/Webull
| or traded crypto last year.
| jonas21 wrote:
| That's irrelevant to this discussion.
|
| a) If they screw up payroll and the numbers reported to
| the government are wrong, you'd have to correct that even
| if the government sent you a pre-populated form (and if
| they screw up payroll, but the numbers are still right,
| then that's also what gets imported into the tax
| software).
|
| b) If you don't have a bank account, you didn't earn
| interest from the bank, and there's nothing to report.
|
| c) Robinhood, Webull, and Coinbase all integrate with
| TurboTax. If you were trading crypto without using an
| exchange, then yeah, that'll be harder to report. But
| this will be equally hard regardless of whether the
| government sends you a pre-populated tax form (which
| won't include these trades).
| jessriedel wrote:
| I found the Canadian process much closer to the US process
| than what you describe. "Everything populating from
| government databases" didn't happen. I entered in stuff from
| my T4 slip by hand. Some financial firms linked to TurboTax,
| some didn't, and even the ones that did took almost as long
| to get working as doing it by hand.
| anothermoron wrote:
| [dead]
| Insanity wrote:
| Which tax app is that?
| maccard wrote:
| In the UK it happens automatically for the vast majority of
| people. You don't even need to think about it.
| gerdesj wrote:
| PAYE (Pay As You Earn) is automatic for all employees.
| Anything more complicated involves a P11D ie "benefits".
|
| Self assessment nowadays gets all P60 details pre filled
| in. I run a closed company with two other directors and 20
| odd employees. My tax affairs are pretty simple - I don't
| do anything fancy. It takes me abut 30-60 mins to fill in
| the HMRC SA questionnaire online. I get a tax calc at the
| end and I cough up my tax. Dealing with shares etc is
| pretty straightforward because there is statutory reporting
| - ie each year you get a standard form declaring all
| relevant amounts and what to do.
|
| Taxation in the UK is pretty easy to deal with unless you
| want to take the piss, in which case you don't have a leg
| to stand on.
|
| I've been on the receiving end of a HMRC audit and I don't
| recommend it. Bizarrely I came out better off when they
| found some additional things I could claim for, which more
| than offset my cock up that caused the audit, including the
| fine! That was for a former small business I ran (pre IR35)
| and I had an accountant, that I promptly fired for obvious
| reasons.
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| The US is also "pay as you earn" and automatically gets
| deducted from salaries. For most people working as
| employees, the tax return is just for you to confirm your
| numbers with the government's, specify any deductions if
| necessary, and see if you owe any extra or are entitled
| to a refund.
|
| I am honestly surprised that learning how to fill out the
| IRS form is not part of the high school curriculum.
|
| The 1040 form is only two pages long:
|
| https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf
|
| The software to make this isn't too complicated. This has
| more to do about being able to legally distribute it
| since an open-source solution could have been distributed
| already, but there is too much liability in doing so.
|
| If you want to add e-file to the software, you have to be
| approved by the IRS and that's where the
| lobbying/corruption comes into play.
| zemnmez wrote:
| in the uk, most pay tax by an even simpler method, Pay as You
| Earn (PAYE). the taxes are all filed by the employer, and the
| online website allows taxpayers to add anything else
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > There is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make
| tax preparation easier because it aligns with their narrative
| that taxes are bad.
|
| Is this why the current president hired 80000 new IRS agents
| instead of making a simple system that presents this
| electronically for confirmation?
| azernik wrote:
| Yes. It is literally illegal for him to make that simple
| system without Congressional approval.
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| It was 80,000 employees, not agents (Revenue Agents or CI
| Agents), the total includes IT, customer service, return
| processing/mailroom, legal research/appeals, HR, etc. across
| the entire organization.
|
| Fun fact, the IRS has people that go out to oil refineries
| and make sure the transfers are being reported accurately and
| tax-free diesel is dyed correctly. They have people who
| advise the State Department on negotiating tax treaties.
|
| Additionally, the total was an estimate of how many employees
| could be hired through 2031, including backfilling positions.
| Over half of all IRS employees are currently eligible for
| retirement, so significant departures are expected in the
| coming years.
| underlipton wrote:
| No, but there is a contingent of Congress that does not want
| to make tax preparation easier because placating tax prep
| companies aligns with their campaign fundraising strategy. I
| assume that our president was one of them when he was a
| senator, and continues to be friends with legislators who are
| included in that contingent.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| >There is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make
| tax preparation easier because it aligns with their narrative
| that taxes are bad. The more painful tax preparation is, the
| more sympathy they find with this narrative.
|
| Had me up until here. This is what I'd dismiss as a conspiracy
| theory.
