Tracking Your Taxes

CTealL writes "Apparently Intuit thinks it's okay to share information about taxes with third paries. According to this article, Intuit is using a third party tracking technology on all tax forms submitted to the IRS. "We could capture your name, your Social Security number or any other information that you willingly pass to a Web site," acknowledged Matt Belkin, who serves as vice president of best practices for Utah marketing giant Omniture, which tracks the online activities of people using Intuit's TurboTax. The IRS disavows any knowledge of this, saying "The IRS does not take a position on Web tracking tools." Makes you wonder where your tax information is going..."

Comments

The moral of the story:

[Future Man 3000]

Paper has nothing on electronics for leaving a trail.

Re:The moral of the story:

[Gentlewhisper]

No.. the true moral of the story is.. American corporate greed knows no bounds...

Re:The moral of the story:

[oirtemed]

shorten it to greed and you got it right. Americans are no worse than other humans.

Re:The moral of the story:

[monkeydo]

Well this story would be interesting, if it weren't for the fact that people are willingly trusting the companies in question with their personal information. When Intuit asks for your SSN to prepare your return, it isn't exactly covert. If you don't trust them not to disclose it to other companies, then you should probably stop before this step.

Yeah, they use third party web bugs, but they say that they don't send those bugs your private data. If you don't believe them when they say this, see above.

Re:The moral of the story:

[Zork the Almighty]

Our greed is eclipsed only by our stupidity.

Re:The moral of the story:

[jcr]

Surely you realize that when you try to ascribe any characteristic to a couple hundred million people, you're going way out on a limb?

I could just as well say that Europeans have nasty tendency to lump people together into groups.

-jcr

Re:The moral of the story:

[barryman_5000]

No wait I got a better response . . . yeah and our blind luck . . . uh . . . is only passed by our uh . . . Ok, our stupidity exceeds all.

Re:The moral of the story:

[hyfe]

If you honestly think that Americans are more 'shallow' than Europeons then you are a fool.

I do, I honestly do.

As for you not believing there are any differences, well.. you live in an extremely large fairly homogenous country, which is built upon the foundation of pretending you're all alike.

Just here in Scandinivia there is a distinct difference between Danish and Norwegians. I attribute this mostly to the fact that Denmark has better weather and get to spend more time outside, aswell as Denmark carving out an existance as a small country right next to so many big ones. In norway, we spend most our time inside quite simply because of the fact that it's freezing outside.

Re:The moral of the story:

[CastrTroy]

But the grandparent said that doing you taxes with software was stupid because doing taxes is so simple. I can think of many things that are more simple than filing a tax return, and many of them are done using software. There are very few people who do their own taxes, hence the large tax filing business sector. Being it real people, or software doing the taxes for you. I think the real problem is that people are too afraid to screw up the calculations and what will happen to them if they do.

Re:The moral of the story:

[QMO]

You're a little contradictory there.

"fairly homogeneous country" implies we're all somewhat similar.
"pretending you're all alike" implies that we're not, in fact, very similar.

That statement alone, even without your other wildly unreasoned opinions, convinces me to disbelieve you.

If you think that the culture in Wyoming is the same as the culture in rural Virginia is the same as the culture in New York City is the same as the culture in Phoenix, AZ, you're clueless.

END OF THE WORLD IS NEAR!

[OverlordQ]

"We could capture your name, your Social Security number or any other information that you willingly pass to a Web site," acknowledged Matt Belkin, who serves as vice president of best practices for Utah marketing giant Omniture, which tracks the online activities of people using Intuit's TurboTax.

But he said Omniture doesn't do this. The reason, he said, is that client companies don't authorize Omniture to do it.

Yes they *can*, but do they? *no*

Re:END OF THE WORLD IS NEAR!

[mzwaterski]

By filing with Intuit you have already put your trust into a big corporation. Many Intuit employees have access to your personal information. ONE rogue employee from Intuit could compromise your SSN. Why would you be so trusting of Intuit but not Omniture?

National sales tax now

[panxerox]

Its time to crush this 30 year old unholy alliance between the IRS and the 3 party tax prep companys. The tax system has become like the legal system - a systematic exploitation of the American people to keep an elite in business, in this case IRS agents and retired IRS agents.

Re:National sales tax now

[ScentCone]

tax system has become like the legal system - a systematic exploitation of the American people to keep an elite in business, in this case IRS agents and retired IRS agents.

Except, all they do is function to collect what the tax code says they should. Don't like it? You have to change the law. Fix it in congress, thus treating the problem, not the symptom.

Re:National sales tax now

[Quarters]

A national sales tax is the most regressive form of taxation imaginable. The tax system now is (mostly) fair. Everyone pays a % of their earnings.

The problem with a national sales tax is that middle to low income earners spend a larger percentage of their earnings. Upper class earners spend a much smaller percentage of their wages. A national sales tax would hurt low wage earners the most as they would be using the majority of their wages on food & basic necessities. The little $ they might have left after their purchases and their tax burden won't be enough for an adequate savings.

Re:National sales tax now

[John Seminal]

Its time to crush this 30 year old unholy alliance between the IRS and the 3 party tax prep companys. The tax system has become like the legal system - a systematic exploitation of the American people to keep an elite in business, in this case IRS agents and retired IRS agents.

The national sales tax has nothing to do with third party tax preperation services.

If you want to fix the tax system, how about closing the loopholes the rich use? Wouldn't that be a better place to start. To remove their tax shelters.

To be fair, democrats are doing it too. Look at John Edwards. Before he was elected to the Senate, he worked as a liability lawyer. He won a big case, and had $600,000 in taxes due. Instead, he formed a corporation and using tax laws, did not pay one penny. He kept all the money for himself. Republicans do it far more often then democrats, but that is only because most democrats are dirt poor.

