TurboTax Parent Company’s Latest Argument Against Free Tax Filing: It Will Harm Black Taxpayers
TurboTax Parent Company’s Latest Argument Against Free Tax Filing: It Will Harm Black Taxpayers
Switch, and never look back.
Get the link directly from the IRS: https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free
I've had less than ideal experiences with the IRS linked companies. Freetaxusa.com has definitely been the best one by far for me. And my taxes are pretty complicated.
I never gave them a chance because their name screamed: scammy site designed to lure old people into file taxes there.
But last year someone on here or reddit kicked off a thread and tons of people were singing it's praises.
So I checked it out after TurboTax was trying to charge me like $230 to do my taxes.
It was easier than TurboTax and I got the same numbers at the end, so I decided to go with them. I ended up spending $10 or something for the ability to refile amendments later or something. Honestly, I wanted to give them some money because I want them to stick around.
It was a great experience. I'll be using them moving forward.
You're right about their name. They really should have picked something less suspicious.
It essentially sounds like "FreeGiftCards.com"
Or OLT.com. The Web app takes you step by step, just like turbotax.
I second that, been using olt for years now and it's super affordable and reliable. Not the cleanest interface though
still a c corp. Enshitification will take them too. The IRS free fillable forms is what everyone should be using. https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-forms
Otherwise there is a profit motive for the status quo.
I've been using this for several years now and got a few other people to use it.
I highly recommend Cash App Taxes if you can believe it. I was skeptical but it was totally free both state and federal, whereas everywhere else appears to charge for state. Did mine last year and it was awesome, I previously was using TaxAct until they started increasing prices year after year and also kept getting worse at upselling for the state filing.
2 years using this also. Our incomes had gotten too high for many of the IRS free options, but it worked great.
That's all pie in the sky fantasy at this point. As long as we live in a $20+trillion/year economy with fifty states, hundreds of millions of people, interstate commerce, international business, complex transactions, and so on, tax will always be complicated as fuck. Best we could do is pre-prepare tax returns from the information returns provided to the irs (W-2, 1099 etc) and allow the taxpayer to update/amend at their discretion. Which I totally support. But tax and accounting is never not going to be complicated as fuck, it just doesn't work that way.
There will always be some complexities in tax codes, but I think there is broad consensus that our current tax system is unnecessarily complicated. Taxes could be simplified pretty dramatically to the point where individual tax filings are close to automatic and don't require third party companies. Taxes will always be a complex issue, but that definitely doesn't mean we should accept that paying large for-profit tax preparation companies should be the norm for your average citizen. It certainly isn't that way in some other highly developed countries.
They just say whatever they don't like hurts black people these days, like apparently free tax filing and student loan forgiveness. Ya know what actually hurts black people? The police.
Police departments hate the IRS, too. I'm starting to get suspicious of these weird coincidences...
Id probably hate the IRS too if I had to justify spending tax dollars on military hand me downs like I'm at war with the populations I'm supposed to protect and serve.
There's probably a grain of truth to "hurts Black people".
Seeking to capitalize on recent research that found racial disparities in IRS audits
Racism -> blacks have less money -> wildly underfunded IRS mostly audits poor people who can't hire lawyers and fight back. That's the most profitable way for the IRS to gather money. Sickening, but here we are.
Also, racism regarding names is a thing. My first name and surname are total white bread, my middle name is almost exclusively "black". I'm betting black names get pulled out of the pile more often. I can tell stories. OTOH, I have no idea how audit randomization is handled, if at all.
So what does this all have to do with free filing being a bane to POC? LOL, jack and shit. If anything, giving people of modest or no means a way to file through the government only levels the playing field. How could it possibly hurt?!
Kinda off topic, but this article gave me a major part of the solution to lobbying. We can't make it illegal, that's unconstitutional, plain and simple.
First Amendment rights:
and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
OK. If a corporation is a person, and it literally says so in the first section of the US Code (1 U.S. Code § 1 - Words denoting number, gender, and so forth_...
the words “person” and “whoever” include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;
Hold up...
In Washington, D.C., the company has deployed 63 lobbyists this year, according to OpenSecrets, to stalk the halls of government.
Then how the hell does Inuit get 62 additional voices to counter mine? 1 corporation = 1 voice. Yes, corporations deserve a voice in our government. They comprise people like you and I, and those people should be heard. But 63?!
Oh fuck all the way off.
Honestly we are overdue for a second paperwork reduction act when it comes to taxes
Turbotax doesn't want that, if taxes are simplified their entire business model vanishes
If your business relies on an outdated legal system that may have worked for the time, but is in serious needs of updates, you should find a new business.