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| > There is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make
| tax preparation easier because it aligns with their narrative
| that taxes are bad. The more painful tax preparation is, the
| more sympathy they find with this narrative.
|
| I'm primed to believe this because I'm a registered Democrat
| raised in that kind of household. Is it true, though? The logic
| makes sense, but how could we really determine whether a tax-
| bashing neoconservative actively protects labyrinthine tax
| practices in order to justify adjacent political ends? I'm more
| likely to conclude that it doesn't happen.
| ibizaman wrote:
| That's honestly the right mindset. Our brain loooves
| conspiracy theories. In a way, it's more comforting to us to
| think we are lead by very intelligent mischievous people than
| to realize most of us just do an ok job, have imposter
| syndrome, etc.
| hooverd wrote:
| It's not a conspiracy theory when they literally come out
| and say it.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| [flagged]
| javajosh wrote:
| It's not proof, but it's telling: it's the same reason sales
| tax is not included in the price of an item, unlike VAT in
| Europe. They want you to know how much you're paying.
|
| This happens in other spheres. Two that come to mind are
| death penalty cases, where opponents play for delay after
| delay, and divorce court, which is designed to be horrible
| for everyone, and therefore limit the number of divorces. I'm
| sure something similar happens to abortion clinics when there
| is a sizable resistance to them.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| I would break US tax arguments down along a few axes.
| Individual political identities line up all over on different
| ones. - Progressive rate vs flat -
| Detailed vs simplified - Policy via taxes vs outside
| of them - Low taxes vs high taxes + benefits -
| Use tax (e.g. sales) vs income tax - Labor tax vs
| capital tax - Gov-cooperative filing vs adversarial
|
| My read on how we got to where we are is (1) all politicians
| love byzantine tax codes, because it allows sneaking favors
| in without repercussions + (2) people love getting money.
|
| Consequently, we get a convoluted tax code that advantages
| special interests who can lobby, sold and balanced with
| enough direct benefits to people that they're happy.
|
| Which... is a complicated sausage, but doesn't seem like the
| worst way to resolve a fundamental tension?
|
| And then everyone stares at the resulting Rorschach blot of
| de facto tax codes and sees what they want to see.
|
| "Look, it's ridiculously complicated! That's why we need a
| simple, flat rate tax!"
|
| "Look, it's ridiculously complicated! That's because the
| corporations/wealthy are trying to screw you over!"
| yieldcrv wrote:
| most people cant receive a benefit beyond the standard
| deduction or a poverty tax credit so they have no need to
| have an idea of ... everything else
| LapsangGuzzler wrote:
| > how could we really determine whether a tax-bashing
| neoconservative actively protects labyrinthine tax practices
| in order to justify adjacent political ends?
|
| We rarely have the ability to truly determine a politician's
| motives in a concrete and objective way because many of the
| decisions they make are not transparent due to lobbying and
| other forms of influence.
|
| Fundamentally, the American right argues consistently that
| the government does not represent the interests of the people
| and actively works to render the government ineffective.
|
| Whether they intentionally use taxation as a means to achieve
| political gains or not, it's pretty undeniable that taxation
| causes resentment when the government appears to be so
| ineffective. Ultimately, you're trying to determine if this
| is intentional or not, which doesn't make that much of a
| difference.
|
| As Jon Stewart used to ask on his show when trying to assess
| the motivations of conservatives: are they stupid or evil?
| Which is just a simpler way of asking: are they being
| intentional about this or not?
| alistairSH wrote:
| Reagan believed paying taxes should hurt - the more painful
| to pay, the more the public would want to do away with taxes.
| Reagan did soften his stance while in the White House, but
| the GOP never got on board, even to this day.
| c420 wrote:
| "As Ronald Reagan once put it, "Taxes should hurt." He
| meant that when paying the taxes you owe is a painful
| process, you are very aware that government is taking your
| money. Then the governor of California, he was resisting
| the introduction of state-tax withholding, which, he felt,
| made it too easy for government to take money and too easy
| for taxpayers to miss what was happening."
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/american-
| t...
| c420 wrote:
| "But in the United States, filing taxes is painful by design.
| The tax-collection system as we know it is the outcome of
| three forces: corporate lobbying, a stubborn resistance to
| borrowing good ideas from other Western nations, and the
| Republican Party's decades-long campaign against taxation
| itself." https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/am
| erican-t...
| orev wrote:
| You should do some reading about Grover Norquist, his
| organization Americans for Tax Reform, and the Taxpayer
| Protection Pledge that most Republican politicians are
| pressured to sign. I think you'll find that your assumptions
| about what political operatives are willing to do are wrong.
|
| A very large part of the current craziness has been enabled
| by people so incredulous that nobody would "stoop to such a
| level" that they ignore the topic completely, only to find
| out when it's too late that they do, in fact, stoop down to
| that level and the damage has already been done.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| This Planet Money episode[0] has a few short interview clips
| with Grover Norquist (author of the conservative Tax Pledge).
