Slashdot Mirror

Agree mainly. I try to minimise my purchases from Amazon now and use: http://www.hive.co.uk/ as I'm in the UK. But since I'm a Londoner and a mature student, I use Foyles and Waterstones, big central London bookshops and some of the smaller independents.

What people forget is that taxes pay for roads, a legal system, education etc. all the things that make Amazon viable. Also, we'll all be very sad when the word 'store' drops from our vocabularies and is replaced with 'Amazon'. They are already gaming prices: https://www.propublica.org/art... suggesting that something called 'abuse of dominant position' is probably operating.

As Nancy Reagan said 'Just say no'.

And painfully accurate. How about Jimbo's plan to "fix" mean and ugly Internet comments? That was something called CiviliNation, a failed non-profit he set up with his girlfriend (not sure he was even divorced at the time). On Reddit a few days ago, this was mentioned, and Jimbo insisted that he was the "primary funder" of CiviliNation. Let's see... 2010 Form 990: $25,420 in contributions; 2011: $12,240; 2012: $15,500; 2013: $24,568; 2014: $4,700. All summarized here: https://projects.propublica.or... That's a total of $82,428. If Jimbo were the "primary funder", let's say that's at least 50%, or $41,215. So, if he donated over $41K to CiviliNation, during a period that his gal-pal Weckerle took $63,228 in salary, and there were total contributions of $82,428, he's basically saying he bankrolled most of Andrea Weckerle's personal income from CiviliNation, with tax-deductible dollars. Which accomplished what? CiviliNation.org is barely a functioning website any more -- the last blog post was 13 months ago. Jimbo was so charitably inept that he forked over -- at a minimum -- $41,215 to a failed attempt to "fix" online civility that ultimately accomplished not much more than keeping his girlfriend Andrea in food, clothes, and shelter for a few years. With tax-deductible dollars, no less! And now he wants us to fund his *FOR-PROFIT* plan to "fix" journalism? It's just sad. And pathetic.

I have never heard of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Policy Studies so I went to the their website. Unfortunately I can't find anything talking about their funding sources. However, they do have a prominent endorsement on their homepage from Ajit Pai, which is a substantial red flag.

Propublica sadly only has their funding lumped together as "contributions", which doesn't help.

First of all, the problem is these systems increasingly take away power from the judicial and other democratic systems, which actually were somewhat transparent. You can see the law that affects you if you want, it's public. With algorithms, you can't. An example are the 'risk of recidivism scores' that increasingly influence judges' sentencing. Those, it turned out, disproportionally called black people risky.
https://www.propublica.org/ser...

Secondly, those new algorithms are rarely transparant, for a number of reasons. There is an incredibly faith in 'neutral' algorithms and 'objective' data, and even if you break through that resistance, you still find that the algorithms are often carefully guarded business secrets. Do you know how the Facebook algorithm that shows you your news works? Can you hold its designers accountable?

The whole thing, if anything, just adds a new layer of obfuscation that is actively abused. See the Volkswagen Diesel scandal for example.

Seriously, read Weapons of Math Destruction, it's awesome. Or check out Frank Pasquale's book:
https://youtu.be/PDjgyTnzWuQ

Ergonomics and on the job injury are dealt with by workers comp, and the company eventually has an incentive to address material issues, especially in California.

Have you ever filed a worker's comp case?

Fortunately, ProPublica has done a story on worker's comp.
https://projects.propublica.or...

In California, if you lose an arm, you get $190,000. How many readers here would be willing to lose an arm for $190,000?

Most of us would rather have an employer who does everything possible to prevent us from losing an arm in the first place. Failing that (and they often fail), we'd like to have a government agency inspecting the workplace, and a strong union, as backup.

So then why was there no blackouts when Obama, Bush, Clinton, the other Bush, etc were elected and took over?

Twitter was founded in 2006 and IPO'd in 2013. It was not in widespread use w/in gov't until Obama's second term.

As for stifling other forms of communication, it was not until recently (i.e., under Obama) that federal agencies issued communication through informal channels, like personal statements or press releases not filtered through an official agency communications director. Federal agencies are also far more politicized ideologically under Obama then they were under previous administrations.

The temporary “stand down” order seems to address imposing some manner of coherence and message discipline so that each agency can speak w/ a single official voice rather than have partisan dissenters undermine policy via unauthorized communiques, like the anonymous coward quoted in the ProPublica article (referenced in the HuffPo article cited in the PopSci article referred to in the Slashdot summary). The worst offenders appear to be the far-left agitators w/in the EPA, HHS/NIH, USDA and the National Park Service, all of which have been told to cut it out until new cabinet picks can take the reins. This especially applies to rogue tweets and other social media releases on official agency accounts issued since Inauguration Day.

