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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."
How will they survive if we make taxes simpler! Just like all those ditch diggers if we gave them shovels instead of spoons.
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.
On the one hand, filing Return-free filing would be a nice option...on the other, I like that people have to take the time to notice how much money Uncle Sam is taking.
If you want to talk overall economic health, taxation does not really impact it since all those tax dollars just go strait back into the economy anyway.
As for 'every corner', this is actually rather important. When you focus all your tax burden on some particular metric it tends to skew who pays and who does not further and further. By spreading it around it starts to better represent actual movement of money in the economy rather then specific types of transactions.
but only to outsource technical and engineering jobs. Heaven forbid if we automate away accountants and bureaucracy. THEN technology is taking jobs away!
Mostly random stuff.
That's quite a trick! Seeing as Ronald Reagan has been dead for ten years, was a Ouija board involved?
Apparently, Ronald Reagan did endorse this idea in 1985. I stand...errr...sit corrected. Please ignore my initial comment. That is all.
From the 1985 speech:
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Here in Norway we have had this system for ten or more years. Super easy for most with just paychecks and a mortage. Highly recommended! And if you want or need you can still do it the old fashion way. Also highly recommended is checking your yearly totals agains the simplified report. Computers occasionally make a mess.
It would not be hard to make it clear to people how much "The Man" is taking.
You'd think so but I'm an accountant and I do our company payroll. You would be *amazed* at how seldom many people look at their paycheck, particularly if it is direct deposit. I get asked all the time how much vacation people have left even though it is printed right on our paystubs every two weeks.
That said, I'd have no problem in principle with some sort of reasonable (yeah I know...) automatic payment system. The devil is in the details and to do it you can't have too many special tax exemptions. (or the government has to know WAY more about you than you probably want them to) There is however a pretty substantial portion of the population that has very simple tax returns so why not automate it where it makes sense?
Not to make this political but I'm pretty sure the republicans would bitch about it being another government intrusion and the democrats would bitch about lost tax collector jobs or something else that misses the big picture so we'll keep doing things the same stupid way we have for the last 80 years even though it makes very little sense to anyone and costs a fortune in the process.
I can pay my taxes for free with a check mailed in, or pay $30-$90 to pay it electronically through a "clearing house" and Intuit also get's a cut.
got to Hell Intuit. Go straight to hell.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
a story I heard on NPR not too long ago. The head of the Government Printing Office was talking about how their headcount was less than half what it was 20 years ago due to heavier use of digital forms. She mentioned how few copies of the federal budget they print every year and so on.
All of this sounds great because she's helping to keep costs down while increasing the availability of government documents to he masses. Who would think that's a bad thing?
The paper industry. They had the head of an umbrella group for the paper and forestry groups who cautioned about moving too fast to go digital, how some people still liked paper forms and so on.
So the next time you hear someone say the government doesn't create jobs, ask them why private industry is up in arms every time the government tries to cut costs by not purchasing things. In this case, the literal tons of paper that used to be used to print government documents or, as in the case of Intuit, all the work they would no longer have to do if the tax filings were simplified.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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.
Depends... They're saying that poor people wouldn't get deductions and tax credits if they did this...
So... that's a credible point.
That said, if poor people did this then the form itself might get reformed enough to account for that without the complexity... perhaps by lowering the fucking taxes.
Most poor people don't have enough deductions to itemize them, so the deductions are a red herring. Tax credits could be an issue, but it doesn't sound insurmountable. In addition, poor people don't use Turbo Tax, so why is Intuit even bringing it up?
If you want to talk overall economic health, taxation does not really impact it since all those tax dollars just go strait back into the economy anyway.
