I don't feel bad for Intuit maker of TurboTax.
Intuit has spent millions lobbying against tax reform that would make filing simpler.<p><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/27/turbotax-maker-funnels-millions-to-lobby-against-easier-tax-returns/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/27/turbotax-maker-funnels-mill...</a>
Yeah, that's why in a lot of countries you just use the state-sanctioned software and be done with it.<p>This is just BS from companies afraid to lose their cash cow.<p>Fraud is always going to happen, period. Deal with them and that's it.
Thing is, this is a new phenomenon, being accessible free for so very many people.<p>Federal "free e-File" cut off is a lot lower than what TurboTax is offering this year; I only ever even qualified for federal most years, state still cost, and not long ago even if you qualified for free e-file on income grounds you could still be charged a percentage of your refund if it went over a certain amount (I wound up paying a little bit while I was in college and collecting Obama's student tax credit).<p>This "Absolute Zero" thing is something they've offered above and beyond the requirement, most likely to encourage more people to connect to the system and make it easier to sell them on doing it again through TT next year when it's not so free anymore.<p>And I find it a little rich that Common Form is criticizing them on this, considering they only even support filing a 1040EZ, which is a vastly simpler form than even a 1040A, is only available below a certain income cutoff (which cutoff used to line up almost exactly with the "free e-file" rule), and they're charging $20 for them to process a 1-page form you can do by hand in about 20 minutes.
Complaining something is bad because the low/free price makes crime feasible is...baffling. Like banning spoons because they're cheap, making it easier to get fat.<p>The USA does provide free tax software: <a href="http://www.irs.gov/uac/Free-File:-Do-Your-Federal-Taxes-for-Free" rel="nofollow">http://www.irs.gov/uac/Free-File:-Do-Your-Federal-Taxes-for-...</a>
It is quite funny, looking from a small country, how big the "tax software" industry is in the US. I live in Finland, but even we have about 5 alternatives for accounting software etc. However, not much for personal use. I often wonder how big percent of the software people work only on these problems, which relate to tax filings, refunds etc.
Interesting point. For the past few years, I have printed out my return and mailed it in because that is free and e-filing costs money. I do it partly because it is cheaper but also partly because I find it sad that e-filing is not easier and more cost effective for the government to handle than a paper submission (if it is, it is sad that the government is not incentivizing it through cost). Maybe the government just prints the e-filed return out and adds it to the stack of mailed in returns to be processed. It seems like there would be big gains in efficiency if the government had a standard digital submission protocol, if they could get past the initial cost to develop it and could handle the security issues it would entail.
> Creating good tax software is hard.<p>This is called strategically reframing the issue.<p>The problem with tax software is not that it is hard to write, it's that it should never have been needed in the first place.<p>Tax laws work for large corporations who can hire teams of lawyers to find loopholes in them and fail people who just need to do their taxes. This is a policy issue that cannot and should not be worked around using software, proprietary or open source alike.
Here's some US individual state tax experiences, granted, all for simple filings, that might suggest some good things:<p>First state tax return I filled out was in Massachusetts in 1981, and it was the ultimate EZ form: they sent me a punch card with e.g. my ID info already punched into it, and I filled out a few items and was done.<p>Much more recently Virginia created a very nice web site; they also quite intelligently have a deadline of May 1 so you don't treat your state taxes as something of an afterthought.<p>Missouri, where I retired to, did a very interesting thing: PDF tax forms which you fill out, hit a button on them I think, and it encoded all the info in a 2D barcode in upper right of the form. Which if all goes well, makes it super easy for them to get everything correctly into their systems.
Just in case there are Californians here paying to file taxes, eFile is simple, free, and works well in my experience.<p><a href="https://www.ftb.ca.gov/individuals/efile/allsoftware.shtml" rel="nofollow">https://www.ftb.ca.gov/individuals/efile/allsoftware.shtml</a>
I would like to take this moment to encourage HN readers to consult Wikipedia in order to determine the difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance, and adjust their returns accordingly.<p>Remember: tax evasion is illegal. Tax avoidance is <i>discouraged</i>.
I'm usually quite good about catching "we're gonna sell your data!" dark patterns, but having just done my taxes on TurboTax I definitely saw that consent form and didn't understand its implications. Yeesh.
Privatized tax collectors are bad. Private collectors have every incentive to make collection as difficult as possible so as to cement their position (and profits).<p>A government that employs a tax scheme that is so complicated that it requires private collectors is signalling dysfunction and is presenting an attack surface whereby that government is open to undue influence from the collectors while simultaneously hampering the people's ability to direct the affairs of that government.<p>How much time does a person have to spend to understand and comply with the requirements of the tax scheme? Well, in the US, practically no one knows because they are paying a private collector to figure it out for them. Even when going with a private collector the time I spend at the end of the year is measured in hours. Without the private collector it would likely be more than a dozen hours, and that's just for filling out forms. There is also a significant time cost to maintain and store various documents throughout the year.<p>Now consider that those are the costs if you are already familiar with the scheme. If you aren't already familiar with the scheme, you're pretty much SOL. The government doesn't even notify you that you are required to pay any taxes until you don't and informs you that they are coming after you for penalties. Go check out the IRS's website [1], no where on the landing page is there an obvious explanation of what your responsibilities are. <i>If</i> you manage to make it to the form 1040 instructions[2], you've got a 100+ page PDF to read up on just to learn how to fill out one of the forms. There's also handfuls of other forms and and instructions all over their site, with no comprehensive structure or explanation for.<p>The above scenario is already a nightmare and it doesn't even touch on <i></i>what the actual tax scheme is<i></i>[3], which the IRS doesn't even bother to host, but instead links to the website of a the law school at an Ivy League university. When you try to read the scheme on the third party site, you have to click through several layers of titles, subtitles, chapters, subchapters, sections, etc. just to be able to read one portion of the scheme at a time. As you try to just get to an actual sentence in the scheme you get prompted by a pop-up to donate $50+ to an unidentified entity for an ambiguous cause[4].<p>At this point, I've given up researching the matter further. The current system is indefensible and needs to be abandoned as soon as possible.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.irs.gov" rel="nofollow">http://www.irs.gov</a>
[2] <a href="http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040gi.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040gi.pdf</a>
[3] <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26" rel="nofollow">http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26</a>
[4] <a href="http://i.imgur.com/vSppOXX.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/vSppOXX.png</a>