Intuit, Maker of Turbotax, Lobbies Against Simplified Tax Filings

McGruber (1417641) writes "Return-free filing might allow tens of millions of Americans to file their taxes for free and in minutes. Under proposals authored by several federal lawmakers, it would be voluntary, using information the government already receives from banks and employers and that taxpayers could adjust. The concept has been endorsed by Presidents Obama and Reagan and is already a reality in some parts of Europe. Sounds great, except to Intuit, maker of Turbotax: last year, Intuit spent more than $2.6 million on lobbying, some of it to lobby on four bills related to the issue, federal lobbying records show."

Comments

Not even much money

[jcronen]

It's downright embarrassing how little money it even takes to buy the government. Intuit makes a couple billion dollars a year. The lobbying spend, $2.6 million, is about eight hours' worth of revenues.

Intuit is the Microsoft of tax software

[Dcnjoe60]

This is just one more thing Intuit does to hurt taxpayers. The biggest and craziest is that where you can e-file your federal return for around $5, most states charge $20, because Intuit sued them for unfair competition when states came out with online 2D barcoded returns. Intuit wasn't upset if a taxpayer filled out a regular PDF and mailed it in, but evidently since the 2D bar coded ones saved states revenue and they encouraged them, they felt it cut into their profits and sued. Evidently the courts agreed and now, you must pay extra to e-file a state return so Intuit can get their cut, even though you aren't using their software.

If people were smart, they would use one of the alternatives to Turbo-Tax, e-file their federal return and mail in their state return. That way, Intuit doesn't get a dime of unearned money.

As a citizen in Sweden

[Z00L00K]

I can file my taxes in two minutes on the Swedish version of the IRS on the web without the need of any special software unless you count a web browser as special.