Fuck it, become a game studio, make Turbo Tax the Galaga Knockoff, then do a webseries about it... These capitalists have enough money to do what they want
I utilize freetaxusa.com. They are affordable, and they did just as good a job as TurboTax ever did.
Me too! Unfortunately I believe they were bought by Intuit a while back, so I fully expect them to start sucking or disappear soon
Edit: Okay I think I was operating on faulty information/memory, or just bullshit. Disregard, sorry
I couldn't find anything about that. Could you provide a source? I would be very disappointed if true, but I don't see anything that points to that being true.
You should be more careful spreading misinformation like this. (You may as well say they give you cancer and eat your baby.) FreeTaxUSA is still owned by TaxHawk, and absolutely not any part of Intuit (in fact it's a direct competitor that is doing great work to kill them). Intuit has managed to buy Credit Karma though, maybe others.
Burn INTUIT TO the fucking ground.
Their employees need to start talking about how they get screwed by that criminal company too I bet there are plenty of lawsuits tucked away that would blow that pos criminal enterprise away for sure.
Imagine working for a company that has a business model that intentionally hurts every American?
THATS INTUIT.
The article doesn't make it super clear what the basis for this claim is. I'll try to summarize as best I can, and welcome anyone to correct me.
They're saying that an IRS program to prefill tax information for the taxpayer (like what is done in so many other countries) would cause many people to miss tax credits. The tax credit they're referring to is the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which is "aimed at low-income, working class parents," who usually earn less than $20K/yr. Since Black people in America have disproportionately lower incomes, this is how simplifiying taxes across the board for everyone would "hurt Black people." And that Black people are audited at a rate three to five times the average taxpayer.
But wait. That increase in auditing is because of the EITC. "For decades, the IRS has disproportionately audited EITC claimants because of pressure from Republicans in Congress as well as laws that require a special focus on “improper payments.”"
In fact, free assisted filing would ensure that more people appropriately get the EITC, and fewer people would be likely to claim it when they shouldn't. Which (in concert with "stop over-auditing people just because they claimed EITC," which is already happening) will reduce the auditing problem.
Basis for the claim is that they this are we are all stupid poor plebs and they can say whatever without any real push back since fake news and politicians will repeat it for them.
I worry that this is part of some two-pronged initiative that also involves bribing generously donating to a couple of the more crooked members of the CBC - Clyburn, Waters, Booker - to make this argument for them in Congress.
Everyone else uses the race card, why shouldn't Intuit?! This is what you get in a society that is so easily race-baited that even billion dollar corporations are exploiting that stupid loophole to get support.
Everyone else uses the race card
Yea, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you probably don't believe in legitimate concerns about systemic racism against minorities, or even believe it's real...let's blame black people for fighting for equal rights, THEY'RE the real problem here
Man, I hope I live to see the day that these greedy bastards lose a huge chunk of their business to free filing via the IRS. They've been fighting to keep tax paying citizens from getting what they want from their government for years. It's gross.
I want to see this free filing happen both for the good it'll do and because I want to see Intuit's stock plummet. Fuck Intuit.
"It'S gOiNg tO HuRt bLaCk pEoPle" fuck off you dirty liars.
Between Intuit and some of these money transfer applications (venmo, cashapp etc) they are pivoting hard to diversify and lobbying hard with the government looking to finally come more into the 21st century. Free tax filing and fednow could be very good for the everyday person.
What's the issue with Venmo and cashapp?
Yeah that's probably one of the bolder bad faith arguments I've ever seen. It is transparently BS. I don't think Intuit has heard of the Evil Overlord List. Clearly they forgot to have a 5-year-old child on their payroll to double check all their evil plans.
Where was that 5-year-old at Unity? Didn't he tell them about how he went to the different bathroom when his bullies started charging him 5 cents every time he had to pee?
They pulled the black card. You can't argue against that.
Why do u hate black people, bigot?
Intuit actually makes some really good products. I'd like to see pre-prepared returns from the irs also, with the option to update/amend at the taxpayer's discretion if necessary. That way Intuit could focus on their higher level products for bigger more sophisticated taxpayers that truly do need excellent software.
One can make really good products and still be such unmitigated cunts that they should lose that business altogether.
They've spent insane amounts of money lobbying the government to keep poor AF people easily able to be tricked into paying for their tax return all while advertising a hard to find free service. Paying people we pay for with our tax dollars so that more of our hard earned cash can flow into their pockets. And if they spent insane amounts to keep it that way you know full well they're making that amount back and then some. Off of us.
They're evil. No offense to you, but fuck their really good products.