

Intuit Acquires Techstars Startup GoodApril Before Demo Day - uptown
http://allthingsd.com/20130808/a-techstars-first-startup-goodapril-gets-acquired-before-demo-day/?mod=tweet

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falk
I hate Intuit. They have a huge lobbying arm and are viciously against making
taxes easier to file.

For more information see:
[http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/04/auto...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/04/automatic_tax_filing_readyreturn_systems_work_fine_but_intuit_and_grover.html)

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solistice
It's quite obvious why though. Making taxes easier to file will cost them
their entire business.

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tfb
Regardless, it's a pretty sleazy way to do business. And I say we let these
types of businesses die if given the chance. Practices like these divert
resources (capital, time, manpower, etc.) which only serves to hinder both
economic and technological progression. One might argue that some of the
technologies that arise from these types of businesses count as advancement,
but I would wager that if the same resources were used for creating things
that truly simplify life (rather than keep them unnecessarily complicated) we
would all be much better off by now. But of course, what's done is done; so to
maximize our potential and our throughput in the future, we really need to do
our best to prevent businesses from acting similarly.

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solistice
I'm totally with you on that. The amount of resources wasted is immense, but
what are you going to do? Prevent lobbying? Tough luck, where else do
politicians get their campaign contributions from?

No really, the political system is broken in that respect, which is why
companies like Intuit can pull off things like this.

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gruseom
I used a web app called SnapTax one year in Canada to do my taxes. It was easy
and fast, ahead of its time for web UIs, and showed what much better
technology can do in the space. Intuit bought them and killed the product.
Their own product (needless to say?) is awful.

If all you want is to get acquired and you don't care about your product being
killed, making usable tax prep software is probably a good way to go. Unless
there are regulatory barriers, it doesn't seem particularly hard. You'd have
to immerse yourself in tax details, though, plus not love what you were doing.

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suter
SnapTax was awesome—until it got acquired and killed.

Ever since then, I was really frustrated with the state of tax software in
Canada. The fact that over 6 million people still do their taxes on paper, and
that most people turn to expensive tax preparers for even the simplest of
returns, drove us to build [http://simpletax.ca](http://simpletax.ca). We're
lucky in that we have a non-practicing tax lawyer on board.

There is so much good technology can do in this space.

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randlet
Woohoo! Hadn't heard of you guys until today but excited to give SimpleTax a
try. I've already filed 2012 taxes but I've added a link in my 2013 taxes
folder and will give you a shot next year.

Pay what you want is an interesting (crazy?) choice...care to elaborate on why
you went this route? Everyone is already used to paying for tax software so on
the surface it would seem like a no brainer to charge a fee.

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suter
Awesome! Let us know what you think.

Are we crazy? Yes, but hopefully crazy enough to change the industry. We
initially set out with the plan to charge a fee, but there is a long list of
industry-specific reasons as to why we got a little more creative. Like any
startup, we're experimenting with our business model.

Could we make more by charging a fee? Maybe. At the end of the day, we're
happy building the best product we can and making it available to as many
people as possible.

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byoung2
Smart move by Intuit...acqui-hire and kill some competition early for a lower
price.

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Gertig
Sounds like a good time to launch BetterApril :)

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civilian
People are hating on Intuit, and this is classic monopolist behavior, but for
anyone familiar with monopoly behavior it's clear what to do.

Make a startup that does simple tax-filing. Get 20million for you and your
team for a years work. Then you'll have some golden handcuffs, but the next
round of entrepreneurs will take your place, repeat, and milk intuit for all
their monopolistic paranoia's worth.

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icedog
We need a non-profit turbotax-alternative that won't sell out to Intuit.

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MayanAstronaut
Just open source the code. They can not buy all the clones.

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ph0rque
Even better: write an engine that ingests tax laws and generates tax software.

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001sky
even better: legally require the tax laws to be simple

