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Comment by macspoofing | Hacker News Reader

>they're deliberately blocking millions of desperately impoverished people from receiving billions of dollars.

They aren't. Those programs don't require Intuit to claim.

The problem isn't that Intuit wants to charge something instead or nothing. The filing fee is not the harmful part. The problem is they can't directly ensure people use their service. But they can indirectly make it hard to file without using their service by lobbying against tax code simplications that would benefit most fillers.

Your argument makes it sound like you do not know what the issue in question actually is.

Recipients' other options are hire a CPA (obviously untenable), find the correct forms, calculate the credit themselves, do the rest of their returns by hand, and submit those (difficult for the target groups) or... pay to use TurboTax. That's the exact dilemma this new site would've helped solve if it hadn't been sabotaged.

> (difficult for the target groups)

Why? My father is an immigrant, speaks with broken English and has no higher education ... and did his taxes for years with forms.

Which target group are you referring to?

I'm referring to people with incomes low enough to qualify for the CTC. About half of US adults are functionally illiterate and innumerate, even measured by the Department of Education's (low) standards, and this correlates highly with income. I'm happy your father was able to do his own taxes, but he's not representative.

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