TurboTax Parent Company’s Latest Argument Against Free Tax Filing: It Will Harm Black Taxpayers

tintory@lemm.ee to politics @lemmy.world – 472 points –
TurboTax Parent Company’s Latest Argument Against Free Tax Filing: It Will Harm Black Taxpayers
propublica.org
68

Man, I hope I live to see the day that these greedy bastards lose a huge chunk of their business to free filing via the IRS. They've been fighting to keep tax paying citizens from getting what they want from their government for years. It's gross.

I want to see this free filing happen both for the good it'll do and because I want to see Intuit's stock plummet. Fuck Intuit.

"It'S gOiNg tO HuRt bLaCk pEoPle" fuck off you dirty liars.

Between Intuit and some of these money transfer applications (venmo, cashapp etc) they are pivoting hard to diversify and lobbying hard with the government looking to finally come more into the 21st century. Free tax filing and fednow could be very good for the everyday person.

What's the issue with Venmo and cashapp?

In other countries the government has an app thats free and plays that role. Instead of a corporation trying to make money.

You're talking about countries that have state banks? Like who?

Its not a bank, the government covers the same service Meta, or Venmo does here with electronic payments from your phone. Its like free wire transfers for everyone. It helps people spend and move money.

My beef is that they want to act like banks, but with none of the oversight and regulations of an actual bank. Ever had a real problem with PayPal? Say what you want about the banking industry, but I can get a real US -based person on the phone within 10 minutes to help me solve my problem.

First of all. Primus sucks! and I should have taken your name.

On the subject, didn't PayPal get hit with regulations finally or did I make that up in my head?
Very true about actually getting in contact with someone. The best you can do is chat support, and I've been through that just to change my phone number with them cuz the app glitched out on me. Took two weeks to get it changed.

They pulled the black card. You can't argue against that.

Why do u hate black people, bigot?

Either you might want to add an /s or realize my post has a /s.

i feel like adding /s loses the /s effect

considering you were doing /s with out putting /s... i feel attacked.

This all started when Trump got elected. The stupid people got emboldened and are openly speaking and now you can't tell when someone is being sarcastic because we now know there are honestly people out there who would say the same thing, but seriously.

That or sarcasm often requires vocal manipulation to be expressed and text can't convey that very well.

If your comment really was /s yours failed because you went against the joke and not with it.

I wasn't myself quite sure you got the sarcasm but think others were less sure. All good.

Intuit actually makes some really good products. I'd like to see pre-prepared returns from the irs also, with the option to update/amend at the taxpayer's discretion if necessary. That way Intuit could focus on their higher level products for bigger more sophisticated taxpayers that truly do need excellent software.

One can make really good products and still be such unmitigated cunts that they should lose that business altogether.

They've spent insane amounts of money lobbying the government to keep poor AF people easily able to be tricked into paying for their tax return all while advertising a hard to find free service. Paying people we pay for with our tax dollars so that more of our hard earned cash can flow into their pockets. And if they spent insane amounts to keep it that way you know full well they're making that amount back and then some. Off of us.

They're evil. No offense to you, but fuck their really good products.

What do you propose then, corporate execution and then toss their products in the garbage?

Yep, sure. I'm okay with that. It makes more sense that someone else buys the company than to throw it in the trash, but regardless I don't see how "they make good products" is an excuse for the manipulation of our government on the scale they've engaged in.

If more corporations faced the death penalty for the shit they pull they'd be way less likely to pull it. (To be clear I'm referring to the company being sold and/or the leaders going to jail, depending on the offense, not literally executing the heads of corporations)

I don't disagree but I'm confused where you think I said good software excuses lobbying against pre-prepared returns. I'm fairly certain I said the opposite.

To me this is how our conversation thread goes:

Me: I hope they crash and burn

You: They actually make good products, I hope this tax stuff goes away so they can focus on their good products

Me: Nah, fuck them, I hope they crash and burn for what they've done

You: And throw their good products in the trash?

That to me sounds like you think their good products should save them from the Find Out portion of Fucking Around. Please correct me if I misunderstood you, but that's how the conversation reads to me.

man I don't want to fight about this, everyone is so fucking aggressive here and I'm sick of it.

I'm sorry my reply came off as aggressive, I truly wasn't trying to be. These times are incredibly frustrating, we just want good products from good companies that don't do fucked up shit, and that seems to be too much to ask for ?? It sucks.

But I have no problem with you personally, we're all trapped in this stupid system together. Be well, my dude. I'm sorry my reply caused you stress, it wasn't my intention.