There is enough far-left hyperventilation being perpetuated already w/o operatives inside federal agencies pretending to be whistleblowers who are actually just bitter opponents of administrative executive decisions they wish to subvert or conspire to undermine. Working for the fed means you can lose funding on a moment's notice for purely political reasons. If you don't like that, then don't rely on federal funding. Academia had to learn that hard lesson when DARPA funding started drying up under Clinton due to the so-called “cold war peace dividend”, for example.

This appears to be yet more MSM hyperventilation, this time HuffPo & PopSci in league w/ Buzzfeed. Last time it was CNN & MSNBC in league w/ Buzzfeed, so this appears to be the printed media wing of the Alt-Left Brigade... last time it was the hot mic talking heads cable news wing. Note the common thread: Buzzfeed. Mystery solved. These Keystone Cops clowns generate noise, not signal; heat, not light; and political strife, not common consensus.

To wit:
1. This is a temporary freeze on dolling out new taxpayer cash (grants & contracts) during the administration transition period.
2. This is a temporary freeze on spewing official agency propaganda by extremists w/in the agencies who may resent their funds being cut.

E.g., EPA spox admits: “This may be a little wider than some previous administrations, but it’s very similar to what others have done,”

Existing grants, on-going work and publications and conferences will proceed as normal.
Policy statements and other non-scientific/factual commentary is merely suspended until new official spokespersons are appointed.

Read the core articles from credible sources before you pile on w/ paranoid disinformation, please— viz., https://www.propublica.org/art...

Given the 11th hour sabotage salvos launched by Obama in his last weeks as POTUS, any rational person could sympathize w/ a “stand down” order from the new, in-coming administration to prevent far-left partisan policy loyalists from muddying the waters until the new Presidential cabinet members can take office and plot a course.

And don't pretend to try to paint me as a Trump fanatic: I'm a vehement independent and proud of it. I'm equally suspicious of any and all national parties: RNC, DNC, CNN, MSN, ABC, FOX, etc. The only political unit I trust is WTC (We the People), and even then things run off the rails from time to time. Such is the human condition. We are all mired in muck. Even Pope Francis says so. ;-)

https://projects.propublica.or...

"Below is a list of all companies that failed to repay their bailout money. These transactions are final and will never result in a profit for taxpayers."

BAILOUT FUNDS OUTGOING BAILOUT FUNDS, INCOMING
Name Type State Profi /Net Outstanding Disbursed Returned Dividends + Interest Warrants Other Proceeds
General Motors Auto Company MI -$11,393,681,666 $50,744,648,329 $38,656,806,062 $694,160,600 $0 $0
CIT Group Bank (Public) NY -$2,286,312,500 $2,330,000,000 $0 $43,687,500 $0 $0
Chrysler Auto Company MI -$1,212,849,005 $10,748,284,222 $7,256,590,642 $1,171,263,942 $0 $1,107,580,633

GM received over $50B, and still owes $11B. Chrysler received over $10B and still owes over $1B. I suppose "still owes" is not exactly accurate, as the numbers largely reflect the loss the government took on the equity instruments they forced on the companies and the government has closed the books. It is true that GM paid back the loans with interest, but that was not the full extent of the monies that were extended to GM.

GM and Chrysler bailouts tossed bankruptcy regulations out the window, screwed over primary bond-holders, but saved the union jobs at outrageous expense while setting dangerous precedents.

We forget so quickly...

https://www.propublica.org/art...

Because they're stupid? Something like 30% or more of the money you donate to the Red Cross goes to fundraisers and management, not people in need.

Most charities are scams and spend the majority of the dollars they rake in from sympathetic chumps on their own executives or to professional fund raising firms.

Something like 30% or more. Really? Could be less too. Hard to tell from that muckraking left-wing link you provided. Most charities are not a scam. Do some research before you give. There are plenty of resources online to do so.

There's a reason when a disaster occurs that calls come into to donate to the Red Cross, not send more money to FEMA...

Because they're stupid? Something like 30% or more of the money you donate to the Red Cross goes to fundraisers and management, not people in need.

Most charities are scams and spend the majority of the dollars they rake in from sympathetic chumps on their own executives or to professional fund raising firms.

