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Comment by fighterpilot | Hacker News Reader

Do private tax prep companies have an argument they advance about why automatic filing is a bad idea? Or is it just pure behind scenes lobbying?

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The argument that they advance is that if we allowed government supported automatic filing, then people would no longer be able to take advantage of the free filing program that Intuit offers to low income households.

What they don't mention is that this free filing offer is used by significantly less than 5% of the eligible taxpayers. Probably because Intuit advertises it very little and within the product very heavily hints that you should switch to a paid product instead.

My understanding is the two pro arguments for manual filing are:

If taxpayers aren't forced to confront the details of their tax payments every time they do a filing, they're less likely to complain about high taxes (this comes with the implication that high taxes are inherently bad, which depends on your political leaning)

Taxpayers may just accept the automatic deduction without realising they're being overcharged in the event of an error, for years at a time.

How much they actually care about such arguments vs the threat to their business model is subjective, but it seems the majority on this site (and myself) don't buy it.

Thanks for the input. I understand the concerns. As a Brit who checks his taxes, I've only been overcharged once when I changed jobs and the rebate was fixed the following month (I paid less tax that month). I do still have to file if I take a second contract weekend-work but it's not difficult.

Is there a privacy/surveillance aspect to the argument? Or is the data that the IRS will collect the same either way?

They already have the data. Even if they didn't already have it, it's the same data they would mandate you to send them in the tax filing

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