Re:National sales tax now

[fimbulvetr]

You have to change the law. Fix it in congress, thus treating the problem, not the symptom.

Congress? You mean that other entity that systematically exploits American people to keep elites in business?

Re:National sales tax now

[Jacked]

The tax system now is (mostly) fair. Everyone pays a % of their earnings.

Hardly. Not everyone pays a percentage. Almost half the workers in the U.S. pay no income tax at all. And, in fact, they get quite a sweetheart deal -- many of those people get a "refund" which is far larger than the amount that was witheld in the first place (refundable credits).

The problem with a national sales tax is that middle to low income earners spend a larger percentage of their earnings. Upper class earners spend a much smaller percentage of their wages. A national sales tax would hurt low wage earners the most as they would be using the majority of their wages on food & basic necessities. The little $ they might have left after their purchases and their tax burden won't be enough for an adequate savings.

It's been my experience that most upper class earners spend virtually everything they earn. They might spend a slightly smaller amount as a percentage of their income, but, 85% of $200,000 is a lot more real dollars than 95% of $25,000. Admittedly, I pulled those numbers out of my ass, they're just for illustration purposes ;)

As structured in H.R. 25, everyone gets a monthly check to prevent exactly what you describe. It's actually a pretty well thought-out plan. You can read more about it at http://fairtax.org/.

Re:National sales tax now

[Shajenko42]

Not to mention the fact that the rich can avoid a large portion of that sales tax by shopping in another country. For instance, instead of buying their new wardrobe in New York, they could do it in Paris instead. Similarly for cars, they could buy it in Canada and hire somebody to drive it to the US.

Re:National sales tax now

[RadagastTheMagician]

while I agree with you on a sales tax being regressive, the current tax system is still unfair. Those with a lot of money already, perhaps from inheritance (Paris Hilton, anyone?) only pay taxes on their interest, and can mostly get out of that tax too.

The current talk about repealing the inheritance tax is ludicrous. It's the only tax the Paris Hiltons of the world pay at all. Look at it like this: while Daddy worked his ass off, paid his taxes on his earnings, and received the benefits of those taxes (the military protected his investements at home and abroad), if they repeal the estate tax, once he's dead, poor little rich girl never has to work again. Now she gets all the benefits of that military and police protection, the roads, the schools, etc, but doesn't have to pay for any of it! Do we really want to create a landed gentry whose offspring never have to work again?

Re:National sales tax now

[NanoGator]

"Now she gets all the benefits of that military and police protection, the roads, the schools, etc, but doesn't have to pay for any of it!"

Uh... if they recieved an inheritance, and that money had already had its taxes paid on, then they already have paid for it. It's money changing hands, not money suddenly appearing out of nowhere.

Re:National sales tax now

[pete6677]

Considering rich people tend to buy more stuff and generally stick to more expensive items, they will pay a lot more in sales taxes than a middle class or poor person buying mostly essentials. Most states, cities or countries with a sales tax exempt food and other essentials from sales taxes or give a yearly credit for money spent on essentials. Other than putting a lot of tax professionals out of work, I don't see what is wrong with this plan. Getting the government out of peoples' financial lives is hardly a bad thing.

Re:National sales tax now

[lxw56]

And what do you do with the entrepreneur who builds a small business worth $2 million but has few other assets? He wants to pass the business to his children, but they can't afford the tax. The main reason Wal-Mart is so successful is because of government and sociological disadvantages to the small businesses, not economic or efficiency disadvantages.

Re:National sales tax now

[EzInKy]

Uh... if they recieved an inheritance, and that money had already had its taxes paid on, then they already have paid for it. It's money changing hands, not money suddenly appearing out of nowhere.

That money is not going towards paying for ongoing maintenance. Without inhertance and property taxes the burden falls solely on the backs of current wage earners.

Re:National sales tax now

[maxpublic]

Their descendants will miss the money, but so what? Inheritance is the most unfair, un-earned income imaginable.

I earned the money - not you. I paid taxes on the money - not you. I decide what the hell I'm going to do with my money - not you. And if that means that I want to give it all to my kids so that they don't have to work a day in their lives, that's my business - not yours.

What's unfair here is that some of my neighbors think they have the right to divvy up and distribute *my* property against my wishes. Now *that* is bullshit.

Max

I am that you are, or was, for I am now

[Leontes]

Identity theft is really becoming more of institution these days. So much information is out there, so quickly can someone hijack someone's life and such a pain in the ass it is to reclaim it. How much of a problem will this have to become before the laws change and identity is more easily secured? Can this be done without some sort of national privacy-killing registry?

Slashdot vs. Major Media Outlet

[Anonymous Coward]

So, on Slashdot, everyone will complain about the obvious privacy issues of having your personal information given away for marketing purposes. And, that's it. Now, if a Major Media Outlet were to carry this story, say, Reuters, then you would hear about it on NPR, you'd see it on ABC, and you'd read it in the New York Times. And it would be illegal in two months for these assholes to share your personal information while you trust them to do something as simple as file your taxes electronically. Of course, the Reuters author would have to write it up with a pro-consumer spin. It would have to cry privacy violation in every sentence.

trust us!

[chocochip]

"You've just got to trust us," Miller replied, adding that "if we didn't uphold our privacy commitment, we wouldn't be here."

Yeahhh, I'm gonna say no!

Trusting Intuit is insane.

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

Quicken used to be an excellent product around 1997 or so. But then they started adding in-program spam and call home features. And that's when I stopped upgrading.