There are practically no real-world consequences for HIPAA violations like this.

Everybody will be fine. Except the patients. And who the fuck cares about those jerk-offs anyway?

> No, because HIPAA is totally tech agnostic.

That kind of depends on your definition of "tech." If your records are on paper, they aren't subject to HIPPA privacy protections.

And just to segue a bit - this company getting fined is an amazingly rare occurrence. HIPPA enforcement is toothless. What is the point of a privacy law if there are no consequences for breaking it?

> No, because HIPAA is totally tech agnostic.

That kind of depends on your definition of "tech." If your records are on paper, they aren't subject to HIPPA privacy protections.

And just to segue a bit - this company getting fined is an amazingly rare occurrence. HIPPA enforcement is toothless. What is the point of a privacy law if there are no consequences for breaking it?

Ahh more insults from you, this is becoming common.

Just because a bank is holding onto property does not mean its empty, and nor does it mean it would be affordable to rent for these people needing to find cheap accommodation. Unoccupied properties degrade quickly, so banks will gladly rent them out. The people in this story are renters, so the fact that banks wont sell is meaningless to this discussion.

Plus I really dont think there are 640million empty properties right now in the US ("multiple empty houses for every man, woman and child" is what you said, combined with the current estimated population of 322million). A quick googling shows a recent estimate is only 18.6million, and most of those need significant extra work as they are uninhabitable.

Add to that the fact that acting as a landlord for an extra 3.5million zero or low income people (the estimated number of homeless in the US) puts a huge strain on somebody - were you thinking of forcing the banks to bear this cost? Another thing to consider is that the banks *are* donating empty houses to cities for social housing, but most cities dont want them because it eliminates property taxes on those properties and adds them as a burden to the city.

You also realise that the banks are paying for the bailout, right? To date, the US Federal Reserve has actually made a profit of $63.2Billion on loans totalling $618Billion disbursed under the TARPS and Fannie and Freddie.

Of that $618Billion, the Federal Reserve has seen $681Billion flow back, and thats with about $230Billion in loans yet to be repaid. Puts your "elaborate theft from the taxpayer" comment in a new light, now doesnt it...

https://projects.propublica.or...

http://themindunleashed.org/20...

http://www.businessinsider.com...

Pet charity projects throwing money haphazardly at random causes a few billionaires feel strongly about is an undemocratic disgrace. Had more of their largesse been taxed, we the people could've put it to better use dealing with our deficit, fixing our failing infrastructure, or even using it to help pay for ambitious new programs like universal basic income and single payer healthcare. Those ideas have the potential to totally end poverty. Pet charity projects like Gates' or Zuckerberg's hold no such potential.

Instead of praising this, we should be asking ourselves what kind of society we want to live in.

From the article: "Who should fund our general societal needs and how? Charities rarely fund quotidian yet vital needs. What would $40 billion mean for job creation or infrastructure spending? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a budget of about $7 billion. Maybe more should go to that. Society, through its elected members, taxes its members. Then the elected officials decide what to do with sums of money."

See also: public vs. private social expenditures as a percentage of GDP.

Game communications have been monitored in the past and likely still are. Someone knew where to look; it's just not clear that they found the signal in the noise.

You do realize that the banks repaid the bailouts right?

https://projects.propublica.or...

Also, it was "only" $600B

http://www.politifact.com/new-...

It was a temporary cash influx to keep the banks from folding. I am actually surprised it wasn't handled through FDIC insurance, but I don't know much about the banking industry.

Citigroup tops the list of bailout recipients http://www.cnbc.com/id/4209955...

Most of that bailout was guaranties, not cash. The article you link intentionally confuses the two. The fed made a profit off Citigroup. Now, they've done lots of illegal stuff and I consider them to be the scummiest bank in the US, but they did repay those bailouts and more.

How much will it cost this time around ?

Since the bailouts actually made a profit, why are you worried?

You mean like the American Red Cross?

I'm to lazy to make the rest of these clicky so copy paste them yourself.

http://socialistworker.org/2005-2/562/562_04_RedCross.shtml

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-red-cross-secret-disaster

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/9518677/ns/us_news-katrina_the_long_road_back/t/despite-huge-katrina-relief-red-cross-criticized/

https://www.google.com/search?q=american+red+cross+fund+raising+controversy&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Right. And then people like you begin to cry when the government raises taxes to pay for stuff like this.

I just wrote the IRS a check for $4,500. In a strange way, I was glad to pay it. I compared what I was paying to the government with what I was getting from the government, and it was a great deal.

