> The average HNer, who is fairly literate and well-informed about tax-prep, tends to misunderstand the situation.

The fact that TurboTax is cheaper than a local CPA does not change the fact that Intuit actively lobbies to prevent free tax filing.

In a sane world the IRS should send a letter to every tax-paying household in February that says “we owe you X”, “you owe us X”, or “your taxes are complex, please work with a tax specialist”. Also in a sane world this would be free and the government would be incentivized to simplify the tax code so that as many people as possible were in one of the first buckets. In our world the government is aggressively lobbied for complex tax codes and prevention of free tax filing.

> A regular person's taxes can always be done electronically for free, or if they really want, for $20-$100 through tax prep software.

Define “regular”. Per TurboTax, only 37% of people qualify for free filing.

I have never tried to go through the TurboTax free file route but based on my experience with the paid service, I imagine they aggressively upsell free filers with the exact same scare tactics you associate with CPAs.

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dmoy a day ago | parent [-]

I suspect that GP"s "everyone can file free" is talk about Free File Fillable Forms, not TurboTax

Which is free for nearly everyone, but is only marginally better than paper filing your own taxes.

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dpark a day ago | parent [-]

I suspect GP is simply misinformed about the reality of the situation. They also explicitly state “you can already do it for free if you want to, it just requires a third-party”.

They are missing the context that only a fraction of filers are eligible to use free filing and that TurboTax paid something like 140 million to settle claims that they are misleading filers. That suit is why they now admit only 37% of people are even eligible to file for free.

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Amezarak 19 hours ago | parent [-]

Free Fillable Forms is free for everyone. It is technically a third party. It’s very simple if you have the average tax filing situation.

There are also other services that provide free efiling regardless of income, it’s not just TurboTax.

At the end of the day, you can always do the paperwork if you really don’t want anyone seeing your taxes and mail it. Could it be better? Oh sure, but it’s difficult for me to feel very passionate about it.

> In a sane world the IRS should send a letter to every tax-paying household in February that says “we owe you X”, “you owe us X”, or

As mentioned in sibling posts, the IRS does NOT have the information it needs to get even close on your taxes. They know your reported income. They do not know your marital status, how you’re going to file, if or how many kids you have and will be filing for, and many other things. These all have MAJOR tax impacts.

An additional factor is state taxes really need to be packaged together with the actual solution.

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dpark 19 hours ago | parent [-]

> Oh sure, but it’s difficult for me to feel very passionate about it.

Just passionate enough to say that everyone unhappy with Intuit lobbying against free tax filing and simplified tax codes doesn’t understand?

> As mentioned in sibling posts, the IRS does NOT have the information it needs to get even close on your taxes. They know your reported income. They do not know your marital status, how you’re going to file, if or how many kids you have and will be filing for, and many other things. These all have MAJOR tax impacts.

This is misleading. The IRS does have this because for most people it does not change year to year. It would also be trivial for them to provide a way to input this data if/when it does change.

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Amezarak 16 hours ago | parent [-]

People want simplified tax codes only in principle. Everyone has a deduction or credit they will fight to defend.

	▲	dpark 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I’m not entirely sure what your point is. You say you don’t care about this but seem very invested in defending Intuit’s lobbying. You also seem to be simultaneously claiming that the US tax system is too complex for the government to feasibly automate and that filing taxes is trivial. Either you hold contradictory viewpoints here or you have some undisclosed interest in this area.