
Listen to TurboTax Lie to Get Out of Refunding Overcharged Customers - bbatsell
https://www.propublica.org/article/listen-to-turbotax-lie-to-get-out-of-refunding-overcharged-customers/
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Someone1234
A lot of focus is on the bribers (TurboTax, H&R Block) rather than the bribees
(politicians).

But that's curious because the bribers are acting in their own interests
whereas the bribees are meant to protect the general public and are failing in
their duties. The misplaced focus might actually be why this continues
seemingly unabated.

Two other examples of this phenomenon: College textbooks and ticket fees
(TicketMaster, et al). In both cases the company acts as a lightning rod
deflecting blame away from the only parties able to actually change things
(college professors and performers respectively) and who are failing in their
duty to protect others (students and fans).

I'm surprised this doesn't have a name, seems super common (and quite
effective).

PS - No doubt someone will intentionally or unintentionally misread my post as
defending this behavior rather than pointing out that politicians are really
the ones that allow this to continue. I'm critical that the focus is not on
the MOST guilty, not that TurboTax et al aren't guilty.

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daguar
Moralizing the incentives of politicians while framing business leaders'
behavior as rational responses to their incentives somewhat betrays a lack of
sophistication of thinking here.

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kjsbfkjbf
Right. Under capitalism everyone is acting rationally here. Everyone is using
whatever methods they can to accumulate profit.

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clairity
that reads like a rationalization of selfishness. however, the rationalism
underlying capitalism neither attempts to encourage nor discourage amoral
behavior.

capitalism instead acknowledges that people will sometimes (often?) have
selfish intentions and redirects that penchant toward productive economic
purposes through competitive counterbalance.

it's still not ok to be a jerk, but if you are one, the system counteracts
your selfishness with that of others to reach a greater good (in the form of
efficient allocation of resources). "because capitalism" doesn't excuse bad
behavior; rather, it brings bad behavior out in the open so other social
structures/norms can deal with it.

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vernie
Or you know they can form a cartel.

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alistairSH
It's completely bonkers that the IRS has been prevented from providing a
simple and free filing service for tax payers with basic returns.

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ranie93
An argument I've read from those opposing government created filling services
or pre-filled tax forms is that it will in some manner facilitate government
raising taxes

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ixwt
The line I've heard a few times is about forcing people to confront how much
they're paying in taxes. If you have to do the numbers (or pay someone to do
so), you will confront how much you're having to pay. Rather than just
glancing at a form, and passing it on.

I don't agree with that reasoning. It feels that we just look at the numbers,
and punch them in. There were many people that were surprised that they had to
pay extra taxes this year.

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jcranmer
The Norquist anti-tax block wants people to have pain filing taxes so they can
militate against it, or at least complain about how much they're being taxed.

That said, my sense is that most people don't know what their total yearly tax
is, nor their tax rate is, only their refund/tax payment that's due in April
15. As the Republicans found out recently, a lot of people complain about
their "tax increase" when they don't don't get a refund, even if their actual
tax rate went down.

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cannonedhamster
Yup this is Republicans once again acting on behalf of a company instead of
their constituents. It's not just federal either California had their Ready
Return product a while back. We're the only country that does taxes this way.
There's no reason to do it either. The IRS already knows how much you owe.
Having the ability the revised statements is important and there should be an
allocation table of where your tax money went provided with details available
publicly.

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jcranmer
Honestly, I don't think the free tax filing software companies have enough
pull here. There are other constituencies who are against the IRS telling you
what you owe:

* Special interest groups who have won tax credits/deductions--most of these don't get reported to the IRS, so it makes it easier to kill these off since fewer people will take advantage of them.

* The anti-government crowd, who is a) afraid that the IRS could abuse this power to tax people more (if people get used to signing the dotted line, they might not notice if the IRS stops accounting correctly for some reason); b) adamant that people know just how much the government is "stealing" from them in taxes and so form a ready constituent for lower taxes; and c) generally don't like the idea of the government telling them what to do anyways, so the government just sending them a bill is the ultimate anathema.

* People who are underreporting certain classes of incomes who might be afraid that there will be a push for broader mandatory reporting to help make taxes even simpler.

Given that the political power of the second class I've mentioned is quite
vast, they are sufficient to prevent the sensible implementation of the IRS-
sends-you-a-bill even if TurboTax and the like were to stop lobbying the
government.

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vernie
This pleases Grover Norquist.

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BandOfBots
There are two groups of accountants / CPA firms; those that work for you and
those that work for the government.

The Public can't afford the accountant that works for them.

I've long suspected TurboTax and H&R Block to be in bed with the G. We out not
to be surprised if we end up learning Intuit/QuickBooks is secretly sharing
their customers financial records, to red flag businesses who tax filings
don't match up with their QuickBooks GL.

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wutman
You'd think TurboTax would have clear scripts for their frontline
representatives to deal with this fairly and quickly. Rip the band-aid off all
at once, so to speak. There's not exactly a clear message between these
representatives, though. Not having a clear message shifts the focal point
from management right to the poor frontline workers.

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KiDD
I want to punch this guy on the phone in the face.

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Circuits
Why wouldn't you just file your own damn taxes?

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perl4ever
Speaking as someone who has bypassed the interview/wizard mode since it was
invented...

The advantage of TurboTax is that it incorporates the relationships between
different lines of all the forms.

So your workflow doesn't have to involve reading and understanding all of them
up front. Rather, you can enter numbers and see how they change, and deduce
the rules from that.

To some people, this is a much easier way of understanding a complex system.
It may be partly personal preference, but I think also that instructions
everywhere, are getting worse and worse, and so it's becoming more practical
to take an experimental approach in a variety of situations.

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mimixco
Slimeballs

