Can someone from US explain how come there is still no open source alternative to TurboTax?
There's no open standard/API/infrastructure or protocol for online filing, so the only option for an open source program to help with that is "print out the whole thing and send it in" which is usually a lot more trouble (more expensive in time and money) than just paying Turbotax or similar services.
Turbotax and the rest of the tax prep industry have lobbied for years to prevent easy/free options for citizens to file taxes... it isn't just them preventing other companies from building products to do it, they're suppressing all competition and modernization, basically anything that would threaten the money they get from charging people to prep taxes.
At this point the entire system is set up with high barriers to entry, and open source solutions/free software don't typically work well in that kind of setting.
Essentially, no open source program has any chance of facilitating online filing in the US because of corruption in the US government.
I think our leaders spend way too much figuring out how to block the other party from moving forward than solving hard problems.
China’s a bully but my god, it gets shit done at an insane pace.
That being said, how do people file Taxes in China?
That is the least burdensome part of the process, to me. In fact I used to do that from H&R Block Tax Cut back when there was an additional charge for e-file.
The project is not easy. It requires carefully reading tax codes and implementing them, handling presumably thousands of explicit legal requirements plus whatever edge cases exist that may or may not be explicit in the law. Not to mention keeping up with annual changes. If you screw it up, whether or not you are legally liable, people are probably coming after you anyway. And the support nightmare...
That said, I think a programming-languages approach might be a good one to try to execute on this. Keeping the source code as close to the tax code as possible seems the only way to stay sane with respect to long-term maintenance.
I think the IRS will actually pay a service fee to small companies that file the free federal returns for individuals.
Also, taxes in the US are really complicated, and while our governments know how much we owe, the burden of determination and filing is placed wholly on the citizen.
Should we be able to log in to our IRS profile page and track and manage our taxes ourselves throughout the year? Yes. Is this techically possible today? Also yes. Would this make TurboTax and some other bloodsucking middlemen less TurboRich?
Well, you can see why it's impossible.
Also, one of TurboTax's features is e-filing. Maybe there are free e-file alternatives (as in free, with no upsell or strings-attached whatsoever), but it seems you have to be an "authorized IRS e-file provider" to do this, i.e. there's not a developer API: https://www.irs.gov/filing/e-file-options
Actually there is one (depending on your definition of 'alternate'): http://opentaxsolver.sourceforge.net/
I have used it for the last two years to do my Fed and State taxes.
I haven't used it, so cant comment on how well it works.
You will see articles regularly attacking TurboTax because SV has been wildly unsuccessful in producing a startup that can compete with TurboTax, so instead a lot of effort is spent attacking them in the media.
Google, Microsoft, Facebook all spend significantly more on lobbying to ensure market hegemony. Don't be surprised at the pattern, attack TurboTax in the media, then up pops a new startup that will disrupt the industry. Rinse and repeat.
> Do you hate doing you taxes? Try Simple, we made it easy! Just put in a few personal details and we'll take care of all the rest. We'll download your W2 information from your employer and send it to the IRS. With our Simple Guarantee, you can feel confident that your return will be correct.
Or maybe we could call it Tophat. That's a good tax software name.
There are new players in the space, like CreditKarma. Many competitors offer more features for free than Intuit as well. But that doesn’t mean we should have to rely on private companies (who are data hoarding) to file our taxes. That doesn’t mean that free fillable forms need to be unnecessarily more difficult to use than commercial solutions.
In reality, the IRS already has all the relevant forms reported to them. For most people the IRS could send a tax form already filed out to read, verify, and return. For business owners and other more complex situations, these are still the same people who are already hiring a tax accountant and are probably skipping TurboTax as it is.
In other words, commercial tax preparation software for most users is filling an artificial need that only exists because the government has been lobbied not to provide the (basic) service itself.
They aren't. The IRS form is the exact for completed by TurboTax or any other accountant/service provider. The IRS only accepts their own forms.
>For most people the IRS could send a tax form already filed out to read, verify, and return.
Thats what is really being asked...the Government to do tax returns for you for free. Even if TurboTax and accountants weren't lobbying the Government not to do taxpayers tax returns for them for free, its a major jump to say the government/IRS would unilaterally begin doing this for taxpayers as a free service.
If you do this yourself, it’s far more time consuming.
I don’t understand why you think it’s a major jump for the IRS to provide this service. Other countries already do this. Other federal agencies also provide complex web services like My Social Security and Healthcare.gov.
The IRS already has your W2 and 1099 data. The IRS already knows when you make a mistake, automatically, often live as you e-file. I have had e-files rejected instantly due to mistakes. They clearly already know how much I’m supposed to owe them.