TurboTax maker Intuit spent millions in record lobbying blitz amid threats to tax prep industry::undefined
Their scared. If it’s available, fill for free. Ask your representatives to increase the program. Let them burn your money.
Tax payers aren’t the customers. Intuit is the customer here and they are buying income streams from politicians. It’s an artificial and unnecessary system.
Im just waiting for them to send me a bill…been 19 years… They really just don’t have the resources to go after people for simply not filing… They either know what I owe and can send me a bill or they don’t know shit and I have no reason to pay, but I’m not going out of my way to figure it out for them, and pay for the privilege.
It’s when you lie and claim sketchy deductions or other shady shit that makes them go after people… And of course most people get w2s and file simply because they want their refund on the interest free loan theyve been handing out each paycheck. But for us “independent job creators”… Well sorry guys but I lost all my income information in a boating accident, sucks that you didn’t have a copy to send me.
Are you feeling superior over not filing your taxing?
The most likely scenario here is that if were you to file, you’d receive a refund. The IRS will happily keep your money.
However, if you have mucked with your deductions such that you are underpaying, you’re playing a dangerous game.
As they say, fuck around and find out. In this case the fuck around part will especially unpleasant.
Hope you maintain cash only lifestyle because they will empty your bank accounts. They will garnish your wages. They will get a their money with penalties and interest.
Don’t forget the 1 year of jail per year of not filing taxes if considered tax evasion. If you cannot pay your taxes they cannot jail you. Aka, file your taxes and don’t pay your taxes and you should be fine. Don’t file or pay and you might get hit with tax evasion eventually. More likely just get hit with an extra 25% of his taxes he didn’t pay as it goes up by 5% a year until it stops at 25.
I didn’t want to assume based off what little they provided since often this libertarian puffery but their follow up indicates clear intent to evade taxes.
Not filing is tax evasion a bit of research would alleviate them of any misconceptions on this.
There only hope is to file all those years and as you noted, ignore the penalties but I see no indication they’ll be doing that anytime soon.
This type of person is the reason cash app and others are now required to report. And if this fool tries to skirt around by structuring payments under those limits, they’ll fuck themselves in ways only money launderers experience.
The fact that they haven’t hit the existing limits indicates they are living a life of poverty. They are putting themselves at substantial risk over tiny sums of money. Either that or they are structuring payments, at which point money laundering comes into play and whoever is playing along with them is putting themselves at substantial risk.
Okay, I can deal with being told I’m wrong about stuff, and I’m fine with being the scapegoat for why those apps have to report things now (thats 100% true, not just me of course but so many people do that), and I don’t mind being called poor, or a tax cheat… But one thing I am certainly not is a Libertarian (or SovCit)… Perhaps if i had to settle on a less than ideal term i’d say “tax protester”… but even that is a bit of a stretch, I’m not against taxes, I’m against convuluted and corrupt systems that are clearly appeasing private companies (turbotax) instead of doing what their actually supposed to.
And yeah maybe it is a bit of some kind of “puffery” but my point is not that I dont want to pay taxes or that I hate the government, My point is the IRS is nearly incapable of going after even blantant tax cheats, forget about folks like me who just don’t file, and of course the obvious solution is that if they already know what we owe they could (and many other countries do) simply send a bill… but you know who would hate that, the rich folks who are able to take advantage of how complicated our tax system is so they can game the system.
Not superior, like i said Im just waiting on the bill. I’m also not doing any “cheating” I’m just not filing at all. Cheating would imply that i know for a fact I’m doing somthing wrong when the reality is, Im just bad with my finances and I have no idea is i made over $500 last year, and apparently neither does the IRS… I mean presumably i do since I pay rent, have a car, buy groceries, etc… but gosh darn it I just can’t keep track.
I’ve been self employed since i was 15 so its much more likely i’d “owe” money, i’ve used various state/gov website tools to check if i’m owed taxes or other payments and for the single non-self employed job i worked for 6 months the only thing i was owed is a last paycheck i never bothered to file the paperwork to claim, they can have that $120 or whatever it was.
I’m not underpaying anything, in order to under pay something there has to be a bill to start with, i’ve not gotten any kind of bill saying what i owe so how could i possibly underpay it?