Read the fine print for your savings and checking

[John Seminal]

They already share your information, and it is done by your bank. Banks make good money selling your financial information to "related buisnesses". And there is no way to opt-out. Don't want to have us sell your social security number and financial data? Then we won't open a savings account for you. What can you do? Stuff your mattress with money?

People have no rights anymore because buisnesses stopped thinking about serving you. They now look at aggregates. You have become an after-thought on someones spreadsheet. We have 10,000 customers. We lose 50 this month because they don't like us sharing their information. But we get 500 new accounts from our marketing blitz. The bank is going to say it isn't worth their time to deal with 50 unhappy customers when an advertisment can bring in more customers.

BTW, this is unrelated to this story, but I need help and I have to ask (since all the smart people hang out at slashdot, and I don't know the ipa to any forus to ask). My damn internet connection is not working right. I can't get to yahoo.com, but if i type in the ip address, i get there. What the hell is wrong?

Bad reasoning for not capturing SSNs......

[xiaomonkey]

From the article: But he said Omniture doesn't do this. The reason, he said, is that client companies don't authorize Omniture to do it.

So, is he saying that given the opportunity to capture this information, his company would? Semi-distrubing. What about not caputuring this information since it would be wrong to do so? Particulary with recent problems with identity theft.

-

Turbo Tax "web" version or

[the_skywise]

the boxed version? The article doesn't appear to say and I'm not quite sure why "web bugs" would be used to collect data on the boxed version. (y'know, like... when you could just capture the keystrokes?)

Where your tax information is going

[$upernick]

The real question lately is, where isn't your tax information going?

Re:Where your tax information is going

[techguy911]

The answer is obvious, companies like LexisNexis

Re:Read the fine print for your savings and checki

[Leontes]

That would be your DNS. Make sure you've got the right servers registered, in your network settings. There are some public DNS servers out there too, I think. Damn, I'm really replying to this when I don't know what I'm talking about. Of course, that's the danger in asking such an offopic question is such a public forum.

Re:Try to hack this...

[John Seminal]

It's slower than an e-file, but far more anonymous, providing you don't put a return address on the envelope.

And for complete anonymity, take your thumb, lick it, and rub over your social security numbers til you can't read it any more. Hey, that is what general Shwarzkaupf did with his map of vietnam. Cambodia? Cambodia is miles from here. :p

RTFA

[firephreek]

The /. article is totally misleading. Makes it sound like Intuit is actively tracking the actual returns and trying to compile info on the users, not just tracking and compiling the user process. Until there's something shown that the tracking is done beyond the site, I'm gonna reserve judgement.

If you're gonna get the tin hats out for this, then don't forget that Intuit also makes and sells the number one financial tool for not just businesses, but also personal finances. Quicken and Quickbooks. They don't need your tax return information. All your bank accounts are belong to Intuit. If they wanted to track your buying habits, the checking history of hundreds of thousands of individuals is at their fingertips.

Ugh......

[Alcimedes]

So what's in place to keep a dishonest employee from gathering more information than they should and turning around and selling it to ID thieves?

If identity theft is supposed to be as big of a business as we're told, you'd think that getting a few moles inside these companies would be a top priority.

You'd know the person's income, what they purchased, address etc. That data would be worth a fortune to theives, and there's zero legitimate marketing purpose to them having my SS#.

Re:Ugh......

[loraksus]

Nothing. I "worked" at TaxCut last year (to not use quotes would imply that after 10am everyone in my cube wasn't so shitfaced that they had trouble walking to the cafeteria for food, let alone actually go through any work). Interesting times.

Every $8/hour agent has access to every return e-filed by HR Block (not just taxcut) - since 1999 at the click of the mouse. No oversight whatsoever and turnover was very high because the job quite frankly sucked for the PC phone people. They constantly had at least 3 classes of 40 people training because "shockingly" 75%+ would leave by the end of the first week on the phones.

I've heard that they have since changed to where every agent doesn't have access to the entire return, but "just" the social, address, home / work / cell phones, amount of refund (from which you can pretty much guess the income), their first 5 w2s, the date submitted, estimated date that the refund would arrive, spouses ssn, etc.

The only reason that a ton of tax data didn't get used is because most of the people working there were stoned off their asses virtually 24-7 and really couldn't care less about ordering up a couple credit cards in such and such person's name, or letting burglars know that someone at such and such address who works at such and such place just got a $15,000 refund and that they probably have a ton of new shit that could be looted.
If organized crime - or even a couple theives spread around the country - got in on it, they could of have made a ton of money. It would be weeks before the cops caught on - if ever. If someone wanted to, they could even start work there using a fake identity, there was no background check to speak of afaik.

I know this extends a little bit beyond the scope of your original question, but I'm sure that the situation is identical for the other tax programs.

Re:Try to hack this...

[kwoo]

And for complete anonymity, take your thumb, lick it, and rub over your social security numbers til you can't read it any more.

I would love to, but there's this little problem that brings up later in the process... :P

The morality of the story:

[IPFreely]

If the IRS would actually come out with a method of E-Filing that does not require third party involvement, they would go a long way towards elimenating this type of problem. Look at the E-Filing instructions and it's all about how to find the right third party to do it for you (for a Fee!). Bleh.

At least some states have figured out how to file taxes electronicly and directly (and free!) without involving someone with a profit motive in the mix.

Re:The morality of the story:

[dmaxwell]

They were going to. Intuit and some others threw a lobbying shitfit about their multimillion dollar industry.

Re:The morality of the story:

[anthony_dipierro]

If the IRS would actually come out with a method of E-Filing that does not require third party involvement, they would go a long way towards elimenating this type of problem.

It would also be a large taxpayer expense. As it stands now you could get access to send your tax return directly to the government. But you'd have to write the software, and pass the tests, and undergo a criminal background check. This ensures that the government needs to do the least work once it's received a return. It also makes it very hard for criminals to screw up the system by for instance filing false returns for people other than themselves.

