> a massive lobbying push from Intuit, including a coordinated letter from Republican members of Congress demanding that the IRS not “compete” with private companies, with an implicit threat of reduced IRS funding if it did try to offer free filing.

Government would not be "competing with private companies" if it provided a core government service to taxpayers without charging them.

It would be "governing".

How about they just make the tax laws so simple no one needs a "service" to figure out how much tax to pay? I know, that's crazy talk. Politicians wouldn't be able to carve out loopholes for their big donors and our entire system of government would fail.

A lot of companies and peoples jobs in government rely on complicated rules and processes. They will fight hard anyone that tries to clean up the swamp.

Fair Tax is a way to mostly eliminate the IRS, and most of the tax prep industry. Everyone even gets a monthly check.

Not a chance anything like it will ever be passed.

You’re spot on. Without complexity, the loopholes would be easier to see, and easier to use. Then less revenue. And with less revenue, what would Biden be able to spend? Social programs, military, and surveillance would suffer. We can t have that, now can we?

Are revenues and spending even loosely related any more?

Worse than no.

A spending Bill has to show how it effects the budget. Contrived example.

Say it spends a billion dollars. But it needs to be balanced. So they tax pork rinds at 99% to balance it.

Now the paper result is the bill is balanced. Ignoring the real world result that pork rind sales plummet.

So on paper everything is fine. In reality an industry is destroyed.

This happens constantly. They just try and keep it from being to absurd.

The payoffs from Intuit are a bonus, but the design is as old as the Inquisition--make the victims confess all their sins first, and then you can figure out how to punish the ones you really want to punish. Why take away the tools that brought the likes of Al Capone to justice?

Now this is some cynicism I can get behind. People like to tell other people what to do. Politicians are people so...it's almost like they don't care about their fellow citizens and just want to be in control.

How about the government does my taxes for me - sends me a letter and I only pull out turbotax if I want to dispute what they calculated.

It's utter garbage the way we do taxes in the US. Push the burden of work on to the government and corporations - not individuals.

What’s hilarious is they already do your taxes for you, they just want to see if you’ll screw up or cheat.

What if federal income tax was just eliminated and replaced with selling ad-targeting information to advertisers? I'd do it.

if the IRS was a corporation they'd get sued by the FTC just like they went after the credit card companies. it's disgusting that we the people have to deal with such a confusing, convoluted tax code and agency.