TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free

Re:TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Ta... by Shivetya on Thursday October 17, 2019 @10:24AM (#21282371)

How many pages of the supposed eight thousand plus pages of tax law apply to the majority of those who file taxes? The IRS certainly can tell me when I am wrong but they won't do it except when the result is in their favor; in my case I was improperly not filing HSA expenditures which would have resulted in me getting more back.

It comes down to this and I do not blame Turbo Tax or any other company in this area. The Federal and State Tax codes are weaponized by politicians and until that stops the system will be too complex for many to do the the filing on their own and some of that is because there is always that "did I forget something" feeling.

At least the changes made recently helped the lower and middle classes out a lot, that doubling of the personal deduction was a god send in reducing the work needed as many will never need to itemize again

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Re:TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Ta... by freddie_mercury on Thursday October 17, 2019 @11:13AM (#21282897)

> The IRS certainly can tell me when I am wrong but they won't do it except when the result is in their favor

Yes they will. I don't know why you bother to make up a lie so easily disproved.

On September 9, 2019, I received a CP16 that stated

"We believe there are miscalculations on your 2018 Form 1040, which affect the following areas of your return:

- Tax Computation

We made changes to your return that correct these errors. As a result, your overpayment is $21,886.35.

Information was changed because of the following:

We changed the amount of tax reported on your tax return because the tax rates on Qualified Dividends and Capital Gains are generally lower than the standard rates. It appears your tax was not computed using these rates or the amount of tax was computed incorrectly. (211D)"

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Re:TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Ta... by symlinkk on Thursday October 17, 2019 @11:20AM (#21282977)

Holy shit talk about a humble brag. You overpaid by $21k? You must be balling.

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Re:TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Ta... by 0xffff2 on Thursday October 17, 2019 @11:29AM (#21283096)

At a 15% rate, that's only 140k in capital gains. Significant, but hardly "balling" if it's a one-time event.

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Re:TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Ta... by Sohcahtoa82 on Thursday October 17, 2019 @08:01PM (#21287478)

USA minimum wage is $7.25/hr which is only $15K/year if you work full time, and we've got people that will refer to 140K and prepend it with "only".

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Re:TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Ta... by symlinkk on Thursday October 17, 2019 @01:50PM (#21284566)

What world do you live in where $140k in gains on an investment is not a huge amount of money?

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Re:TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Ta... by 0xffff2 on Friday October 18, 2019 @12:30PM (#21292737)

Silicon Valley... Would it be nice to have an extra $140k? Yeah. Would it be life changing in any way? Not really. I still wouldn't even be able to afford to buy a house.

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Re:TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Ta... by elihu on Thursday October 17, 2019 @02:53PM (#21285237)

I've gotten refund checks that were bigger than I expected, along with a letter saying that their math says I was owed more than I thought I was.

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Re:TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Ta... by JackRabbitSlim on Thursday October 17, 2019 @12:20PM (#21283608)

I would sure as fuck would blame TurboTax, assuming you filed with them. Why else would you (be forced to) pay them if they can't perform their primary function of navigating overly complex tax law correctly?

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