| He said that supporting a Ready Return program would be
| equivalent to breaking the pledge because it is then easier
| to raise taxes.
|
| [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/03/22/521132960/e
| pis...
| twoodfin wrote:
| You don't file a form with the IRS when you get married, have a
| child, divorce, pay for daycare, spend an unusual amount of
| income on healthcare, enroll at a local community college,
| leave your job, switch to selling pottery on eBay, buy a house,
| inherit money from the death of a relative, ...
|
| We _could_ have IRS forms and the IRS maintaining an expansive
| database to cover all tax-relevant events and amounts, but that
| hardly seems desirable.
|
| Federal income taxes are complex. Everyone will trip over that
| complexity multiple times in their lives, Federally-provided
| "easy file" or not.
|
| EDIT: Just look at the qualifying criteria for the EITC,
| simultaneously one of the most important tax credits that many
| eligible low-income filers miss, and a massive source of tax
| fraud.
|
| https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/earned-in...
|
| How in the world does the IRS figure out automatically if
| you're eligible?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| All of this can be provided to the IRS through a crud
| interface in your IRS account and it's entirely desirable to
| make paying taxes as easy and cost efficient as possible.
|
| Automate what can be automated, make what cannot
| straightforward.
| twoodfin wrote:
| The claim was:
|
| _For most tax payers in the US, the government has all of
| the necessary information to calculate tax liability
| through W-2, 1099, and other filings from third parties._
|
| They do not. And I think most Americans would recoil at the
| idea of giving them what they would need to compute
| liability under the bulk of current law.
|
| So we're really talking about a "public option" for tax
| filing software. The Treasury Department is giving it a
| try, we'll see how it goes.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| My comment was specifically to rebut this weak claim you
| put forth:
|
| > We could have IRS forms and the IRS maintaining an
| expansive database to cover all tax-relevant events and
| amounts, but that hardly seems desirable.
|
| If it's tax relevant, why would they not be collecting
| and then storing a record of it for the relevant period
| of time? That is their responsibility: to store, process,
| and maintain this _tax-relevant_ information in order to
| compute taxes or refunds due.
| twoodfin wrote:
| Again, look at the EITC eligibility. It includes
| information like which partner is supplying more than 50%
| of the support in a household. Primary residence
| qualification has a similar requirement. The IRS does not
| track anyone's primary residence from year-to-year
| without the taxpayer telling them, and doesn't assume
| they know. This is a _good thing_.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| But they _could_ , trivially, using homestead exemption
| public record data wrt primary residence. EITC can be an
| attestation online. I prefer systems that prevent tax
| fraud. If you want to prevent institutional overreach,
| that's a governance issue, not "better they just can't
| find the fraud."
| makapuf wrote:
| In France you have a basic way of pre declaring such
| things, then your "simple" money sources are pre declared
| (salary, dividends and interests, also public interest
| donations you did) then the situation is carried over
| unless you go and change it. You often mostly just have to
| look that everything seems alright (it generally is) and
| click OK.
| ineptech wrote:
| > You don't file a form with the IRS when you get married,
| have a child, divorce, pay for daycare...
|
| Er, yes you do? I'm pretty sure all of the things you listed
| are explicitly included in the 1040 and associated tax forms
| we have today. Daycare expenses, for example, are supplied in
| form 2441: https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-2441
|
| This seems like pure FUD. The claim isn't that easy file
| would work for all people, the claim is that the present
| system is needlessly opaque in a way that benefits only the
| tax prep middle-men. More generally, it's really hard to
| claim that the US can't possibly accomplish something that
| many other countries already do.
| twoodfin wrote:
| The claim was that the IRS had all this information for
| most Americans _without_ the content of the 1040's they
| have to file today.
| ineptech wrote:
| You're interpreting "tax liability" to include every
| possible deduction, when I think it's perfectly clear
| that OP was referring to taxable income before
| deductions.
| matdehaast wrote:
| This is literally how it works in South Africa. It's called
| auto assessment. You get sent a form to confirm all correct and
| click submit online. 99% it has all the correct information
| babyshake wrote:
| Perhaps this is just in my imagination, but it seems that there
| is an element to the byzantine tax process where it's desirable
| on the part of the government for people to feel that they have
| likely made some mistakes at some points with taxes, and this
| produces the feeling that the government has "kompromat" and
| therefore they should be careful and make sure to not do
| anything to get any unwanted attention. Of course, there is an
| analogy to be made with religion and the Catholic Church in
| particular.
| lockhouse wrote:
| Unpopular opinion, but I think a lot of the taxes we pay are
| excessive and bad. We desperately need a way to cut the pork
| out of spending bills.
