
Why I'm boycotting TurboTax this year - clumsysmurf
https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11320386/turbotax-boycott-lobbying-tax-filing-season-tax-day-april-15
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nicoburns
I often wonder if (many) american's hatred of taxes stems from having them
shoved in their face.

In the UK you don't have to file a tax return unless you have unusual finances
(e.g. are self employed), and sales tax is includes in the advertised sale
price of items.

We still have to oay taxes of course, but they are much less annoying!

~~~
briandear
Doing taxes doesn’t bother me; seeing how much of my money the government
earned the float on does. Unless withholding is perfect, I essentially give
the government an interest free loan every year.

We should end automatic withholding and let everyone pay their taxes on April
15.

~~~
harryh
Unless your tax situation is unusual, it's not that hard to change your
withholding to minimize the float. And for most people the magnitude of that
float is tiny. People get outraged by the point a lot more than is warranted
by the data.

You also propose a very poor solution. A large % of Americans are not
disciplined enough with their budgeting to save such a large % of their income
to write a single check every year. A lot of folks simply wouldn't have the
money when it came due. What would you do then?

~~~
bscphil
Ironically, most of the people I run into get outraged by the opposite - that
they didn't get much money back on their "return".

~~~
harryh
Yes, and there is a certain class of people that likes to demonstrate their
mental superiority by making fun of those people. The people who do this are
assholes.

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ukulele
Per the article, the reason is that they're lobbying to keep the existing tax
code rather than simplify it.

I generally agree, but I think terms like "evil" and "parasite" get thrown
around a bit too easily.

We're all for simpler taxes, unless it removes the deductions that we
ourselves enjoy. That is probably a much larger hindrance than any lobbying,
but any such nuance is ignored in these types of shock value articles.

~~~
maerF0x0
I guess the question is does the sum of fees collected + cost of lobbying
exceed the value of complexity ? In some regards the cost of complexity is a
tax on the general populace to deal with the poor behavior of individuals
sufficiently incentivized to discover and exploit loopholes.

~~~
ukulele
That's a great starting point, and one this article makes zero effort to
address. Unfortunately nuance doesn't get clicks.

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awat
There is an awesome Adam ruins everything episode on Tax returns. It seems
that rent seeking is pretty much the only thing keeping the current system in
place.

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harryh
Adam is wrong.

We don't have return free filing because making people fill out complex forms
every year makes them hate taxes more and (generally speaking) vote in favor
of lower taxes. This ideological position has far more to do with our current
system than a relatively small amount of lobbying.

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purplezooey
"...don't give Intuit money"

Well, give me the $300 I need to find a preparer then. TurboTax is an
incredible value. You can do your taxes in your pajamas over a couple nights
and it can handle almost every complex area. The fanciest version is about
$60. I've used it for ten years.

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kjhughes
More along those lines:

Why doesn’t the IRS just send me a bill for the taxes I owe based on the info
they already have? [1]

[1]
[https://politics.stackexchange.com/q/30223/20593](https://politics.stackexchange.com/q/30223/20593)

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shmerl
What about TaxAct?

~~~
skybrian
Anecdata: this year I used TaxAct and then TurboTax, because I wasn't entirely
confident in the results from TaxAct.

After fixing a data entry mistake or two, I was able to make them come out
same. However, I was much happier with TurboTax's handling of employee stock
options, because it walks you through how to correct the incorrect cost basis
that brokerages are required to report by law. (This changed a few years ago.)

At that point I could have submitted either one, but ended up paying for
TurboTax since I felt like rewarding them for better UI.

(While fixing an error, I did run into a recalculation bug in TurboTax,
though; it's not clear how to report it.)

~~~
Noumenon72
I was never able to get TurboTax to fix errors, either; I switched to olt.com
and they respond to my emails right away.

