Filing Taxes Could Be Free and Simple. But H&R Block and Intuit Lobby Against It (2017) | Hacker News Reader

Filing Taxes Could Be Free and Simple. But H&R Block and Intuit Lobby Against It (2017)

propublica.org

77 pointsdredmorbius18 comments

I've been using the free fillable forms (and state fillable forms) to e-file for free for quite a few years. But after checking just now, it looks like the state versions no longer exist for individual filers for the 2021 tax year. It was there for the 2020 and prior tax years.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...

Cash app [1] does tax filing now:

1 - https://cash.app/taxes

I really wish things like this were cross platform. Without a smartphone, there's no way to make use of it, despite the fact that I have a laptop running Linux and a Surface Tablet running Windows.

Filing taxes should be irrelevant for the majority of people.

Most other advanced nations adopted a Pay as you Earn or Pay as you Go system decades ago.

I've never heard of that and I've lived in a number of "advanced nations", as you put it.

Edit: I just googled and it looks like what you're talking about is common (and done in the US) but it only applies to people in permanent positions with a single employer and who don't earn anything via freelancing, side projects or investments—people who are earning like it's 1955. For the rest of us, taxes and accounting are a bit more burdensome.

The counterpoint is: if taxation is simple, increasing taxes will also be simple (and hidden)

I think paying taxes should be visible and painful.

why can't the U.S President do something about it? or does it have to be through congress?

The President’s branches can only do what Congress allows them to do. If Congress prohibits him (the IRS) from doing this, he can’t Executive Order his way around it.

(It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the idea)

The theory in the US is of a separation of powers, and a devolution of powers from the Constitution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers_under_the...

The three branches of the US government are the Legislative, which creates law, the Executive, which enacts and enforces it, and the Judiciary, which judges it.

Their powers and limitations are in part set out in the US Constitution, though major doctrines, e.g., the US Supreme Court's power of judicial review, and the ability to declare statutory law unconstitutional, are established by precedent and practice (in this case, Marbury vs. Madison, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison).

In short:

- The President (head of the Executive Branch) can only act within the framework of laws passed by Congress. There is executive law, in the form of the Code of Federal Regulations, which is generally drafted by federal agencies, but it is secondary to the statutory law. https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/cfr/about.html The President also has power of appointments, pardons, and leading the armed forces, but not declaration of war.

- Congress passes legislation, statutory law, known as the United States Code, or USC. https://uscode.house.gov/ This is the principle power of Congress, though it also has the power to approve or deny appointments, and to hear impeachments, as well as to declare war and ratify treaties.

- The Judiciary as noted both hears cases and provides judicial review over law.

All three branches have their powers defined in the US Constitution and its amendments.

TL;DR: He cannot, the US presidency is powerful, but still limited. Laws passed by Congress must be either rescinded by Congress or invalidated by the Court. Though there is probably some creative executive action which might be possible, and ... could be interesting to contemplate.

Past threads. Get ready for more in April...

Killing TurboTax - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26330584 - March 2021 (662 comments)

Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26138446 - Feb 2021 (219 comments)

TurboTax Tricked You into Paying to File Your Taxes (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26102695 - Feb 2021 (306 comments)

TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26060414 - Feb 2021 (199 comments)

FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24409093 - Sept 2020 (194 comments)

IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete with TurboTax - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21923220 - Dec 2019 (448 comments)

IRS Tried to Hide Emails That Show Tax Industry Influence over Free File Program - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21393758 - Oct 2019 (188 comments)

TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21281411 - Oct 2019 (447 comments)

TurboTax to charge more lower-income customers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20461169 - July 2019 (81 comments)

Congress Scraps Provision to Restrict IRS from Competing with TurboTax - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20119916 - June 2019 (18 comments)

TurboTax Uses a “Military Discount” to Trick Troops into Paying to File Taxes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19994118 - May 2019 (42 comments)

Listen to TurboTax Lie to Get Out of Refunding Overcharged Customers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19870242 - May 2019 (44 comments)

TurboTax and H&R Block Saw Free Tax Filing as a Threat - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19810981 - May 2019 (143 comments)

TurboTax Hides Its Free File Page from Search Engines - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19758126 - April 2019 (262 comments)

TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19718284 - April 2019 (274 comments)

Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19613725 - April 2019 (696 comments)

How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19392673 - March 2019 (253 comments)

H&R Block and Intuit Lobby Against Free and Simple Tax Filing (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18956883 - Jan 2019 (190 comments)

Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17751383 - Aug 2018 (424 comments)

Why I'm boycotting TurboTax this year - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16844458 - April 2018 (23 comments)

H&R Block and Intuit Lobbying Against Simpler Tax Filing (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16841449 - April 2018 (232 comments)

H&R Block and Intuit Are Lobbying Against Making Tax Filling Free and Easy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13922482 - March 2017 (234 comments)

How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13853150 - March 2017 (439 comments)

TurboTax Takes Aim at Smaller Rival in Fight for Filers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11150694 - Feb 2016 (87 comments)

Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9381437 - April 2015 (150 comments)

Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9380232 - April 2015 (124 comments)

Filing taxes: It shouldn't be so hard - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5488084 - April 2013 (56 comments)

How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5443203 - March 2013 (330 comments)

Title shortened from "Filing Taxes Could Be Free and Simple. But H&R Block and Intuit Are Still Lobbying Against It."

Calling the irs could be free and simple (provided by fidelity or tdameritrade like private entities), but irs employees lobby against it. Instead you get to wait for hours on the phone and call back the next day to do it all over again.

Hasn't the IRS been facing a ton of budget cuts lately?

Yup, especially the enforcement arms. Despite dollar for dollar being the most effective anti crime spending.

Depends on what you mean by lately. They received modest budget increases in 2020 and 2021. However, after taking inflation into account, they lost like 20% of their budget in the 2010s. If the current FY22 budget passes their funding will go back to just a smidge below the 2010 level.

The proposal provided here is essentially to give up millions of citizens private information for the benefit of for-profit companies for some better UX. It seems like we could alternatively just improve the government service for better UX instead.

i don't know what information is private for millions of citizens. Practically all citizens have retirement and non retirement brokerage accounts with private companies. Between the credit agencies, credit card companies, banks, brokerages, facebook, google... better UX is a good thing. if government could just provide better ux, we could all be living in a marxist utopia.

A lot of European countries have great UX from the government on this specific matter. Whether or not you classify them as "marxist utopias" is an exercise for the reader.

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