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 musicale on Thursday October 17, 2019 @03:48PM (#21285705)

> 1. Last time they tried to do what all of you ask, a ready return. TurboTax and others hired bunch of lobbyist and put so much pressure on people here and killed the project. People are still afraid and don't want to do too much to grab the attention of their lobbyist!

This is insane. Where are the actual citizens at the negotiating table?

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Re:TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Ta... by cortesoft on Thursday October 17, 2019 @06:46PM (#21287047)

This is always the problem with these sorts of things... TurboTax cares a LOT more about this issue than an individual citizen... sure, it costs each citizen $50-100 every year to file their taxes, and they would love to have a free public option... but it is literally THE ENTIRE BUSINESS for TurboTax. They are going to fight so much harder than the people who pay the $100 a year. Concentrated gains and widely distributed costs create this imbalance.

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Re:TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Ta... by LynxInLA on Thursday October 17, 2019 @04:41PM (#21286182)

Here's a great podcast that goes over what happened. There is a transcript too.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/03/22/521132960/epis...

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Re:TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Ta... by ddingus on Thursday October 17, 2019 @04:01PM (#21285828)

Pushed out by money.

There are efforts to fund politics on small donations. I'm on board.

Consider looking into them.

Honestly, the citizens will have no place at the policy table, until they take some seats on their own dime.

So, that's happening. Ideally, other changes can be made, but to even get at those, some power is required.

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