Look at the E-Filing instructions and it's all about how to find the right third party to do it for you (for a Fee!).

Actually, at least one third party (the makers of TaxAct), offers e-file for free to everyone. They make it hard to find the link, but if you go to the IRS free-file page, scroll down to "TaxACT.com", click the link, click "Leave IRS Site", and then click on "Start Free Return" then you can e-file your federal return absolutely free.

Re:The morality of the story:

[timeOday]

It would also be a large taxpayer expense.

Bull. It costs much more for the IRS to print and process a paper return than an online one, and if there were an official, taxpayer-supported IRS filing site, many more people would e-file.

I don't know what you're saying about everybody writing their own tax preparation software, but an official IRS site could certainly prevent fraud at least as well as paper forms or TurboTax etc.

This is a case of purposeful government waste in order to create a market for some companies. Like if I started printing my own paper tax forms, charging $10 for them, then lobbied Congress to stop the IRS from printing tax forms because it was "competing with private industry."

Re:The morality of the story:

[anthony_dipierro]

Or, for that matter, you could file on paper, for cheaper.

Cheaper than free? I don't think so.

In an ideal world, you'll be sufficiently under-withheld that you don't have to worry about getting a refund anyway, removing the only rational reason to e-file.

I've got another rational reason to e-file. You save the cost of the stamp (actually to be safe you should probably use two stamps as one is probably not enough), as well as the hassle of printing out the form and mailing it in. In my case, I save the hassle of driving to the post office and buying stamps, since I generally don't have any stamps around anyway.

Of course, I wound up working less last year than expected, so I wound up with a refund, and I'll probably get one again in 2005 since changing my exemptions to 7 probably won't be enough (should have gone for 9, I guess). But yeah, the target is to owe $999 at the end, unless of course you can manage to get your income taxes down to $0, which is actually not too hard for 2005 (a married couple can earn $41,000 if they both contribute $4000 to an IRA and have $3000 of capital losses; if they have kids or one is a teacher or have student interest or have rental property or paid tuition costs they can earn even more; just having a few rental properties can theoretically raise that number to $66,000).

Filing on paper is still legal (as long as you prepare your own return, anyway).

For the federal return it's still legal. California (and possibly other states), has made it illegal for a paid preparer who files more than 50 (or something like that) California returns from not e-filing an eligible state return unless the customer specifically requests not to e-file, but the federal government has done no such thing - yet.

Re:The morality of the story:

[Saeger]

I'd much rather they withhold too much and I just get a refund in the spring so I don't have to worry about it.

Frankly, that's a retarded attitude, but a lot of lazy people share it. To have your employer automatically subtract (sorry, "withhold") taxes just so you can feel like you're winning the lottery when you get your "refund" is... retarded. Not only do you lose out on the interest, but the government has you by the balls because you don't even really feel the pain of PAYING taxes.

Since I'm self-employed, nobody withholds from me, so I get to feel it when I write my two checks to Fed and State treasuries.

By the way, Tax Freedom Day for 2005 falls on April 17th, so you're still working to payoff taxes until then... but at least you won't feel it. :)

Re:The morality of the story:

[pete6677]

This is why I don't e-file. Despite being a card carrying geek, electronic is not always better. I won't be e-filing unless it provides me with an advantage over paper filing. Since I don't get a refund, the earlier refund wouldn't count for me. Since an electronic return would definitely be cheaper for the IRS to process (no need for a data entry drone), they should give a discount to those who e-file. Then I might actually consider doing it.

Re:The morality of the story:

[Anonymous Coward]

Since I'm self-employed, nobody withholds from me, so I get to feel it when I write my two checks to Fed and State treasuries.

Don't you mean "eight checks"? How long have you been self-employed?? This statement surprises me (self-employed since 1997).

The US tax system is a "pay as you go" system. You have to pay your taxes close to when you earn the income. Otherwise you pay penalties. Unless your taxes are under $1000 or you just started out you will have to pay penalties (8%? something like that).

Does the phrase "estimated tax payments" ring any bells?

The only time I haven't paid quarterly tax payments is during the boom, when I could easily beat the penalty elsewhere.

So if you're self-employed, you *do* feel the sting of paying throughout the year (and yes you can overpay and get a refund, but that's retarded as you point out.. the government will loan YOU money at 8%, but when you loan THEM money throughout the year by overpaying, they give you nothing :-).

Re:The morality of the story:

[Angostura]

The UK government has a truly excellent Web-based tax filing system http://www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/. It is one of the best examples of a robust, intuitive, helopful Web-based system I know.

It saves the government heaps in terms of manually checking paper-work and entering figures.

Re:The morality of the story:

[meiemiiz]

I guess size matters. I live in Estonia (pop. of approx 1.4 mio) and we have a very good e-tax office, they first introduced it like 3 years ago. Now it took a whole 15(!) minutes to complete my whole tax application and I got my refund in 2(!) days. The key is that our tax office owns and runs the software and all private enterprises are encouraged to e-file their tax info too + all government agencies use the same platform. For example, my tax-application was pre-filled with information about: - my incomes (info from my employer) - my loans (info from my bank, which I have agreed to enclose) - my stipends (infro from my school, which I have agreed to enclose) So I just parse through the information, accept it and submit my tax-form. And yes, it helps to have a simple legislation - no progressive taxations, no tax brackets, not too many write-offs. PS. The e-delarations reached more than 50% of the whole number this year.