I don’t “deduct” anything, I literally just do not file. Simple as that. If its such a big deal, why have I never once had so much as a notice or a phone call to remind me i owe anything?
My point is, its not my job, I dont work for the IRS or turbotax, so why should i have to tell them how much i should owe on the money I made with my own business… if the IRS would catch up to the rest of the civilized world and actually to THEIR JOB, i’d be fine with paying, but if they want me to do the work, well okay boss, I did and i came to the conclusion i dont owe shit, guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.
And no you don’t need to live a “cash only” lifestyle for this to work, because believe it or not, Venmo and Cashapp and all those others, they also don’t give a shit, sure they’ll do the bare minimum and report transactions, they’ll ban you if you get super obvious with laundering/structuring , but without context the IRS has no idea if they’re taxable events or not, and believe it or not, they can’t (or choose not to) “garnish” things like cashapp/venmo/onlyfans/crypto/patreon/etc or just take money out of them because they aren’t real bank accounts.
people act like the IRS is this crazy all powerful agency, but really they’re so underfunded they literally cannot afford to go after people who legitimately do cheat, sure they get one or 2 now and then to make examples out of, but thats out of hundreds of millions of people. Just look at the NY fraud case happening against trump now and how totaly obvious all that fraud was, but to Trump, and to all his chronies, that was totally legitimate business as usual, and its 100% true, go try to find a place to rent in NY that isn’t lying out their asses about things like square footage, or find A company that doesn’t constantly inflate assets values of their “brand” when applying for loans then deflate them when filing taxes.
Its all a huge clusterfuck of a system and I simply choose not to participate.
Playing stupid stops working when you hit 18. The IRS doesn’t give a fuck if you can’t keep track of it. They will assume it’s all a taxable event if you cannot prove otherwise.
Those apps are reporting anything over a certain minimum. When the IRS decides you’re worth going after, they will audit you, they will go back as many years as allowed by law, you will be fucked.
What you’re doing is tax evasion. There is zero argument otherwise. No lawyer will be able to help you. You will very definitely end up in jail.
This post is evidence of your criminal intent.
Your rationale here makes you sound like a sovereign citizen. You certainly don’t sound very wise. Not collecting a last paycheck, because paperwork…damn.
The IRS won’t call you, they’ll send certified mail and the fucking will start and you will probably continue to fuck aroind and end up prison and from what I’ve read here, you will never recover.
Wait. What’s wrong with TurboTax? It’s so easy. Why would anyone pay a human instead? Why would a human want to do any of this?
TurboTax lobbys the US Government heavily to keep free alternatives from existing. At one point in time, the IRS was going to allow everyone to be able to report their taxes directly via their website and Intuit and the rest of the tax preparation software developers moved heaven and earth to kill the legislation that would have allowed it.
So, to answer the question, there’s nothing wrong with TurboTax except for the fact that it’s run by a private company that charges you a fee for something that the federal government could operate for free. If you want to keep paying a 3rd party to send the IRS the information they already have, then the system works just fine.
The IRS launched a free direct file this year though that some taxpayers can use.
Oh wow, what the fuck? How can we have a straight government backed monopoly when we’re teaching kids in school that we’re specifically against that? Probably the same way I was compelled to plea guilty when we’re teaching kids in school that we’re specifically against that. It’s just theatre.
What we do and what we tell our kids we do are often very different
Timmy, me and your mother tried BDSM last night, so if she has a hard time talking, it’s because she couldn’t stop me from wrecking that throat!
The point is that we shouldn’t have to do taxes ourselves in the first place. The IRS have the necessary numbers, they know what we owe or are owed. Intuit continuously lobby to keep the current system in place, while advertising itself as “convenient”, and it is, but only within the system they helped create and help maintain.
Agree but also disagree. The IRS has some of that info, but not all of it. While it’s true that most (ie >50%) people the govt knows everything, there are plenty of free options. I filled out the 1040EZ for many years before I couldn’t anymore. It was less than an hour of my time. That’s still available online and in paper. The only thing missing is the govt prepopulating a few numbers, which isn’t much of a benefit.