Please remove this falsehood from your economic system. If you take productive money and piss it away on boondoggle projects instead of useful purposes then it's a complete loss for the economy. The entire premise of capitalism is that money that gets invested into useful purposes (production equipment, invention, entropy-reducing services) multiplies the value of that money over time. All spending is not created equal (so far from it)! Hanging fiber optics on poles and getting drunk are not equally beneficial!
it tends to skew who pays and who does not
Everybody pays. The producers add their tax burden to the cost of goods. The study from Harvard econ. sets the price of goods as 22% higher (average) than they would otherwise be without the income tax. When that single mother is buying a $3 loaf of bread for her kids' school lunch, more than fifty cents of that is going straight to pay the income taxes of the people in the supply chain. That's why it's the most regressive tax possible. People can only pretend that it's progressive if they completely ignore second order effects and beyond.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
So the next time you hear someone say the government doesn't create jobs
The government absolutely creates jobs. Lots of them. The government is something like 20-30% of the economy and a similar portion of the jobs. This is true for most of the governments on earth and it's actually not a bad thing. Remember that government jobs include things like the military, police, fire, teachers and the like which are all necessary and useful functions. Some amount of administration is useful too. Many important and necessary private businesses make their money contracting for necessary services to governments. Governments definitely create jobs and many of them are even worth creating.
The problem is that the government doesn't generally have a good way to prune back services that are no longer required and doesn't tend to be exposed to market forces forcing it to be efficient. It also means that those who are doing well with the status quo will try to keep it, even when that doesn't make economic sense.
I've spouted it a hundred times, here's #101:
Intuit's QuickBooks package is in desperate need of competition. It's thoroughly entrenched in the accounting industry such that the interface is nonsensically-antiquated. Yet, it's become one of those industry standards that Intuit refuses to modernize it or introduce any kind of improvements for fear it will alienate the armies of accountants that have been compelled to learn it.
If google were to launch a cloud-based bookkeeping app, this would be a tremendous benefit to small business owners worldwide.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
And god forbid they actually lose talking points by actually accomplishing something they've said they'd like to do.
What they want to do is stay in power. They'll change some things if they get the chance but that's a second order effect. What they really want to do is whatever will keep them in power and they will sell their soul to do it. They'll say whatever they think gives them the best chance to retain power and get re-elected but what they actually do is what shows you their real goals.
And if you happen to be a poor person, too bad for you.
You can get basically anything at Amazon. If it were nothing but toys, or even books, I'd be right with you, but you can get most of your household goods (cleaning products, paper goods) and many non-perishable foods. In fact they're my preferred vendor for most such items.
The problem with your tax form is that actually calculating the amount of income you had last year is actually pretty complicated for a pretty big portion of the population, particularly the wealthier folks. Seriously. 90% of the tax code not devoted to various tax exemptions is basically devoted to defining income. Why? Because it is not trivial or easy. There are countless corner cases and sources of income and financial instruments and other things to complicate what you income is. We could simplify the tax form quite a bit by eliminating most of the special tax exemptions but you will NEVER get a tax form as simple as the one you propose. It simply is not as easy as you make it sound.
It is "just playing the game." The question is, whose side are you on? Google in many cases has to lobby just to be allowed to do anything at all. Intuit in this case is lobbying to keep the tax system unintuitive.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Here is another example - Food Stamps (aka SNAP) and Agriculture policy. You might think food stamps exist to help the poor, but you'd be wrong. Food stamps are part of the AGRICULTURE spending bill, not the health and human services bill. The idea is to stimulate buying of "surplus" agricultural produce by subsidizing poor people who can't aford to buy it. But the dirty secret is that the agrculture policy of price supports both stimulates over-production for some crops and under-production for others while keeping prices high and making food LESS affordable for the poor. With food stamps the agribusinness interests can now sell the 'surplus' created by the price supports (government money) at artificially high prices to the poor (with government money), all the while with the political overhead cover of helping "family-farmers" and the "hungry children".
"If you take productive money and piss it away on boondoggle projects instead of useful purposes then it's a complete loss for the economy."
What about the most massive boondoggle project in history: World War II?
Massive increase in government spending, massing increase in government debt and massive increase in taxes all to build highly specialized equipment, ship it over seas and where it gets blown up.
The result: decades of economic growth and prosperity ending only with the rise of neo-Liberalism.
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
H. L. Mencken
You sound like someone who has access to hard data that shows a causative relationship between higher taxes and reduced economic performance. Please post your data; I'd love to see it.
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.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I propose we put Tax day right before Election day. That would make for some interesting changes.
No, I'm big on that too. It's just that "peaceably assembl[ing]" and "combining assets while being shielded from public scrutiny and any liability" are not (or at least, should not be) the same thing.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Yeah, pretty much the same here. You logon to their secure web portal, and fill all the forms online. For most people, everything is pre-filled, and you just have to OK it, which can even be done via SMS. Personally I have a more complicated setup involving income and accounts abroad + special tax exemptions, but even then I spend much less time than the Americans I know.
