IRS stops firms like TurboTax from hiding free tax-filing products in searches
cnet.com
cnet.com
The complexity of the tax code is often subject to debate, but we don't spend as much time discussing how to deploy a technological solution that uses your tax records to predetermine what you owe, with an optional process to file your own if you choose.
That is a dream come true. Honestly, I would just settle for competent government websites though. I had doing anything on federal or state websites because of the lack of information (they expect everyone already know what to do without explanation), links that should lead to more information but are just broken links that lead to nowhere, or links to forms that are broken and link to nowhere. On top of that you can rarely call in for anything because they think their website can handle everything and will typically just tell you to go there (either by person or prompt). On top of that you need a separate login for every government service website and need to fill out the same information on each site (just like you need to with every new doctor you visit in the US, form after form, all the same questions).
Sorry, rambling at this point. /rant
Maybe it's a holdover from times when many earned substantial cash income. Tips, for example.
But maybe that was a bad example. Many people used to work for cash.
I don't really understand that argument as you can just do your taxes the same as you currently do to see if they are overcharging or whatever.
Making taxes difficult to pay and a major annoyance contributes to keeping taxes lower than would be otherwise.
It contributes to the political success of politicians who rail against taxes leveraging the frustration, but then take action that doesn't address the frustration even if it relates to taxes being lower for someone.
Also, making people do extra work or pay someone else to do it is a tax, it's just an in-kind tax that provides no usable revenue or value, rather than an in-money tax that provides usable revenue. It's not usually counted in the cost of taxes, just like various mandatory fees aren't counted in airline price comparisons. But that's fundamentally misleading, in both cases.
I do happen to believe that taxes in the US are lower because of the way taxes are collected and that you are forced to "see" exactly what goes where. If it were just a line, sign here, and press a button I would do just that, press a button and submit.
This approach may save me a few hours a year, ok, but I also think I would make less effort to look up ways to save taxes and I would simply be less aware of the various mechanisms that are there.
For example, I understood long term gains and qualified dividends much better after adding these in (semi-manually) and seeing how it all affects the bottom line. I also understand much better how to do tax loss harvesting and other similar methods.
That way, it becomes your fault if certain income isn't accounted for.
That's a pretty widespread view, and the source of this IRS action.
This begs the question of whether organic internet search even exists.