Hacker News Reader

> in exchange the IRS does not develop their own

Would you really want to file on a website controlled by the IRS? Imagine an auditor calling you to say "we noticed you entered a big number in this field and later edited it to a smaller number, can you explain why?"

View on HN

I guess I'm interested in fixing actual problems rather than invented ones.

I'm just saying the incentives are different. A company acting as your accountant has incentive to represent your interests. The IRS has incentive to use all data at its disposal to detect potential tax fraud.

It's like the difference between talking to a lawyer and talking directly to the police.

We already have companies who participate in Free File and it's already not working so I don't really see how the incentive to represent my interests thing is working out.

Right. The financial incentive of the for-profit tax preparation companies is to lobby the politicians to make the tax code so complicated that people need to pay tax preparation companies. If the tax code was simple, then these companies would cease to exist.

The IRS itself is mainly just following the directions of the politicians. These directions may or may not include looking for fraud, depending on who is currently in power.

I would absolutely prefer to file directly with the IRS.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com