Re:The morality of the story:

[10Ghz]

In Finland the employer automatically deducts the taxes from the salary. It goes like this: I tell the tax-authorities the amount of money I will be earning that year (well, I don't really have to do it, they try to guess the sum based on my past earnings). you can tell them any amount you wish. End result is that if you tell a low amount, your tax-% will be low. But if you earn more than you told them, you will be required to pay extra taxes at the end of the year. Likewise: if you tell a high amount, you will get high tax-%, but you will get money back, if you don't earn that much in reality.

After I have told the authorities the relevant information, they mail me a document wich says "your tax-% is this", and I hand that document to my employer, who deducts the correct sum from my salary.

I usually tell larger sum that what I think I will earn. Why? It's pretty simple:

a) That way I can get a raise during the year, without going over the limit I told the authorities
b) When I get my monthly salary and see the amount of money I receive, I plan my future expenses around that sum. When I get a tax-return in the end of the year, it feels like "extra" money, since I had already made my purchasing-decisions and the like based on an assumption that I pay certain amount of taxes and I get no tax-returns. The amount of money I lose on interests is neglible.

Related to this: the tax-returns and the like work like this: They mail you some forms where they tell you "we calculated your taxes like this, and this is the number we will pay you back/you have to pay us. If the numbers are correct, don't do anything. If there are some things you would like to change, use the attached form to do so". Basically you just fill in all kinds of extra expenses that you can deduct (commuting-expenses, interests on mortage, purchases of equipment you need for your work (books, computers, broadband, tools etc. etc. depending on your work)). Attach some receipts to the form, and you are all set. The whole preocess takes about 30 minutes if you have the receipts you need.

All in all, the whole process is very simple and easy. It seems like the tax-hell of Finland has alot simpler taxation than USA does :). We don't have any software to help us pay our taxes, since the whole process is so simple.

Re:The morality of the story:

[greenrd]

Here in the UK, we don't view privacy as purely a contractual issue. Our Data Protection legislation (privacy legislation) applies to all data collection, whether governed by a contract or not.

Re:The morality of the story:

[4of12]

Perhaps the US should outsource its tax collection to the UK.

Actually, we use to have an arrangment just like that.

From what I understand, it didn't work out very well.

Why would we want your sucky government when we have a perfectly fine sucky government right here at home?

Re:The morality of the story:

[fermion]

but someone has to pay the bills. By overpaying one is insuring that one does not have to pay money unexpectedly at the end of the year. Many firms go through great length to avoid all unexpected expenses, though things such as service contracts and planned replacement of equipment, even though it might be cheaper to do otherwise.

What is retarded is believing in a free lunch, and is what is wrong with the current US administration. They live in a fantasy world in which they can give their friends all the pork they want, but, through magiks, not have anyone pay for it.

I guess I love this country enough to pay for the privilege to live in it. Sure there is money to be saved, and cheaper places to live, but that is always true. Since we are civilized I know that there things I have to pay for that I wish I didn't, and there are things that others have to pay for that they wish the didn't, but overall it tends to work out.

And the interest argument, for most people, is absurd. For many people, the marginal benifit of the interest will not offset the time it takes to plan. Sure, the money is nice and we can spend it, but so can the government. Again, things have to be paid for.

I have been self employed, and the only thing I felt when I wrote check, aside from the twinge that I may have not fully accounted for the expense, which is my fault, is pride that I was contributing to this great country, and pride that I lived in a place where I was allowed to have the opportunity to suceed.

Re:The morality of the story:

[Fezmid]

Yes, but things come up that you don't expect that really could end up costing you in penalties. For example, last year my wife worked part-time at H&R Block doing tax returns (ironic, no?). They didn't take much out in taxes there, but we didn't mind since I have extra taken out of my check and we figured that would cover it. Then later in the year, the state hired her as an independent contractor and she made a few thousand more teaching classes. None of that money was taxed at the time. Then I taught a class late in the year as well, and none of that money was taxed. We ended up paying $86 to the Federal government, even though we had a refund of around $1,000 the previous year. If I hadn't taken extra out of my check, we would've been surprised to owe over $1,000, and I'm pretty sure penalties kick in around that threshold. If the system were more predictable (or there were no penalties for underpaying), I'd agree 100% in having less withheld from check to check. But since it's impossible to predict what you'll earn the entire year, it's nice to overpay a little every pay period and get some of it back at the end of the year.

Re:The morality of the story:

[jonatha]

>>But yeah, the target is to owe $999 at the end

>Huh? Why?

Owing (rather than getting a refund) means you can earn interest on the money for a year rather than letting Uncle Sam have it.

$999 is the most you can owe without having to pay penalties and interest for underpayment.

Re:The morality of the story:

[bluGill]

More than that, if you know you owe the government money you want to wait until the last filing date. When my money is in a savings account I at least earn interest, once I pay the bill I quit earning interest on the money. Now granted today's interest rates are so tiny this isn't much money, but still an extra few pennies add up over time. (I pay most of my bills on the first of the month so that I can get an extra month's interest on my money, again it isn't much but it adds up over all my bills and time)

Just before April 15 in the US (Taxes are due then here) there is a news bulletin of which post offices are open until midnight. Some people really do wait that long to turn things in. Personally I try to turn mine in a week or two before that just in case something bad happens to me.

I don't know how UK taxes work, but in the US there are a large number of people who have an advantage of waiting until the last minute to pay their taxes. Then there are those who have the advantage of doing them early, but just lazily hold off. Combine together you are right, it is very short sighted to not have system that can handle the load of most people waiting to the last minute.

Re:The morality of the story:

[EvilMagnus]

$999 is the most you can owe without having to pay penalties and interest for underpayment.

That is incorrect. The underpayment penalties are based on your prior year's return and a percent value - For example, you pay penalties if the tax you owe is greater than 10% of your total tax bill this year and if the tax you owe is greater than the tax you paid last year.

