Seems like TurboTax is probably not worth the hassle of trying to use for free. They try to steer you at every turn into accidentally accepting the paid features, and if you manage to make it through the maze there doesn't really seem to be much left that makes them better than any of the simpler competitors if you stick to the free tiers - no saving your information year over year, no automatically importing the super complex statements from robo-advisors like Betterment, etc.
It also seems like most software engineers won't qualify for free file anyway, because it has an income limit of $69,000 a year as far as I can tell.
One thing I genuinely wonder, at what point will digital/web-based services become the default for handling information by the government and every other large institution? Will it ever happen in my lifetime? Why are we still having to pay for 3rd party software to fill out physical forms? Even docusign, while it has become very prevalent for most contracts these days and is very convenient, is still requiring that you fill out a scanned image of a physical piece of paper, instead of just making the contracts web-based. Why?? Why doesn't the IRS just have a web app like turbotax for everyone to file taxes through? And if the answer is that the tax code is way too complicated that it's prohibitively expensive for the government to build a site as comprehensive as Turbotax, then fix it!
It’s also FUD about how complex, or really how simple, doing your own taxes can be. Filling out a 1040 for the overwhelmingly common situation of a single job is a cake walk. The vast majority of people would be taking the standard deduction now as well.
They answer that in the NPR podcast the parent linked to. But it essentially boils down to the fact that taxes are constitutionally voluntary yet tax evasion is illegal.
I'm no constitutional scholar but I don't think the IRS is constitutionally prohibited from sending me a filled out tax form and asking me if it's correct.
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
They do anyway. One year, I must have screwed up my return, because I got a letter from the IRS saying: We think you screwed up, here's why, send us X amount, and we're good. Or you can file an amended return.
FYI those letters are, afaik at least, typically grossly overestimated. The number is meant to scare you into calling a CPA to straighten it out, essentially. So for anyone else with the same kind of letter, don't just pay unless you know that it's correct ahead of time.
Thanks for that tip. In our case, the error was due to a missing form, and when I corrected it in Turbo Tax, my number was close enough to the IRS number, so I called it a day.
Because Intuit, H&R Block and others have spent enormous amounts of money and time lobbying federal and state legislatures and executive agencies to ensure they don't.
My state had developed a free filing system and had successfully tested it with selected tax filers for a couple of years. It was due to go live the following year for all state tax filers. Intuit and others successfully lobbied the state legislature and newly elected governor to ban the state from moving forward with deploying a solution.
> Under a longstanding agreement with the IRS called Free File, Intuit and other tax prep companies promised to offer free products to most Americans; in exchange, the IRS agreed not to create a free government tax filing option that would compete with the industry.
> And if the answer is that the tax code is way too complicated that it's prohibitively expensive for the government to build a site as comprehensive as Turbotax, then fix it!
"Fix it" only makes sense for bugs. It doesn't make sense for features. TurboTax, accounting firms, entire professional organizations (CPAs) live off of the fact that the tax code is hard to understand. Maybe it needs to be difficult to properly align incentives. Maybe it doesn't. But it's absolutely intentional.
Likewise lawyers live off of laws being hard to understand, and the legal system being hard to navigate.
Fixing the US health care system would probably also destroy quite a few jobs in health insurance and medical billing.
It turns out overcomplicated and wasteful systems also make jobs. So even if fixing the system would be better for society in the long run, all the lobbyists have to say is "doing that will destroy X jobs" and the politicians will be scared into inaction.
Providing a web app to interact with the government is rightfully a government job. We should not need a business to act as an intermediary between us and our government. The "FreeFile" agreement should be abandoned, and the IRS (and states) should set up services for everyone to use.
It also seems like most software engineers won't qualify for free file anyway, because it has an income limit of $69,000 a year as far as I can tell.
One thing I genuinely wonder, at what point will digital/web-based services become the default for handling information by the government and every other large institution? Will it ever happen in my lifetime? Why are we still having to pay for 3rd party software to fill out physical forms? Even docusign, while it has become very prevalent for most contracts these days and is very convenient, is still requiring that you fill out a scanned image of a physical piece of paper, instead of just making the contracts web-based. Why?? Why doesn't the IRS just have a web app like turbotax for everyone to file taxes through? And if the answer is that the tax code is way too complicated that it's prohibitively expensive for the government to build a site as comprehensive as Turbotax, then fix it!