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| [flagged]
| rqtwteye wrote:
| That's totally orthogonal to making tax filing simpler. One
| has nothing to do with the other.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Land use tax only ticks all those boxes
| makapuf wrote:
| Indeed. Dividing every rate by ten keeps the same
| complexity.
| lockhouse wrote:
| I disagree. Cutting all the useless corporate subsidies and
| pork would allow us to simplify tax filing and the tax code
| all in one fell swoop. Then we could automate a huge chunk
| of the IRS and reallocate their employees to other agencies
| that will serve the tax payers better. It's a win for
| everyone except corrupt politicians and their corporate
| masters.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| It's completely unrelated. The tax code can be as complex
| or simple as desired for any number of other reasons. The
| government already knows the vast, vast majority of
| information required to determine what's owed, and we
| know that because they catch you when you screw it up.
| Obviously we can have processes for appeals or amendments
| to an individual's return.
|
| Nevertheless, do absolutely agree with getting rid of
| corporate subsidies and pork, and simplifying the tax
| code, if for no other reason than to close the
| innumerable number of loopholes abused by corporate
| entities and the wealthy.
| lockhouse wrote:
| A simple tax code is a simple one for a computer to
| calculate.
|
| 1. Input the taxpayers's income from all taxable sources.
|
| 2. Lookup what tax bracket you're in based on that
| income.
|
| 3. Calculate the appropriate tax bill based on that
| percentage.
|
| 4. Subtract that from whatever has already been taxed out
| of their payroll for the year.
|
| 5. Bill them or refund them appropriately.
|
| No humans would need to be part of the process if it were
| that simple, saving money and making errors less likely.
| Also, the simpler the tax code is the less computing
| hours it will require to complete the entire country's
| taxes, meaning faster refunds and less energy usage.
| Simpler taxes are even better for the environment!
| landemva wrote:
| A simple tax code is to eliminate the federal personal
| income tax. No federal personal income tax would
| eliminate W-2 paycheck wiithholding, giving every W-2
| employee an effective take home pay increase.
|
| People not filing personal federal income tax is green.
|
| Banks not sending people yearly interest statement is
| green.
|
| Companies not withholding personal federal income tax
| from paychecks uses less CPU and fewer papers so it is
| green.
|
| Keep or tweak corporate taxes and fees as deemed
| necessary. And each State can do whatever.
| lockhouse wrote:
| That sounds even better.
| moregrist wrote:
| You are describing a typical 1040EZ filing.
|
| I'm glad we're in agreement that most people shouldn't
| have to file this.
| ghaff wrote:
| There's no 1040EZ any longer I believe. But, yes,
| anything that simple should be able to default filed as a
| very simple 1040.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| It sounds so simple when some random guy on the internet
| says it! The professionals who have worked on this for
| decades clearly have no idea what they're doing!
|
| 1) People have lots of taxable sources, and many of them
| aren't digitized. This is especially true for people
| whose primary source of income is not W2 employment.
|
| 2) Computers can figure out the inner workings of stars,
| the alignment of molecules in proteins, and all sorts of
| other things that requires massive amounts of computing.
| If you're going to use a computer to calculate taxes, you
| don't need a simple tax code. Indeed, the tax code should
| be as complicated as possible to efficiently and fairly
| calculate taxes for each individual and corporation. But
| on that note, the calculation of income taxes is
| relatively straightforward. (The IRS is able to verify
| the calculations of the tens of millions of returns that
| are filed digitally within minutes.) The issue is, and
| has always been, data entry.
|
| 3) See #2.
|
| 4) Ignores all the other types of tax payments made
| during the year...
|
| 5) This is literally how it already works once you send
| in your tax return.
| lockhouse wrote:
| The tax code is excessively complex to provide loopholes
| for the wealthy to use to lower their tax burden.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| No, it is "excessively" complex because it recognizes
| that what is fair to one industry or group of individuals
| isn't necessarily fair to a different group of
| individuals. What many people think of as "loopholes" are
| grounded in decades or centuries or pre-income tax
| financial structures, especially the loopholes related to
| agriculture.
|
| For example, one of the biggest loopholes in the tax code
| is the carried interest exception. It created modern
| Silicon Valley; YCombinator exists solely because of this
| loophole. Most of the nation regards it as the most
| blatant subsidy in the tax code, but it is essential to
| startup financing. How would you feel if they got rid of
| it?
|
| And the "flat rate" tax rate you propose is a huge
| subsidy to the wealthy, who derive the most benefit from
| a stable government and therefore should pay the most to
| continue it. Conversely, any rate high enough to fairly
| tax the wealthy would excessively tax the poor and
| middle-class. This is why we have a progressiv (i.e.,
| complicated) rate structure.
| Guvante wrote:
| We will spend $26.1 billion on pork in 2023
| (https://www.cagw.org/reporting/pig-book). The budget is $6.4
| trillion.