The fact that the taxes also include health insurance is also nice...
By the way, is it true that the US will tax a citizen living abroad based on a salary earned and spent abroad - i.e. if you moved to somewhere in the EU in your 20s, learned the language, got a job and basically setup your life here, you still have to pay US taxes on top of what you pay where you live, unless you renounce your citizenship?
The laws can be for sale, only to the extent that the lawmakers are selling!
Every special interest should be free to lobby. The real trick is electing representatives who understand that catering to a special interest is, by definition, detrimental to the general interest. (If something is in the general interest, it's by definition not a special interest.)
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
No reason this couldn't happen in the US but for this lobbying. The IRS already knows all your income/etc, and if you fill out the forms wrong they'll send you a letter telling you to fix it.
Please remove this falsehood from your economic system. If you take productive money and piss it away on boondoggle projects instead of useful purposes then it's a complete loss for the economy.
What about the economy of the contractors working on those projects of which you don't approve?
The entire premise of capitalism is that money that gets invested into useful purposes (production equipment, invention, entropy-reducing services) multiplies the value of that money over time.
And here I thought the premise of capitalism was private ownership of goods and interests.
All spending is not created equal (so far from it)! Hanging fiber optics on poles and getting drunk are not equally beneficial!
Absolutely correct. The fiber being hung on the pole only benefits the telecom company, whereas getting drunk contributes toward a global supply chain supporting farmers, brewers, and bartenders. That's what you meant, right?
Everybody pays.
Yes, everybody, including the government, contractors, single mothers, and you.
The broken-window fallacy is that government spending is somehow more effective than regular spending. You seem to understand that well enough, but it seems you've missed that the inverse is also true: Government spending is no less effective than "regular" spending. All spending is a transfer of wealth, and the only difference is where it's transferred to. When you're spending money, you get to decide. When the government's spending, the legislators decide.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
"If you take productive money and piss it away on boondoggle projects instead of useful purposes then it's a complete loss for the economy."
What about the most massive boondoggle project in history: World War II?
Massive increase in government spending, massing increase in government debt and massive increase in taxes all to build highly specialized equipment, ship it over seas and where it gets blown up.
The result: decades of economic growth and prosperity ending only with the rise of neo-Liberalism.
Stop it. You are making too much sense.
You forgot the bit about only certain countries having any factories left at the end of WWII...
Just to explain your modding into oblivion, lemme spell it out with you.
This is a flat tax. Everyone is taxed at 10%. (Yes, it's a percentage, and not, say $200 flat, but it's what it's called). It is not progressive (taxing the rich a higher percent) nor is it regressive (taxing the poor a higher percent). It's flat.
This has been shown to be a ludicrously bad idea. Not as bad as a regressive tax, but still pretty bad. It turns out that economies usually aren't fair and balanced and the gini coefficient isn't ever going to be zero. It's hard being poor. Consequently, it's easy being rich. Not only are they more powerful, they systematically control the game to favor themselves.
To offset that sort of imbalance, they are taxed in a progressive fashion that most of the world now employs.
Even the "fairtax" people don't want a flat tax.
10% of small income equals very small tax. What's the problem?
Because when your income is small, a small tax isn't so small. Indeed it's about the exactly the same proportion that the rich would pay.
Now, who would you say is more financially stable, you know typically: The rich, or the poor? Who can better withstand that sort of impact? Who is less likely to crumble and break due to the financial pressure of the taxation?
Sure, it's fair between the rich and poor, but only if you pretend the poor are just as powerful as the rich.
All those stocks traded in the secondary market? They create the market for IPOs. They establish the playing field for new businesses. When one sort of business gets high P/Es relative to the others, that sort of business is more likely to get new competitors.
Here's a better question - why not just a flat tax?
Taxes exist to fund the government, not for some social agenda (that we'll never agree on anyway). Tax all income, dividends, and capital gains at X%, and be done with it. You might be surprised how low X% is, when there are no loopholes.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Because the left absolutely disagrees with you on that. They absolutely believe that the main purpose of taxes is to drive a social agenda. Sadly, many on the right agree with them.