I'd rather pay more in taxes to have the government provide the services I need.

I sent my niece $4,000 to help her pay for college. When Bernie Sanders went to Brooklyn College, it was free (in return for our taxes).

I pay over $400 a month for health insurance. In Canada it would be free (in return for our taxes).

In a well-run country http://www.sanders.senate.gov/... , taxes, in exchange for government services, are the best deal you can get.

In the U.S., unfortunately, the Republicans and centerist Democrats come into office, and say, "Hey, here's all this money in the government treasury. Let's loot it and pass it out to our corporate campaign contributors." http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07... http://www.propublica.org/arti...

Then they say, "Government can't do anything. Let's cut taxes."

Actually, your part right, and part wrong.
Payroll taxes are a given, but theoretically you pay them either way. The contractor has to make enough to cover them, or you can pay them and pay a little less.
The Obamacare mandate is not in effect yet.
UI is a social contract, it's a minimal program that allows employers to have their "at-will" employment without riots.

The other things you mention are all employer benefits and are not required. In order to offer 401k benefits to the VP's, it has to have a certain percentage of regular workers that buy in, so it's a form of subsidy for the rich (that's aside from the cash that financiers rake in on 401k accounts).
Disability helps retention and recruiting of top tier and VP's. It's often paid for by employees if offered at all.
Life insurance is so they can buy some on you, as you stated.
Workers Comp is really a big steaming dump on employees. If your covered by workers comp, you cannot sue your employer. Losing a hand can be worth anywhere between $37k and $700k, depending on your state. Contractors are much better off, they can sue and recover actual damages.

I wouldn't call that "debunked". People are certainly throwing around the $500 million number assuming that all went to housing, which is not correct (only about $100 million did), but the Red Cross still failed at their own stated goals, and their lawyers refuse to provide any accurate accounting of where the money went beyond lumping large sums into large buckets (e.g., $24 million went into development of Campeche). The Haitians living in Campeche are equally curious about where the money went, because they haven't seen much done beyond some sidewalks and a wall painted with the Red Cross logo. The Red Cross specifically said they were going to build hundreds of homes and rebuild entire neighborhoods, and they've done neither. Even though it's true that they did not budget $500 million to that single effort, they still have failed to accomplish what they said they were going to do, and they have still failed to account for where that money went.

That's a good summary of the Pro Publica/NPR article. https://www.propublica.org/art...

I would add that the people who wrote that article actually went to Haiti where the Red Cross said they provided aid, and talked to the people there on the ground.

I will bet money that the guy who wrote that attack job http://skeptics.stackexchange.... did all his research sitting on his/her ass surfing the Internet within the US.

You do realize that the EPA would already regulate fracking if there were danger to ground water. Funny thing, but if the oil they are fracking for was anywhere near the water

You do realize that a simple google search would have confirmed that fracking fluids are already appearing in groundwater and posing a threat to health.

http://www.scientificamerican....

https://www.propublica.org/art...

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08...

http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

That's not actually true at all.

http://projects.propublica.org...

Perhaps you saw the John Oliver rant that referenced this? If not here is it again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Evidence based medicine is commonly wrong because the evidence is interpreted incorrectly.

Around the 1600s, cedar leaf tae saved Jacques Cartier's crew from scurvy, 25 died the rest were save and when he got back to France was told there as no evidence this worked.

Prior to that Vasco de Gamma nearly diet near the Cape of Good Horn but his crew found eating citrus fixed it.

Hundreds of years later, evidence showed citrus prevented scurvy and it became institutionalized. Later it was boiled on copper kettles (which neutralize the C) and nobody noticed it didn't work any more as diets had improved, until sailors and polar explorers began dying. Similarly at around the same time the new process of warming babies milk to kill bacteria also killed the vitamin C and a new disease of the rich emerged: infantile scurvy. By 1933 vitamin C had be found and scurvy became much less widespread.