|
| You wouldn't notice 0.4% lower costs (not to mention we are
| hugely in a deficit this year so there wouldn't be lower
| taxes anyway)
| joebob42 wrote:
| The definition here is a fairly narrow one and doesn't
| nearly cover what I think of when I think of "pork".
| [deleted]
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> For most tax payers in the US, the government has all of the
| necessary information to calculate tax liability
|
| A couple years ago, the US government owed me a bunch of money
| for taxes, I overpaid, it took the government many months to
| refund that money, and during that period, the US government
| could not tell me a single thing about where my money was, or
| what was the status of my return, or where my money was.
|
| Not a single thing, after many hours on the phone, hours and
| hours, not a single piece of information.
|
| And from your comment, I gather that you want these people to
| have more power over me, rather than less.
|
| My answer is simple, no.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| Yep. The asinine requirement that we regurgitate what has
| already been reported to the government offends and steals from
| every U.S. taxpayer.
| nightski wrote:
| For those people it's pretty automatic as it is, even free.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, there should be a filled-in form option (where you can
| make changes) but the reality is that if you have a W-2 with
| maybe a 1099 or two (with no cost basis complications) and
| standard deduction, it's really not that complicated today.
| xienze wrote:
| > There is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make
| tax preparation easier because it aligns with their narrative
| that taxes are bad. The more painful tax preparation is, the
| more sympathy they find with this narrative.
|
| I'm guessing you're making a thinly-veiled reference to
| Republicans being the ones holding this up. Congress has had
| Democrat control many times over the decades, they could have
| pushed this through any time. Perhaps both parties share blame
| here.
| ghouse wrote:
| I think the Democrats (Intuit headquarters in California) are
| primarily to blame here, but they find odd common ground with
| a portion of the Republican party who want to run up the debt
| by cutting revenue (while increasing spending).
| boredpeter wrote:
| Odd common ground is a weird way to say that most democrats
| are really just conservatives. Both parties bend to the
| will of big business. Both parties are happy to screw over
| workers (just look at what Biden did to rail workers).
| Democrats are happy to screw over real progressives like
| Bernie Sanders (look at 2016) while doing nothing about the
| conservatives within their ranks (Joe Manchin).
|
| Conservatives are happy to take lobbyist money and give
| them whatever they want. Liberal progressive want no money
| in politics and typically get funding from labor unions.
|
| We need to recognize that both parties support the
| interests of the ultra wealthy with the exception of a
| handful of democrats and 3rd party candidates.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Primarily to blame? One side is in near universal
| opposition to the idea and the other is
| ineffective/uninterested at pushing it through.
| tstrimple wrote:
| You think wrong.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/democrats-optimistic-
| about-i...
|
| > And while Porter, Beyer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and
| others have expressed interest in the free direct-file
| pilot program, congressional Republicans are speaking out
| against it.
|
| > In May, the Republican-controlled House Ways and Means
| Committee published a press release disapproving of the
| IRS' direction to move forward and create the pilot program
| after its chairman accused the Biden Administration of
| "cooking the books" in its study that ultimately
| recommended such a program be implemented.
|
| > "IRS control of tax preparation is the latest step in
| Democrats' ongoing efforts to supercharge the agency to go
| after working-class families, after giving the agency $80
| billion to increase audits on taxpayers making less than
| $75,000," said Rep. Jason Smith. "Americans will be
| powerless when the IRS completely controls the tax filing
| process from start to finish."
| xienze wrote:
| Again, at anyone point in the last several decades when
| Democrats had control they could have pushed it through.
| Your quotes don't change that reality.
| tstrimple wrote:
| When have they "had control"? Do you understand how the
| US legislative process works? Only for a short time
| during the Obama administration did they actually "have
| control" and they used that time and political capital
| passing the ACA. Everything since basically has to be
| passed via reconciliation because republicans filibuster
| everything based on some sort of "principle". Take a look
| at legislation which has been proposed, what the votes
| look like and what the filibuster record is. This is all
| very public information. There's no need to pretend this
| is some fault of the Democratic Party.
| xienze wrote:
| > Do you understand how the US legislative process works?
|
| Do you?
|
| > Only for a short time during the Obama administration
| did they actually "have control" and they used that time
| and political capital passing the ACA.
|
| Why are you arbitrarily limiting the time frame to recent
| history? A simplified tax filing method could have been
| introduced at any time in say, the last 50 years. During
| which time Democrats have had house and senate control
| many times [0] and the basic reality of the IRS having
| all your tax info ahead of time has been unchanged (read:
| simplified tax filing was possible). That they never
| seized the opportunity to do so is just evidence that
| they didn't really care to, not that some shadow cabal of
| Republicans had held them back.