The tax code could be simplified, but the argument being made here is that most people are forced to use tax software because it’s too hard to do your own taxes. But it’s actually the opposite… Most people are fine with the 1040EZ. The 25% or so that have more complex tax situations will always be happy paying $50 for x software to get a $3k return or pay an accountant $300 to do it.
Fuck Inuit. Get the fuck Outufit
I don’t have a complex tax return but I’d rather pay an accountant to file my federal return for me than give these companies my business.
Whenever I can efile my return without giving intuit, hr block or other mega corp my business, that will be a great day
Don’t know if they’re a mega corp, but FreeTaxUSA has been great for me. Free for simple federal tax returns.
They are part of the Free File Alliance lead by Intuit that lobbied to prevent the IRS from creating their own free tax filing tool.
Not like we have much choice when it comes to free tax filing until IRS gets their direct file up and running for all.
The IRS does have some free options at https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free as the article mentions, but make sure not to take the bait and switch if you go with one of the companies like TurboTax.
I remember when I used TaxSlayer because it was from this link…lol
🤬😔
Aren’t those all part of the Intuit lead coalition, the Free File Alliance, which kept lobbying against the IRS creating their own free tax filing tool among other issues?
Note: Intuit and H&R Block left the coalition in 2021, after a no competition from IRS rule was lifted and the IRS announced making their own free tax filing tool.
Intuit should try to create something new, as opposed to ride TurboTax for its revenues! They could make a banking app to replace what they did to Mint!
I interviewed with Intuit a few months after they purchased mint. When I told them I was using it, they all pretty much said they bought mint to prevent them from taking their market share. Their entire business model is restricted access and lobbying.
Gross. But also, isn’t that, like, the capitalism endgame? Good for them, I guess?
But also gross.
They have QuickBooks I believe, which surely makes them money as well.
Fucking Quickbooks is a warcrime.
I mean, considering inflation, I expect every year to be a record spending year.
Wouldn’t it be wild if the government just…sent us our refund or our bill? Because they know how much taxes we owe or how much they owe us without needing to play the stupid fucking “gather all your forms” and put it into the right fields game.
That would also completely solve this problem by eliminating the need for turbo tax to exist at all.
For the very rich, its extremely hard to know what they own, filing taxes allows them to hide all the details.
So your government could do what the commenter above suggested for 99% of the population. Got it.
Because that’s what they do in my country. Your income is pre-filled, and most people don’t need to do anything other than double check it and click submit. If you want to get tax breaks for edge cases like uncovered medical care, extra schooling, travel costs as a freelancer, etc., you just follow the mostly easy steps and fill that in.I want the rich to be taxed; the system is broken bc it allows for loopholes. 100% should just get a bill.
One doesn’t have to exclude the other. I sense the irony in saying this, being Dutch (whose country is considered a tax haven for the rich and corporations unfortunately), but we don’t have to pay for tax software at least. Worst case, you’ll pay for a tax advisor/accounted if you have a really complicated situation with shit like alimony and wish to squeeze every last cent from it.
Loopholes aren’t bad, they’re incentives for companies to do certain things rather than hard requirements for companies to do certain things.
It’s when it’s to such an extreme no or little tax is paid that there’s a problem.
Loopholes also get a bad name because many of them are carved out to target specific people, companies, and demographics in ways that aren’t helpful to society at large.
Over 90% of tax revenue is collected from less than 10% of the population. Tax the rich is a campaign lie. It already happens. About 50% of adults pay net 0% or get out more than they put in.
The middle class is shrinking and the wage gap is getting worse partly because of the progressive tax system. Only the top 0.1% have the ability to not care about taxes. And even if you taxed them at 100%, they have the tools and money to avoid paying taxes on the vast majority of their wealth.
Tax as a wealth transfer is exactly how to close the gap between rich and poor. You can see the picture but you have misunderstood how the elements relate. Not allowing the 0.1% to escape taxation is exactly what has to happen.
It’s not just for the rich. I’m by no means rich but firmly in the middle class. I withhold the standard calculation based on the IRS’ own formula and i get a pretty decent refund every year. Mortgage interest, charity donations, and student loans (all things lots of people have) reduce tax burden a decent amount.
You’re missing the forest for the trees. There are plenty of ways to encourage actions without coupling them to taxes. Make the tax code simple, and put the complexity in the systems that deal with people.