The point is scurvy has been around for 20 million years, it' s in recorded history for 5500 years but as of the Scott Antarctic expedition people were still dying of it despite cures being known since Egyptian times ("bitter herbs" all have ascorbate). It's not that the evidence is lacking, it's that there's a disruptive influence from commerce and industrialization. Some unintentional, some because of vested interest. History records that "the evidence was contradictory" and while this is true it never stopped being true that two fresh citrus a day prevented and even cured scurvy, of course more was better, ascorbate does not take up into the body in hours it takes days. so any time i the past 500 years it's been true people have been saying "look I know if I eat fresh fruit I won't get sick" while the medical community insisted, no, it' something else we disproved that. During Scott's antarctic mission the medically accepted ce for scurvy was a brew called "vitriol" containing sulphuric acid. That where evidence based medicine got you and this is one of the reason it's a UN right that you can deterring your own course of treatment to any illness. Science is just a sure it's right the nit's wrong as it is when it's right and it's been worn as recently as elat year, the recent fats ans cholesterol deacle as well as finding out sugar is the cause of cholesterol is proof at least to me that the conventional wisdom is neither.

It cannot be said this does not exist today. I'm not a TV guy and have only a very casual knowledge of the claims he made. ome I know are wrong and know why there are right and I know why but are rejected by industry. Given the near complete control by industry of antu to do with pharmaceuticals they are not the best ones to adjudicate this. The belief that if it's in our pharmacopoeia it's good and anything that isn't is bad it fatally flawed in many many ways.

I don't think they'll pursue this very far. All it's going to take is one thing Oz says that works that they say doesn't but actually does and now everything else they say is in question.

If you have unwavering faith in the pharmaceutical industry to be acting only out of the best interests of your health in an ethical manner at all times then you must not have seen these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
http://projects.propublica.org...
https://web.archive.org/web/20...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/soci...
http://www.plosmedicine.org/ar...
http://www.nature.com/nature/j...

See also:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/...

http://news.antiwar.com/2013/0...

https://www.propublica.org/spe...

Also, in the event of a breach at this juncture, there should be a financial penalty for their negligence.

Fines Remain Rare as Health Data Breaches Multiply
on Tuesday March 03, @04:51AM
from the cost-of-doing-business dept.

tt2024432 writes:

Since October 2009, [US] health care providers and organizations (including third parties that do business with them) have reported more than 1,140 large breaches to the Office for Civil Rights, affecting upward of 41 million people. They’ve also reported more than 120,000 smaller lapses, each affecting fewer than 500 people.

In a string of meetings and press releases, the federal government’s health watchdogs have delivered a stern message: They are cracking down on insurers, hospitals and doctors offices that don’t adequately protect the security and privacy of medical records.

But as breaches of patient records proliferate – just this month, insurer Anthem revealed a hack that exposed information for nearly 80 million people – federal overseers have seldom penalized the health care organizations responsible for safeguarding this data, a ProPublica review shows.

Quote from that article, How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing:

"Imagine filing your income taxes in five minutes -- and for free. You'd open up a pre-filled return, see what the government thinks you owe, make any needed changes and be done. The miserable annual IRS shuffle, gone."

Intuit has been paying government officials to try to prevent improvements that would benefit everyone, the article says.

The solution? In my opinion, the CEO of Intuit should be fired.

Let's take it further...

1. Everyone needs to be aware that Intuit lobbied to keep our taxes expensive and complicated. Their tactics included faking bullshit grass roots support for complicated filing, (more here)

2. Although they've fought it tooth and nail, federal law still requires Intuit and others to provide tax software/form filing for free for the public. You gotta make a certain minimal adjusted gross income (which is bullshit to begin with-- this threshhold was unfortunately lowered during the Bush years-- fuck you Intuit), but there are at least 14 different free options to choose from.

The government gets all that information anyway. why not just have the gov send you a bill/refund every year, and IF you are not happy with the bill/refund, then you can file your taxes yourself.

Corporate welfare.

The IRS is fully capable of doing this, and they even researched implementing just such a system. Lobbyists put a quick stop to that idea every time it comes up. Tax preparation services like H&R Block and online filing services like TurboTax have spent millions and millions of dollars fighting proposed legislation that would let Americans choose to have the IRS handle their taxes instead of paying a third party. Intuit (parent of TurboTax) has a larger lobbying budget than Apple!

Intuit is notorious for lobbying politicians to make tax filing complicated for anyone not using TurboTax.

Librarians have been fighting the good fight in America at least as far back as the 1940s when they stood up to red scare shenanigans. They were also at the forefront of fighting the PATRIOT act, both in lobbying and in action when they redesigned their lending software to delete all information once a book was returned. They are also at the center of the hackerspace movement.

How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing http://www.propublica.org/arti...