For example, if last year I paid $10,000 in taxes, and this year my withholdings were $8,000, but I actually still owed $10,000, then I would face a penalty as my tax owed would be $2,000 - greater than 10% of my total tax bill this year.

If I paid $12,000 last year and withheld $8,000 this year on a bill of $10,000, I would *not* owe penalties, as my *total* tax bill is less than the prior year's bill.

So basically, if the total tax owed is less than the tax you paid last year, there's no underpayment penalty. If the total tax owed is greater than you withheld this year *and* greater than the total you paid last year, then you better pray you've already paid 90% of the tax due, otherwise you get a penalty.

IRS position

[NoseBag]

Actually, the IRS position is a smart one. Basically they are saying "Until it gets to us (e-mail or snail mail or whatever) we have no knowledge of it, or its journey, or what happened to it between you and us."

That's fair, damn it.

The issue is with the go-betweens. I say - take 'em to court and smoke 'em.

I had a problem like this

[LAXATTACK]

Once I bought a VISA gift card at AAA(that travel place), and they got my social security number and a month or so later I got a freaking cell phone bill in the mail for a phone I didn't even have. Turns out one of the employees there took the number and somehow used it to get a damn cell phone for his friend....I guess you really can't trust anybody.

Re:I had a problem like this

[Guppy06]

"I bought a VISA gift card at AAA(that travel place), and they got my social security number"

Those gift cards are are something you have to pay up front for, correct? If so, why did you give out your SSN for a cash transaction?

No you fucking idiot!!!

[Mr. Underbridge]

And for complete anonymity, take your thumb, lick it, and rub over your social security numbers til you can't read it any more.

Good God, you idiot! Now they'll have your DNA!!!

Raise holy hell and watch them squirm

[Windcatcher]

They can only get away with this because they haven't been called out on the carpet for it. Single a bank out and make sure all the bloggers get the word. Eventually the news will filter to the MSM that "Bank XYZ" is selling customers' info. Even if they all are doing it, the other banks will get the message that they're next. If the pressure is strong enough, you can get them to change...all it takes is one bank to give in and the rest will follow suit to compete.

Attention, obvious

[taylortbb]

I think any web surfer with basic internet knowledge knows that servers can tell what pages you visit, of course, they are afterall giving you the information. If most users find this surprising they should know what else goes on.

Can you trust the person sorting your mail not to open it? about as much as you can trust Intuit, however as soon as its online everyone gets freaked out.

As soon as you let someone else transmit your personal information this can happen. When you submit a form containing your SSN (social security number) the person on the recieving end or anyone in transit can read it, be the form HTML or paper.

Anyone sorting real world mail could open a letter and read it. Any company sending your data over the web could read the data you are sending them, well, of course, you're sending it to them for a reason.

Could a marketing company get people to infiltrate the post office and steal random letters to examine content? of course. Could a marketing company forcefully aquire data (via hacking, etc.) online? of course. But now its much harder, the data is encrypted.

Unfourtunatly most average consumers don't read /., but for anyone that reads this, *your computer is more secure, just because its in the real world doesn't mean it can't happen, and in the computer world there is cryptographically secure prevention*. People steals cars, break into houses, and commit fraud without computers all the time, don't be afraid of your computer, or stuff online.

(For those who are going to attack me because the article isn't about hacking, the only way for the marketing companies to get data is hacking, Intuit is *not* going to share that info. Either a or b is true: a) its against privacy laws, paper or internet. b) they could do it with your paper forms too, making it a moot point.)

oops

[flynt]

Wow it's April 15th on Friday, lucky I read Slashdot!

Sales tax NOT regressive

[XanC]

The current plan for a national retail sales tax calls for everyone, everyone, to receive a "pre-bate" for necessities. It's tied to the poverty line.

So nobody pays tax on necessities. From there, the more you buy, the more you pay. It's progressive without having to treat people differently under the law.

Re:Sales tax NOT regressive

[GoofyBoy]

In many countries there is a national sales tax and they do have exceptions for necessities and alot of little strange little rules around this. If you want to simplify taxes, this is not the way to go. If you want to reduce taxes, this is not the way to go.

For example, here in Canada we have the GST. The exceptions are;
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tax/business/gstgui des/rc 4045/rc4045-e.html
So notice that full sized pies are not taxed but single servings are. And I'm sure that other countries have rules like that too.

Re:Sales tax NOT regressive

[daigu]

Progressive tax, by definition, is a tax the has different rates based on total income. Thus, a sales tax is not progressive. It's a regressive tax.

A regressive tax, in contrast, is a tax that takes a larger percentage of the income of low-income people than of high-income people.

Example: If I make $1,000,000 a year, and you make $75,000. If we both spend $75,000 on however we define sales, we both have to pay the same in taxes. You are being taxed on 100% of your income. I am being taxed on only .075% of mine.

While a regressive tax such as this one that is focused on consumption has benefits, it does not help address income inequities or have any built in system that recognizes the responsibility of people in fortunate circumstnaces have to the larger society and for people not as well off as they are - such as those that make below the poverty line.

Re:Sales tax NOT regressive

[Dachannien]

Mathematically regressive, perhaps, when you look at income earned versus expenditures.

But when you look at *utility gained* versus expenditures, a sales tax isn't regressive anymore. It's equitable, and some might even say it's progressive if you consider the necessities of life (shelter, food, etc.) to have a higher per dollar utility value than luxury goods.

Sure, that person earns $1M and spends $125k, and gets taxed $31.5k or 3.15% of their income. But what's that other $875k doing? Are they papering their house with it? Stuffing their pillows? Wiping their ass? No, they're socking it away in savings, mostly in investments, thus allowing other people to benefit from it for a time.