|
| 0: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/jun/25/control-
| house-...
| lockhouse wrote:
| [flagged]
| mikeyouse wrote:
| They probably should have given how hollow "precedent"
| actually turned out to be when the SC majority decides they
| want to overturn something but until Roe was overturned, Ds
| weren't the party running on abortion for the past 20
| years.
| lockhouse wrote:
| The Supreme Court overturned Roe because it was a deeply
| flawed decision. Even former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
| disagreed with it.
|
| https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/justice-ruth-bader-
| ginsbur...
| Guvante wrote:
| Why did the SC need a Goldilocks decision to overturn it?
| Examples from since the Constitution were invalid but
| examples before the Constitution were also invalid.
|
| Ruth did not "disagree with it". She was critical of it,
| which is very very different.
|
| Specifically she thought that focusing on the doctors
| right to decide on treatment course was a bad vector to
| enshrine a woman's control over her own bodily function.
|
| Similarly she saw the rallying cry and felt that if the
| SC hadn't stepped in a more natural process would have
| resulted in a similar status over a longer time period
| anyway.
|
| "If the SC hadn't done something everyone else would
| have" and " it didn't go far enough" are not "disagreed
| with".
| lockhouse wrote:
| That's the problem, Roe was an overstepping of the
| Supreme Court. A law should've been passed instead. That
| is why this Supreme Court ruled the way they did. There
| was nothing in the Constitution or established law to
| support Roe.
| Guvante wrote:
| IIRC the only opportunity was Obamacare, which at the time
| made sense since the abortion was protected by SC
| precedent.
|
| Unless they eliminate the filibuster (which they don't have
| the votes to do) the Republicans will always block such a
| bill.
| wizerdrobe wrote:
| [flagged]
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| While it is true that many people have simple taxes, the
| philosophical shift is huge. It's just much better for the US
| citizen to be able to tell the government what he or she owes
| and then put the onus on the government to seek redress. In
| some countries, the government sends out a tax bill as if it's
| a fait accompli and the poor citizens just have to take it.
|
| I realize there are some people who just want to frame this as
| Intuit is just a bunch of greedy people, but they're providing
| a service just like others. HR Block does offer some
| competition and it's often possible to get a free version of
| their software. I've seen some of my neighbors get the free
| option. It's real.
|
| I like the option to control my taxes. It's worth the extra
| work.
| doikor wrote:
| > In some countries, the government sends out a tax bill as
| if it's a fait accompli and the poor citizens just have to
| take it.
|
| I highly doubt this happens in any working democracy.
|
| What the government does in those countries is just send the
| tax form pre-filled allowing the tax payer to make any
| corrections as they wish. You are just as much in control of
| your taxes in such a system as the US one but it just has a
| lot less work for most.
|
| In an authoritarian/etc system you end up paying whatever the
| government says you have to pay no matter how the system
| works.
|
| Really if you are living in a country where you can't dispute
| your taxes when you think the government made a mistake you
| are living in a failed democracy or authoritarian/dictator
| system.
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| That's why the IRS is proposing an automatic preparation
| option, not "the government sending you a bill." The legal
| distinction between what their program initially suggests and
| what you file remains, and is deeply baked into the tax code.
| Beached wrote:
| how do does the federal government calculate all your
| deductions? do they have every transaction you make every year
| on file?
| dang wrote:
| It's CPS time! Related:
|
| _IRS moves forward with a new free-file tax return system_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36804710 - July 2023 (221
| comments)
|
| _IRS tests free e-filing system that could compete with tax prep
| giants_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35950836 - May
| 2023 (567 comments)
|
| _Call on the IRS to provide libre tax-filing software_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35705469 - April 2023 (129
| comments)
|
| _60M Americans have taxes so simple the IRS could do them
| automatically_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35476709 -
| April 2023 (277 comments)
|
| _Lobbyists begin chipping away at Biden's $80B IRS overhaul_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35381701 - March 2023 (214
| comments)
|
| _Intuit pouring money into lobbying amid push for free
| government-run tax filing_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34840039 - Feb 2023 (178
| comments)
|
| _IRS builds task force to explore running its own free e-file
| system_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34764952 - Feb
| 2023 (199 comments)
|
| _IRS Free File: Do Your Taxes for Free_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34462122 - Jan 2023 (247
| comments)
|
| _IRS will look into setting up a free e-filing system_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32753099 - Sept 2022 (408
| comments)
|
| _The IRS could be on the verge of changing the way Americans
| file their taxes_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32550841
| - Aug 2022 (17 comments)
|
| _IRS will study free tax filing options_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32502321 - Aug 2022 (25
| comments)
|
| _TurboTax's fight against free tax filing_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31072202 - April 2022 (394
| comments)
|
| _Filing taxes could be free & simple. H&R Block & Intuit lobby
| against it (2017)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30856968 - March 2022 (114
| comments)
|
| _FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax "free" filing
| campaign_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30846071 - March
| 2022 (587 comments)
|
| _Ask HN: How does TurboTax get away with dark patterns?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30409523 - Feb 2022 (122
| comments)
|
| _Why do Americans have to pay much to file their tax returns
| when the IRS knows?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30267361 - Feb 2022 (22
| comments)
|
| _Filing Taxes Could Be Free and Simple. But H &R Block and
| Intuit Lobby Against It (2017)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30185484 - Feb 2022 (18
| comments)
|
| _California tried to save the nation from tax filing, then
| Intuit stepped in_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28944200 - Oct 2021 (283
| comments)
|
| _The IRS has a big opportunity to fix the way Americans file
| taxes_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28177289 - Aug 2021
| (12 comments)
|
| --
|
| GOTO https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35970518
| jgalt212 wrote:
| I'm surprised that this number is so low. What a deal these
| companies get to keep an unnecessary product necessary.
