Taxes
by Tom Temple
Apr 16, 12:26 PM
So I went to do my taxes yesterday—online, of course—easier for me, easier for the government, more accurate, faster return. So I went with TurboTax. Although I would have loved to access the pages that defined the fucking terminology, those cost money. So I avoided those. I made it all the way to my 1099 (for consulting) at which point it said that I needed to fork over $30 to continue. Since I wasn’t about to pay that fee, I had to either punt a 30min investment or lie and file that income as something else. Looking at TurboTax’s competitors doesn’t make me feel any better. I’m going to head down to the post office and do the thing by mail. I am not pleased by this development.
Why the hell doesn’t the IRS have their own site? The only reasons I can think of are dirty, i.e., that some fraction of those fees are going to the IRS but they are going as bribes.
Apr 16, 04:54 PM
I had no problem doing 1099s through Turbo Tax. My whole return (including two states) e-filed free, but i had to access it through the IRS website to get that service.
Were you filing TT Analytics on Schedule C, or just reporting Miscellaneous Income?
Apr 16, 09:35 PM
The IRS doesn’t have it’s own site because TurboTax and Co threatened to throw a fit if they made their own site. It’s unbecoming for the government to compete with private companies. The compromise promised free federal e-File for people who make less than $30,000, or something like that. Many companies, including TurboTax, make it difficult to claim this special exemption. Last year I accidentally clicked on a NH return button, and got threatened with a $20 charge for a trivial application (NH has no income tax). I had to email support to get rid of the charge. This year they wanted $15 to import my address information from last year, it seemed.
Obviously the IRS could have a website that exactly replicated their paper forms (made it could even avoid doing the basic arithmetic for you), and then it wouldn’t be competing with online tax preparers anymore than they already compete with legacy (paper) tax preparers.
Apr 16, 09:54 PM
I got all the help I wanted by doing the “try it free, pay when you file” super deluxe $80 version and then just doing it on paper myself.
Also, that government “competing” with Intuit is not what I propose at all. I think we agree in fact. If Intuit wants to help people who can’t fill out the forms themselves, they can charge for the service. But as it stands now, i.e., requiring a middleman for the data transfer itself, it is a rent.