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Comment by craftyguy | Hacker News Reader

I'd rather shame the government that allows Intuit to have their way with taxpayers. Intuit exists primarily because of the convoluted tax filing process in the US afterall..

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Intuit lobbies to keep taxes complicated so they can continue to have a business model.

https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre...

And this is surprising because? It would be surprising if they didn't do that, honestly. The government is at fault here for selling political power and not representing the interests of the people. We could boycott Intuit, I suppose, or use different products, but aside from that, the fault and source of the problem lies squarely with the government.

I think it’s reasonable to feel surprise at learning that this is allowed to happen. Why the surprise-at-surprise style reaction? It makes people feel a bit mocked.

We weren't talking about surprise - we were talking about shame. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it doesn't deserve shame. You come off as being oddly defensive towards Intuit.

I truly don't understand this logic. If I found some legal loophole by which I could indiscriminately murder people with no repercussions, no one would excuse it with "well, technically he was allowed to do this so why are we surprised?"

And if I were working with the government to create that loophole… I mean, in this scenario, I'm still murdering people, right? Should my conscience be clean because the government wasn't representing the interests of the people? How is any of this ethically exculpatory?

Haven't you heard? "Incentives made me do it" is an excuse that frees you from all responsibility!

> If I found some legal loophole by which I could indiscriminately murder people with no repercussions

That's a pretty absurd argument. And the government can actually kill people legally, by design.

All I'm saying is that Intuit is a symptom of a larger problem with gov selling political power. Intuit is trash for what they're doing, I agree.

Why is there always someone who injects "surprise" into every controversy? Who's talking about surprise?

How easy it is to file has little relation with how complicated they are to prepare. That article is exclusively about filing.

Intuit very little to do with making taxes complicated. There are plenty of more powerful interests responsible for that.

Intuit is actively involved in making the process as convoluted as possible.

Right, and they are only successful because a certain government allows them to be disproportionately influential... So my comment is still very much valid.

Shame is not zero-sum; surely there's enough for all parties here.

Why can't we shame both? :)

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