Money by itself, in the absence of something to buy with it, serves no purpose and has no value. Why should a person get taxed on the money they don't spend and don't get any real benefit from? That's already a concept implemented in traditional IRAs, where money saved in the IRA is not taxed, but when the money is withdrawn (presumably, when you are about to spend it) you pay taxes then.

Re:Sales tax NOT regressive

[maxpublic]

I can't imagine how Oregonians would react to a national sales tax. We've rejected a state sales tax (pushed by most out-of-state non-citizen political groups) EIGHT TIMES now; and the last time it came to a vote it was so clearly the brainchild of non-Oregonian special interests that our legislators received quite a few threats should they think about putting the tax to a vote a ninth time. Needless to say the sales tax hasn't been referred to the polls since then.

I wonder how the citizens of the state would react if told that a sales tax was going to be imposed on them by the feds and there wasn't a damn thing they could do about it. Twenty years ago I could've predicted a fairly violent response with relative certainty, but so many spineless pussies have transplanted themselves here I'm no longer so certain....

Max

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And here's a possible scenario....

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

Intuit notices that you trade a lot of stock. Merrill-Lynch agrees to pay Intuit .20 for every prospective customer lead given to them and will up it to .30 if they are not already a Merrill customer.

There's lotsa gold in them thar data mines.

CRS/GDS companies like SABRE/Worldspan/Apollo, etc do it all the time now. ( I worked for SABRE as a developer for several years )United Airlines gives SABRE a fee for every lead they give them for customers that have flown into ski resorts. More money per lead if these folks have done it more than one year. If they flew someone besides United, then United sends them a coupon for X% off their next flight to said ski resort destination city.

And who else pays for this data? Why the ski resorts themselves! Look for the trend and if you appear to be an outdoorsy type then maybe Jeep will send you a coupon for a special deal from one of their dealers.

Re:Read the fine print for your savings and checki

[ms139us]

Banks make good money selling your financial information to "related buisnesses".

Sorry to burst your bubble. I work closely with dozens of banks and credit unions on this very topic. GLB inspires more neurotic fear in bankers than anything else I have seen in some time.

By the way, "related businness" means sharing information with other companies that must be there to support the bank, like disaster recovery companies, records archiving companies, etc.

Whether or not you believe it, "related businesses" simply cannot use your information for anything other than performing their service for the bank.

The closest a bank can get to profiting from your personal information is using it to offer services. A bank may notice that you have a high credit card balance and offer you a HELOC, it may notice that you have a high savings balance and offer its CDs, it may notice that your car loan is getting paid down and offer a pre-approved loan for a newer car, etc.

Other than that, your information is strictly off limits.

I took a quick look at Intuit's web site

[rifftide]

Here's a relevant portion of their personal account login page:

<noscript>
<a href="http://www.shop.intuit.com/;jsessionid=ULNOD HLNVG4HOCQIBMVR3KQKBAFSOF4K">
<img src="http://ct.intuit.com/cgi-bin/ctasp-server.cgi ?i=Wc2mzatwkBvfVzl3&i=igjdl2giGjlvwcMn&g=1" alt="Web Analytics" border=0>
</a>
</noscript>

This HTML is active if scripting is disabled in your browser. There's also a corresponding block of code within a SCRIPT tag that does the same thing when scripting is enabled. I would've included that, but I couldn't get it past the /. lameness filter.

What it does is ask the server for an image (JPEG or GIF). But this request actually triggers a CGI program on the server side, passing it a unique session identifier that was served in the original page. The CGI app on Intuit's side most likely relays the request to the tracking company's server for logging. Cute, huh?

Since I'm not a customer, I didn't go past the login page. But it would be interesting to examine the analytics code served up in the account management pages - perhaps they pass not only the session identifier, but form values as well. (The analytics script could be triggered after the user hits the submit button, for instance). This may have been the point Omniture's CEO was making when he said that he could get customer's SSNs and salary data if he wanted to. Hopefully, there is a negotiation between Intuit and the web analytics firm about what customer information will be tracked, and procedures in place to verify that the analytics portion of the HTML does not collect more information than agreed upon.

Maybe someone with an account at Intuit should take a closer look at the page sources to see what parameters are being passed to the analytics server while you're managing your money.

this is illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

Dissemination of your personal information without EXPLICIT voluntary consent is clearly against the law. I hope someone is smart enough and will sue the hell out of them.

Re:this is illegal

[smackmywhammy]

I must agree, if information has actually been disseminated. I work in a position that handles electronic IRS related data. They audit us at least once a year, and have no sense of humor or leniency in following strict privacy controls they require. They guard tax data closer than their teenage daughter's virginity. I can't imagine that such a breach has occurred and Intuit is still doing business.

Offtopic, but I gotta vent

[qengho]

I've never used Intuit's products, but I've hated them since the mid-90s when they made a corporate decision, under the leadership of Bill Campbell, to blow off their Mac user base. "Want new features? Use Windows." Punks. So I guess it's not really surprising that they're screwing over their current customer base like this.

For some reason Apple decided to put Campbell on its board of directors, despite his demonstrated inimicality (yes, that's a word). I own a fair amount of AAPL, and every year I mark my proxy to withhold my votes for that SOB. Sadly, he keeps getting re-elected. Oh well.

Thanks for listening.

Re:Offtopic, but I gotta vent

[King_TJ]

Well, it doesn't look to me like owners of the Mac edition of Quicken 2005 are too pleased with the product either.

They may be once again "supporting the Mac" with their products, but it's half-baked.