So true, HEAR HEAR! Forget about making a legible, sensible tax code like the rest of the world -- just bolster the shit you guys have got, add an imperial shit-ton more overhead, obfuscate!!!!! and then let's all get together with the lobbyists for an outrageous afterparty. Let the proles break a million IRS rules while trying to remember all the words on the 400 pounds of paper your USA tax code takes up. Once everybody is a criminal by trying to honestly file a return you can stuff those for-profit prisons full of easy prey. Keep all the loose ends tied up :)))))
 
Did I mention how much Intuit and these other fuckers are paying to lobby against common sense and for more rules, laws, secret laws and taxes? Pork for everyone!

The government makes the tax laws and could, in theory, check that everyone has paid correctly.

They simply do not have enough information to do what you suggest. Unless they could track *every* transaction every taxpayer made, even when in cash, there is no way to be sure they could catch everything correctly.

Also, *some* people make money but don't get a paycheck so there is nothing to deduct money from.

Actually they do have enough information. Other countries do it. As the ProPublica story explains, the reason the IRS can't do it is that Intuit spent $11 million lobbying to prevent it.

http://www.propublica.org/arti...
How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing
by Liz Day
ProPublica, March 26, 2013, 4 a.m

The government makes the tax laws and could, in theory, check that everyone has paid correctly. So why do we have to do this yearly ritual? How about the bizarre game of guessing how much to deduct from your salery and how many exemptions it needs to be - just have the correct amount deducted automatically.

Anyone with complicated finances, which would include any business, or who doesn't trust the government would still do it the same as now, but for most people it'd be far simpler.

Because as ProPublica reported, Intuit has spent over $11 million lobbying to prevent the IRS from offering us that service. That's why, every time we discuss electronic filing on Slashdot, we get posts from outside the U.S. saying, "Ha! Ha! Stupid yanks! We file our taxes automatically for free!! How's Obamacare going?" And the worst thing is they're right. We are stupid for letting corporations buy Congress and run the country.

http://www.propublica.org/arti...
How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing
by Liz Day
ProPublica, March 26, 2013, 4 a.m

Imagine filing your income taxes in five minutes — and for free. You'd open up a pre-filled return, see what the government thinks you owe, make any needed changes and be done. The miserable annual IRS shuffle, gone.

It's already a reality in Denmark, Sweden and Spain. The government-prepared return would estimate your taxes using information your employer and bank already send it. Advocates say tens of millions of taxpayers could use such a system each year, saving them a collective $2 billion and 225 million hours in prep costs and time, according to one estimate.

The idea, known as "return-free filing," would be a voluntary alternative to hiring a tax preparer or using commercial tax software. The concept has been around for decades and has been endorsed by both President Ronald Reagan and a campaigning President Obama.

"This is not some pie-in-the-sky that's never been done before," said William Gale, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. "It's doable, feasible, implementable, and at a relatively low cost."

So why hasn't it become a reality?

Well, for one thing, it doesn't help that it's been opposed for years by the company behind the most popular consumer tax software — Intuit, maker of TurboTax. Conservative tax activist Grover Norquist and an influential computer industry group also have fought return-free filing.

Imagine filing your income taxes in five minutes — and for free. You'd open up a pre-filled return, see what the government thinks you owe, make any needed changes and be done. The miserable annual IRS shuffle, gone.

It's already a reality in Denmark, Sweden and Spain. The government-prepared return would estimate your taxes using information your employer and bank already send it. Advocates say tens of millions of taxpayers could use such a system each year, saving them a collective $2 billion and 225 million hours in prep costs and time, according to one estimate.

The idea, known as "return-free filing," would be a voluntary alternative to hiring a tax preparer or using commercial tax software. The concept has been around for decades and has been endorsed by both President Ronald Reagan and a campaigning President Obama.

"This is not some pie-in-the-sky that's never been done before," said William Gale, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. "It's doable, feasible, implementable, and at a relatively low cost."

So why hasn't it become a reality?

www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-maker-linked-to-grassroots-campaign-against-free-simple-tax-filing
TurboTax Maker Linked to ‘Grassroots’ Campaign Against Free, Simple Tax Filing
Intuit and its allies are continuing to work against proposals for what’s known as return-free filing.
by Liz Day
ProPublica, April 1

We wouldn't have this problem if we filed our taxes online. Turbotax has prevented that, because they want to charge us for doing what the government could do free, as it does in less corrupt countries.