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| Where does 90 million in "lobbying" go such that politicians
| aren't going directly to prison for bribery?
|
| Answer: https://www.opensecrets.org/news/reports/layers-of-
| lobbying
| Etrnl_President wrote:
| I assume wallets.
| lokar wrote:
| They also have allies in low tax conservatives who seek to make
| taxes as painful as possible for everyone, including people who
| are actually getting a subsidy via the tax code.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Indeed, it's like medical costs. As you approach death, your
| price sensitivity for interventions declines to zero (what good
| is the money when you're dead). But the money won't help, this
| administration has the will to kill paid tax prep. It's nice to
| see progress finally getting done.
|
| At least folks on K street are getting some cocktails and
| steaks out of it.
| [deleted]
| racecar789 wrote:
| I filed 2022 taxes with FreeTaxUSA. Pricing was very reasonable
| ($15 total for fed and state combined). The interface was better
| than I expected for such a low cost service.
|
| Prior to FreeTaxUSA, I used TaxSlayer, H&R Block, and Intuit.
| Intuit does surprise me by charging roughly the same as a CPA
| firm but for a "do it yourself" service.
| delta_p_delta_x wrote:
| You have to _pay_... to file your taxes? Just American things,
| I suppose...
| wil421 wrote:
| No you pay to prepare your taxes. Inuit and a CPA have more
| thorough questions for more complicated tax situations.
| Nothing stops you from using the paper form and sending it
| through the mail.
| Lionga wrote:
| You guys can not just fill out online forms from the gov.
| to submit taxes? And I thought Germany was bad because it
| was online but about 5 to 10 pages and then wait 2 months
| for the agency to check.
|
| Happy I live in Romania now where it is basically 1 form
| with between 1 (company/cap gains) and 5 (lots of extra
| income) lines to fill out (and 80% of people don't need to
| fill anything), submit and get your owed taxes in about 5
| minutes.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| We can fill out online forms for free. I do it every
| year. The service is on the sketchy looking
| freefilefillableforms.com
|
| For most people just getting paid by an employer, they'd
| just need to fill out one short form. For more
| complicated situations, that site has the other forms you
| need, and some of them are set up to auto-calculate
| values across forms.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| anything and everything that can have a bloodsucking rentier
| in front of it, does. And they have way more lobbying dollars
| than us rubes.
| SergeAx wrote:
| But it doesn't make any sense. I understand renters banking
| on realty, 'cause there are just so many land and buildings
| and making more buildings is expensive and complicated. But
| tax filing is just a software. Nowadays we teach kids in
| schools to write software.
| 5555624 wrote:
| No, you don't have to pay to file your taxes. You can pay to
| hv someone else do your taxes for you. The tax code is so
| screwed up, that it can be difficult to figure everything out
| yourself; but, you can. I've always done my own taxes.
|
| The only "automation" I now use is an Excel spreadsheet, put
| out each year, for free, by Glen Reeves, (https://sites.googl
| e.com/view/incometaxspreadsheet/home/chan...)
| jmugan wrote:
| Not only do you pay, you pay taxes on paying (sales tax).
| sli wrote:
| No, they paid a service to do some of the more fiddly work
| for them.
|
| I use the same service, but for just federal, and they are
| upfront about state filings costing $15 rather than
| surprising you at the end like Intuit/TurboTax.
| Beached wrote:
| you do not have to pay. you can do it for free by yourself.
| there is just a lot of papers, and the language used is
| confusing to people and they choose to get assistance.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Any person smart enough to work in tech (like the majority
| of HN community) can teach themselves how to understand
| that supposedly confusing language and file taxes
| themselves.