I've been a Quicken user for keeping track of my checking and credit card accts. for years, and I recently migrated over to my Mac from Windows. (Mainly because I figure Windows has too many security risks like spyware apps that might potentially be able to upload my Quicken data someplace.)

I'm disappointed with Q2005 on the Mac though. The whole U.I. just feels "cumbersome" to me. I understand their reasoning behind trying to stick with the Mac concept of keeping everything in separate windows - but for this app, it seems to just get in my way. I'm constantly having one of my account registers disappearing behind my web browser when I have it open, trying to cross-check some data between my bank's web site and Quicken. I far prefer the way all the account registers feel like they're locked inside the main Quicken screen on a Windows platform.

IRS Invasion of Privatization

[Doc Ruby]

The IRS is now outsourcing tax debt collection to regular collection corporations. Last time they piloted this program, it lost the government money. Imagine how much more this will lose, when some of our most confidential info gets "lost" into the blackhatsphere.

Re:It worked!!!

[symbolset]

The guy who recommended to Comcast that they stick with good, old reliable Windows NT4 for DNS service just joined the unemployment line. They'll be back up in a week or two.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Paper Filing Is Still Legal

[StupidKatz]

Then you're stupid.

Physical evidence is harder to 1. tamper with 2. copy, and 3. process, at least where #2 involves a handwritten, sealed letter.

Yawn!!!

[AstroDrabb]

This is total media hype. This whole thing is just about some cookies to track web usage. No big deal. I filed my taxes this year on-line with Intuit using Firefox (under Linux, even though TurboTax said I wasn't using a supported OS. I changed the UA to Firefox WinXP and TurboTax didn't complain again). Under my Firefox preferences, I set my cookie options to "ask me every time". This way, the first time a site/servername tries to set a cookie, Firefox prompts me and I can tell Firefox to "always accept" or "never accept". When I did my taxes with Intuit, I noticed non-turbo tax cookies trying to be set. I just told Firefoxt to "always deny" those cookies and to "always allow" the cookies from turbotax. I had no problems doing my taxes after that with TurboTax online.

Just use Firefox for all of your web browsing and most of your privacy issues will go away. In FF, just go into your preferences/options under security -> cookies and set that to "ask me everytime" and your good to go.

Re:Don't look here or you might learn something!

[fishbowl]

>Read the site and learn!

What tax protestor advocates like the one you linked to never mention, is that tax protestors NEVER WIN. It's great to believe you've found some loophole that relieves you of the obligation to pay taxes, but to follow thorogh without destroying your financial status or being indicted is another story.

Good luck with that. Unqualified success stories are few and far between among tax protestors. Those that do succeed, usually do so by appearing in forma pauperis at their bankruptcy hearing. (I.e., you offer to settle your tax bill by giving the IRS 100% of your current assets, which amount to an army surplus backpack, six dollars forty two cents cash, and a few miscellaneous bits of twine, plastic, and paper, twelve pounds of aluminum cans, and a grocery cart.)

Re:This is exactly why...

[fishbowl]

>I'm dead serious

Be careful. The information on that site is incomplete and clearly slanted to try to make the case from various angles that have been tried by tax protestors for years. They lose, because there are many more arguments, and more cogent and legally valid ones, than the "31" listed on your site.

> Show me where you think the law is

The law is in the Code of Federal Regulations, just like all other laws promulgated by Federal Agencies, with updates published in the Federal Register. This authority comes from Congress, which empowers them by delegating lawmaking authority to the agencies.

Don't stake your future or your assets on assumptions that come from this same, tired, *losing* tax protestor line.

Smokescreen and no substance? It has as much weight as anything else done under the authority of Congress. Don't like the tax status quo? Get organized on a national scale and elect representatives who believe as you do, and send them to DC. That, fortunately or unfortunately, is the solution.

Re:not totally on-topic but..

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.ecademix.com/JohannesHofmann/#flpsed/

Re:Legitimate

[maxpublic]

Companies, being fictional entities, don't have the capacity to give a shit. The people that run those companies do but choose not to, since they don't really give a damn whether you or live or die so long as they get a cut of your paycheck while you're still drawing breath.

Too many people blame faceless 'companies', 'corporations', or 'governments'. But let's remember: we're getting bent over and reamed by our neighbors. They're the ones fucking us over and fucking us up. Everyone who actively supports the organization that's screwing you is part of the problem whether they revel in it or willfully choose to ignore their complicity.

The ethics of the company, corporation or government is a reflection of its constituent members. If the organization acts maliciously it's because it's composed of malicious human beings - or at least a combination of the malicious and apathetic, and I'm not sure which of these two is morally more debased.

Max

Re:Read the fine print for your savings and checki

[BlueHands]

Your assuming that they got that info from the bank. All itmeans is that SOMEWHERE, something change that said to them you might be worth checking out. There are millions of bits of infomation that are tracked about you and even more if you have money and spend it. People watch people that spend money.

That's weird

[wiresquire]

from http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118991,00.h tml

Your tax information and data will be protected -- Privacy and Security concerns

* Tax return preparation is accomplished using proprietary software approved by the IRS; transmittal is through the established IRS e-file system.
* Each company must attain a third party privacy and security certification.
* Alliance companies must comply with all federal rules and regulations on taxpayer privacy for paying and free customers. These rules prohibit use of tax return data for purposes not specifically authorized by the taxpayer.
* The IRS monitors the progress of each of the companies. If any problems develop, the companies are required to alert the IRS. If appropriate, the IRS will remove the company from the IRS.gov site until the problem is resolved.
* For more information about IRS Privacy, please visit the IRS Privacy Policy.

I guess you need to read the fine print on what those company's can do with your info

Broad generalizations

[benhocking]

Would you say that all people who make broad generalizations are idiots? ;)