We've discussed this on Slashdot before. It's like keeping marijuana illegal because the prison guards' unions want to keep their jobs.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/mon...
The Sleazy PR Campaign to Prevent the IRS From Making Your Taxes Simpler
By Jordan Weissmann
Slate
April 14 2014 3:41 PM

Theoretically, it should be far easier for Americans with simple finances to file their tax returns. Instead of making tax filers putz around W-2s and tax prep software, the IRS could electronically prepopulate their paperwork with the information it already receives from banks and employers, and tell filers how much they owe. If the final figure looked about right, you’d have the option to file. As Matt Yglesias wrote here last year, the whole process could be a five-minute snap.

Theoretically. But for years now, Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, has fought tooth and nail to prevent automatic tax filing from becoming a reality, lobbying against bipartisan legislation to introduce it with the help of a powerful tech industry trade group and conservative anti-taxers like Grover Norquist. Intuit and its competitors in online tax prep don’t want the government cutting its market share. The tax-crusaders want to ensure that paying the government remains as much of a painful, resentment-generating slog as ever. And thus a potent alliance has been born.

http://www.propublica.org/arti...
How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing
by Liz Day
ProPublica, March 26, 2013, 5 a.m.

So why hasn't it become a reality?

Well, for one thing, it doesn't help that it's been opposed for years by the company behind the most popular consumer tax software — Intuit, maker of TurboTax. Conservative tax activist Grover Norquist and an influential computer industry group also have fought return-free filing.

Intuit has spent about $11.5 million on federal lobbying in the past five years — more than Apple or Amazon. Although the lobbying spans a range of issues, Intuit's disclosures pointedly note that the company "opposes IRS government tax preparation."

The disclosures show that Intuit as recently as 2011 lobbied on two bills, both of which died, that would have allowed many taxpayers to file pre-filled returns for free. The company also lobbied on bills in 2007 and 2011 that would have barred the Treasury Department, which includes the IRS, from initiating return-free filing.

Intuit argues that allowing the IRS to act as a tax preparer could result in taxpayers paying more money. It is also a member of the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which sponsors a "STOP IRS TAKEOVER" campaign and a website calling return-free filing a "massive expansion of the U.S. government through a big government program."

In response to a FOIA request a ProPublica journalist filed for just this kind of information last year, the NSA told him they couldn't do those kind of searches that they apparently just did. Well, dang...it's a good thing that they figured out they could, I mean gosh...if they'd just got it squared away last year then we'd have known a lot earlier how clean their hands were in all this.

So, any time a government official "accidentally lost the hard drive with the data," you know there's something bad going on.

In this case, very illegal stuff happened. It wasn't just 'extra scrutiny' and delays, although that happened too. The IRS illegally released donor lists. If you want to understand why that is a problem, it helps to remember that the supreme court affirmed that such donor lists should not be released in the 50s when southern states tried to get the donor lists for the NAACP. Think of what problems that could have caused.

In any case, your own article shows that there was inappropriate political targeting going on at the IRS. the only question remaining is whether the targeting was biased to one side or the other. From the emails it is clear that some of the agents (Lois Lerner) strongly opposed Republicans. Do you think that bias affected her work? Maybe the lost emails would tell us.

They're here.

DUAL_EC_DRBG was a random number generation algorithm that only its mother could love. It's slow, complex not provably more random than other algos, and comes with magic, unexplained constants, which are the last thing you want to see in an ostensible entropy generator based on asymmetric crypto... and if you want FIPS certification you have to use the given constants. Why did NSA want it in there so badly? Why, after a potential flaw was found and corrected, did NSA personnel "suggest" a change that, in retrospect, only made that putative flaw more reliably exploitable? Cryptologists explain.

On the hardware side, Theodore T'so observed that Intel was very eager to have RDRAND be the exclusive source of entropy for the kernel's RNG, as was one goofball at Red Hat who tried to introduce a kernel parameter to do the same thing. He fought them both off, thankfully.

In general, see also ProPublica on the SIGINT Enabling Project.

Once upon a time in the 1990s the US wanted its citizens to file taxes for free. The IRS was preparing a system for web-based filing.

That's when a company called Intuit got involved. They lobbied and lobbied, and soon the free IRS system was in the garbage. In exchange, Intuit had to provide a free option for lower/middle class citizens. Of course, they didn't have to actually tell anyone about it. Over the next decade, they lobbied and lobbied to protect their business interest and got that income level for the free software lowered...

The program still exists, but Intuit has been lobbying to keep tax filing hard, certainly harder than necessary. Why have government actually perform its essential service for free when the private market can double the effort at greater expensive for the profit of a few? And stress people out all at the same time?