Edit: I see that you have downvotes and want you to know they're not from me

1 more...

https://www.freetaxusa.com/

Switch, and never look back.

I've had less than ideal experiences with the IRS linked companies. Freetaxusa.com has definitely been the best one by far for me. And my taxes are pretty complicated.

Freetaxusa is one of the options available in that link.

The others are so bad that it seems like they are there to distract people from freetaxusa. It's like Intuit was able to convince the IRS to add a bunch of filler apps to give people a bad experience and drive them back to Turbotax. That's why I don't recommend that list. It seems intentionally misleading and distracting to me.

The IRS has been cozy with Intuit for decades, and should not really be trusted with advice on free or affordable tax prep solutions.

I never gave them a chance because their name screamed: scammy site designed to lure old people into file taxes there.

But last year someone on here or reddit kicked off a thread and tons of people were singing it's praises.

So I checked it out after TurboTax was trying to charge me like $230 to do my taxes.

It was easier than TurboTax and I got the same numbers at the end, so I decided to go with them. I ended up spending $10 or something for the ability to refile amendments later or something. Honestly, I wanted to give them some money because I want them to stick around.

It was a great experience. I'll be using them moving forward.

You're right about their name. They really should have picked something less suspicious.

It essentially sounds like "FreeGiftCards.com"

Or OLT.com. The Web app takes you step by step, just like turbotax.

I second that, been using olt for years now and it's super affordable and reliable. Not the cleanest interface though

Do they store records year over year so you don't have to type everything in again?

Yup, been using them for years.

To add to this, you can also export your last year tax documents (from TurboTax or any other tax service) and import them into freetaxusa so you don't need to manually enter all of that info! Made it super easy to switch to them last year, just wish I had found out about them sooner tbh

I've been using this for several years now and got a few other people to use it.

I highly recommend Cash App Taxes if you can believe it. I was skeptical but it was totally free both state and federal, whereas everywhere else appears to charge for state. Did mine last year and it was awesome, I previously was using TaxAct until they started increasing prices year after year and also kept getting worse at upselling for the state filing.

2 years using this also. Our incomes had gotten too high for many of the IRS free options, but it worked great.

They just say whatever they don't like hurts black people these days, like apparently free tax filing and student loan forgiveness. Ya know what actually hurts black people? The police.

Police departments hate the IRS, too. I'm starting to get suspicious of these weird coincidences...

Id probably hate the IRS too if I had to justify spending tax dollars on military hand me downs like I'm at war with the populations I'm supposed to protect and serve.

Honestly we are overdue for a second paperwork reduction act when it comes to taxes

Turbotax doesn't want that, if taxes are simplified their entire business model vanishes

If your business relies on an outdated legal system that may have worked for the time, but is in serious needs of updates, you should find a new business.

Fuck it, become a game studio, make Turbo Tax the Galaga Knockoff, then do a webseries about it... These capitalists have enough money to do what they want

I utilize freetaxusa.com. They are affordable, and they did just as good a job as TurboTax ever did.

Me too! Unfortunately I believe they were bought by Intuit a while back, so I fully expect them to start sucking or disappear soon

I couldn't find anything about that. Could you provide a source? I would be very disappointed if true, but I don't see anything that points to that being true.

Burn INTUIT TO the fucking ground.

Their employees need to start talking about how they get screwed by that criminal company too I bet there are plenty of lawsuits tucked away that would blow that pos criminal enterprise away for sure.

Imagine working for a company that has a business model that intentionally hurts every American?

THATS INTUIT.

I worry that this is part of some two-pronged initiative that also involves bribing generously donating to a couple of the more crooked members of the CBC - Clyburn, Waters, Booker - to make this argument for them in Congress.

Everyone else uses the race card, why shouldn't Intuit?! This is what you get in a society that is so easily race-baited that even billion dollar corporations are exploiting that stupid loophole to get support.

Everyone else uses the race card

Yea, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you probably don't believe in legitimate concerns about systemic racism against minorities, or even believe it's real...let's blame black people for fighting for equal rights, THEY'RE the real problem here

You know what they say about people who make assumptions...

1 more...
1 more...
1 more...

Sorry but if you're still paying to file your taxes you deserve to get fleeced.

Most garbage take of the day award goes to:

You can file taxes for free online in literally 20 minutes with a W-2

Must be nice having one source of income that isn't contract work, no kids, and no education spending.

That's just 20 minutes with a W-2. You can file taxes with any kinds of documents for free online as long as you make under $73,000 a year. Yall are just lazy