Active Campaign
Boomtrain
Campaign Monitor
Cordial
Amazon SES
Eloqua
Emma
Experian Cheetahmail
Exact Target
Hubspot
Maropost
OneSignal
PostUp
Responsys
Sailthru
SeconStreet
Sendgrid
SparkPostIt really depends on your business... variables like do you just want to do email, or do you want to message in app or on website too? Selling physical goods? There are a million ways to do app or marketing automation comms.
I guess that's to be expected, free tiers of any email services are going to be horribly abused. Hopefully the paid service is better.
The average consumer doesn't know that Intuit has a gross business model that is entirely based on the idea of deliberately keeping bureaucracy alive. They think the exact opposite.
They believe Intuit is giving them a solution to deal with the government's outdated and overly-complex tax filing system. And unsurpisingly the government has no issues with being the escape goat on this one, because the way you pay your taxes will never be as politically contentious as determining who gets to pay taxes and how much they pay.
I also don't want the government to get in the business of writing tax software.
Filing taxes in the rest of the developed world is essentially a one-click process, because every tax authority in the rest of the developed world already have all the information necessary to create such software (and so does the IRS).
This is a problem entirely caused by lobbying efforts. It literally does not exist for the rest of the developed world. Why insist on having it worse than everyone else, for the sole gain of the likes of Intuit? It's baffling to say the least.
I'm a little fed up of this canard. No. This is not the case. I've lived in the UK and had to do self assessment filing. It was not "essentially a one-click process". I have lived in Japan and filed taxes there. It was also not "essentially a one-click process".
>have all the information necessary to create such software (and so does the IRS)
No, it does not. A significant chunk of social programs are run in the US via the tax system (primarily through the forms of various credits) and are dependent on facts that the IRS does not know.
It's a massive waste of time to require millions of people needlessly fill out forms that the IRS already fills out on their end! It's a manufactured problem to benefit a scummy company.
On the other hand, where I live in Sweden the process is essentially one-click, and there are several other countries in Europe where the same is true. No idea why U.K would still be bad, but I can see Japan being bad given their stamps on paper-culture. Pity.
>No, it does not. A significant chunk of social programs are run in the US via the tax system (primarily through the forms of various credits) and are dependent on facts that the IRS does not know.
Is information from these social programs a necessity for filing taxes? If so, the fix is simple: have them report these numbers into the IRS. Otherwise, have a base case of 0 and allow this information to be added as needed.
You misunderstand. The IRS implements the social program via the tax system.
For example, most European countries operate some kind of universal child benefit for parents. So maybe parents can receive a weekly payment of some kind.
In the U.S. this program does not exist. Instead, there is a refundable tax credit (the Child Tax Credit). When you file your taxes, you tell the IRS how many children you have, how old they are and so on and if your taxes are low enough that the credit offsets your taxes, the IRS sends you a check for the difference.
Similarly, many European countries have some form of government income support for low earners; again typically paid by some social security agency.
Although there is a program called TANF that does this for the most needy, the majority of benefits are delivered through another refundable tax credit (the Earned Income Tax Credit). Again you end up sending the IRS all the data necessary about why you qualify for this social program and maybe you get a check back at the end.
Basically, a significant amount of the transfer payments for social programs in the U.S. are implemented directly in the tax code, so the "tax filings" that people have to make combine both income information as well as qualifications for social benefits.
If it wasn't possible, Intuit wouldn't bother lobbying.
Seems to strike me as a lesson I learned when I was young.. "Well if your friends all jumped off the bridge would you?"
Simply because other nations do X, is not IMO a valid justification for X...
The rush to make the United States in to a EU nation should be opposed IMO, if I wanted the laws and regulations of the EU I would move.. I have no desire to be subject to the rules of the EU nor do I look to the EU for guidance of how things "should be done"...
The tax code should be simplified to where a person with a High School education can understand it, and process what they should owe the IRS.
however that is not the argument. the argument was "Well the EU does it so American should too" I find that argument to be very lacking
You should do it because the alternative is downright dumb. That is to say, what you are doing right now is downright dumb.
Same logic applies here. Just maybe, if everyone does it, we should consider it too.
Search this page for Intuit https://www.freefilefillableforms.com/static/fed_terms_of_se...
And here's where you search for xml error codes when your return gets rejected.
https://www.irs.gov/filing/individuals/free-file-fillable-fo...
This thread a replier expresses first hand knowledge of doing government software development contracted out to their company: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28003793
I'm not saying they don't, but don't you think the tax code is complicated because politicians have to be doing something, and they get donations by adding special provisions for their donors?
A prerequisite to a simple tax system would be a rate so low that (1) no deductions are necessary, and (2) it's not worth making any special effort to avoid the tax or to cheat.
On (1), that's right: no child deduction, no mortgage deduction, no charitable deduction, no state & local tax deduction, no nothing. Just pay 15% of your income, period, full stop. And TurboTax got no further reason to live.
No, because they lobby to keep filing taxes complicated. Yes, taxes most likely will always be complicated, but if there's no artificial barriers to filing (like in most of the rest of the developed world), there can be real competition in the tax-solutions-software space and most likely there'll also be acceptable open-source solutions that can be used for free.
https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...