Fuck you, Intuit.

Right. Because the regulated banks didn't have problems of their own. Right? Right?
 
Oh, and this doesn't account for all those poor souls who lost their shirts at the same time too. The numbers involved would be much higher if you counted all the people on the street who were basically raped while the banks were in a death spiral. But your regulated entities don't care much about that since there wasn't anything the unwashed masses could do besides learn to like it.
 
So feel all smug, the reality is that there are individuals lost just as much as this BC exchange but they didn't make Slashdot or any other news. These people who labored for their entire lives are now eating dog food and pinching pennies to heat their homes and your government solution pretty much shrugged and walked away.
 
Oh, another thing? Those same regulated entities are back up to their old tricks because the sweat of the brow of the common man can keep paying for "too big to fail."
 
Your regulations did what, exactly, for the rest of us?

The point is, they are not allowed to travel despite the country being ruled by the Savvior for the last 6 years.

First, drop the infantile "savior" nonsense. Second, they can travel without ID, it's just more difficult and slow.

Nothing in the Snopes article talks about the scale of voting fraud — very intelligent of them.

Which is hyped up by only one group: the GOP, who is pushing voter ID laws without any evidence that voter fraud is the horrible bane they portray it being.

I'm pointing out, it does not exist.

So you're saying there's no evidence that voter fraud isn't a massive problem? What?

What's "nutty"?

The idiotic notion that because there are no prosecutions that there are no gays. The two situations aren't even remotely similar.

Your entire argument is this "There's no evidence that there ISN'T massive voter fraud, thus there obviously IS massive voter fraud." Completely irrational.

Now, I'm asking you for the last time: what "masses" are those, who, while legally eligible to vote, have no identification deemed sufficient under any of the recently passed "voter-ID laws" — and no way to obtain it? Unlike the voting fraud, the numbers of such people really can be reliably estimated — and the estimation comes out as (what was that word?) miniscule, if not a simple and round zero.

Since you ignored what I posted earlier, try this. I eagerly await your dismissal of that too. But a snippet:

In Pennsylvania, nearly 760,000 registered voters, or 9.2 percent of the state's 8.2 million voter base, don't own state-issued ID cards, according to an analysis of state records by the Philadelphia Inquirer. State officials, on the other hand, place this number at between 80,000 and 90,000.

So anywhere between 80K and up to 760K might be unable to vote.

anyone objecting to the voter-ID laws (who is not also suing against an ID being required to travel and to receive government assistance) is either soft in the head, or hopes to benefit (either personally or as part of a group) from the activity, which the laws aim to reduce: voting fraud.

Well we'll ignore the fact that at the same time the voter ID laws were passed, many states with GOP controlled senates also rammed through changes to voting, including fewer hours and fewer polling places, in very, very specific areas. It's all a campaign of disenfranchisement.

Haha, the government only bailed out GM to the tune of $50 billion, and got $40 billion back. The entire liability for the entire bail-out program (wall street and main street) is currently $30 billion, and will become smaller in the future. It is possible that there will be a net profit, and that is excluding any good that came from stopping the dominoes from falling, and sending the entire country into a depression.

Here is a completely list of companies that got money, and how much has been repaid.

Browse through it. Take your time. Note the net loss to the government to date.

The money.cnn.com story you linked to is from November 16, 2009. Here is a link to a story on the same topic from Dec. 3, 2013 http://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list Notice how the more recent one includes repayment information.

Been doing it for years with government provided software.

Mind you it doesn't say 'cloud' every 5 words, but it submits it all online and even auto fills in a lot of your data from government databases. Not sure how long it has been available for but many many years without incident.

Oh and its free.

Thankfully, Intuit, Inc. (by a totally crazy coincidence also the maker of TurboTax(tm), a market-leading tax software solution) has been fighting to save us from communism...

So here in the Land of the Free, the IRS probably has the information it needs anyway (for fraud detection, and because Joe Worker's employer already reports it); but we can't let them destroy the free market, and capitalism itself, by making the process any easier. Instead, you just hand over your money and personal information to an 'Authorized e-File Provider' and be glad that you live in the bestest ever country on earth.

We will be rolling out a similar system for health insurance soon.

Is worse than that. US is officially not acknowledging the right of intellectual property of anyone in the planet (except of for the insiders) with its wide surveillance (and sabotage/backdooring/etc) effort, including specially every single citizen of those signing countries. Why them should acknowledge that right of for US citizens/corporations, unless they are in the bag already?