|
| Any person who do not is just valuing their time more than
| the cost of tax preparation services. FWIW, I only spend
| about four hours every year doing my taxes myself. Which is
| less than the time needed to research a tax preparation
| service, communicate with them, and then check the results.
| Nimitz14 wrote:
| Do you have investments in stocks and index funds?
| kccqzy wrote:
| I trade stocks, ETFs, options (mostly section 1256
| contracts which are easy to report), and I have rental
| property.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| I have limited experience with US tax, I lived there only one
| year. Everybody strongly recommended to have someone do it
| for me because it's complicated. Turned out it wasn't that
| complicated. Slightly more so than in my country where
| everything is pre-filled and you just sign.
|
| I'm probably stereotyping here, but I noticed Americans are
| more willing to pay for a service, where Europeans are more
| penny-pinching and don't see why they should pay for
| something they can do themselves. I guess American love their
| businesses, where we see them sometimes suspiciously.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Americans have stories of the consequences, which are very
| inconvenient
|
| Your one year of living there exempted you from that
| kccqzy wrote:
| What consequences? The IRS sends you a nice letter saying
| you underpaid. You agree with them and pay them. End of
| story.
|
| It's not like you are using questionable deductions and
| barely legal maneuvers. Be honest in the first place.
| Tell them you made an honest mistake.
| tekla wrote:
| Ive been audited twice for unrelated reasons. The IRS
| sends you a letter asking you for additional information
| and how to submit it. Its not even strongly worded
|
| Very inconvenient, I know.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| I've only done my taxes with FreeTaxUSA, but I think I'll have
| to pay up for TaxSlayer for this year's taxes because
| FreeTaxUSA don't support a specific state form I need to file
| to save me money (Annualized income installment method for
| calculating estimated taxes). I did message FreeTaxUSA about
| supporting that about 2 years ago because I knew I was going to
| need it at some point.
| lockhouse wrote:
| What CPA charges TurboTax prices? I'm talking "standard"
| TurboTax, not with all the ridiculous upsells that you don't
| need.
|
| I agree with everyone that it should be a completely
| unnecessary product, but I don't feel that it is excessively
| expensive for what it does.
| Beached wrote:
| not sure what TurboTax charges, but I pay $70 for fed ,
| state, and local prep and filing.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| > FreeTaxUSA
|
| > $15 total
|
| Sounds like a scam to me.
| jaktet wrote:
| In WA it's free because no state taxes. You can pay money for
| consulting or for being sent a printed or more expensive
| binded copy of your return. I've used it for 5 years now
| maybe. So I feel comfortable knowing they have a revenue
| stream and when I did my due diligence when I started using
| them a while ago.
|
| I should probably figure out how to get notified if they get
| acquired or something though.
| boredpeter wrote:
| The real scam is TurboTax charging over $100 for software
| that has a fixed yearly cost for development and a negligible
| cost for distribution and is used by millions.
| delecti wrote:
| Just wait until you find about digital media distribution.
| teraflop wrote:
| FreeTaxUSA is free for federal tax returns, and the $15
| charge for state taxes is displayed right on the home page.
| notyourwork wrote:
| Last year was first year using FreeTaxUSA.
| mmcconnell1618 wrote:
| There are about 125 million households in the US. I'm making the
| assumption that most households are filing a single tax return
| even if there are two or more incomes. Statistica reports that
| about 60% of households owe Federal taxes. So the market size of
| tax filing households is about 75,000,000.
|
| How many small dollar donations would it take to either rival the
| lobbying dollars of Intuit or create a fantastic free
| alternative?
| twoodfin wrote:
| Already happening:
|
| https://apnews.com/article/tax-irs-taxpayers-direct-file-ef2...
|
| I'm not holding my breath on "fantastic".
| [deleted]
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Intuit and H&R Block deserve to crash and die. They should not
| exist and should never have existed.
| [deleted]
| dave333 wrote:
| It's paying tax most people hate. The tax prep companies just
| make it a bit less painful for a fee. We have the complex tax
| code we voted for. Simplifying it is great - just don't take
| away my deductions!!
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| How is $90 Million spent in lobbying activity? Where does the
| money go?
|
| Answer: https://www.opensecrets.org/news/reports/layers-of-
| lobbying
| delfinom wrote:
| The real question is how much money is unreported. Lol
| bmitc wrote:
| I assume pockets.
| bradley13 wrote:
| Track that $90 million, and publicize where it landed. Lots of
| corrupt politicians and regulators. I mean, I'm sure the money
| has been "legally" spent...just not ethically. Legal loopholes
| are deliberately left open...
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| The vast majority of lobbying dollars already are tracked, I
| recommend OpenSecrets. I don't think it's any secret that
| politicians are taking political donations and they (when they
| retire) or former staffers go to work for them for egregious
| sums of money.
|
| https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2023/05/turbotax-owner-intu...
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