Congress Scraps Provision To Restrict IRS From Competing With TurboTax (propublica.org) 106
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ProPublica: Congressional leaders are planning to scrap a provision of an IRS reform bill making permanent the Free File deal between the government and private tax filing companies, torpedoing a long-sought goal by industry giant Intuit, the maker of TurboTax. The development, first reported by Politico Pro and confirmed to ProPublica by a House Republican staffer, comes two months after an outcry sparked by our story on the Free File provision in a bill called the Taxpayer First Act.
The bill, which has bipartisan support and contains a range of provisions including restrictions on the private debt collection of unpaid taxes, passed the House in April but stalled in the Senate. Under the Free File program, the industry promises to offer a no-fee option to most Americans and in return the IRS pledges not to develop its own free, online filing service. Such an IRS program would threaten the industry's profits. Only a small percentage of eligible Americans use the Free File options, and many are instead steered to paid products by the industry. The new bill, without the Free File provision, could be introduced today and voted on in the House as soon as next week, according to Politico. The Free File program will continue as before and will not be codified into law.
"The current deal expires in 2021," reports ProPublica. "The IRS said in May that it was launching an internal review of the program, following our stories on how Intuit, H&R Block and other companies deliberately hid their Free File editions from search engines, making it harder for taxpayers to find them."
The bill, which has bipartisan support and contains a range of provisions including restrictions on the private debt collection of unpaid taxes, passed the House in April but stalled in the Senate. Under the Free File program, the industry promises to offer a no-fee option to most Americans and in return the IRS pledges not to develop its own free, online filing service. Such an IRS program would threaten the industry's profits. Only a small percentage of eligible Americans use the Free File options, and many are instead steered to paid products by the industry. The new bill, without the Free File provision, could be introduced today and voted on in the House as soon as next week, according to Politico. The Free File program will continue as before and will not be codified into law.
"The current deal expires in 2021," reports ProPublica. "The IRS said in May that it was launching an internal review of the program, following our stories on how Intuit, H&R Block and other companies deliberately hid their Free File editions from search engines, making it harder for taxpayers to find them."
Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Congress scraps..." != "Congressional leaders are planning to scrap..."
Anything can happen to that bill between now and the end of the vote on it.
Re:Uh... (Score:5, Funny)
After some unexpected campaign donations the congress will let TurboTax take their cut from taxes.
Re:Uh... (Score:5, Informative)
You have to factor in the bribes and other forms of corruption that's rife in the USA.
Sometimes the cost of corruption gets too high. Sure, Intuit lobbyists made their campaign contributions, and Congress obliged by trying to sneak the sleaze into the fine print.
But then the press got wind of it, and raised a stink. Senators and representatives were named and called out. They got calls from angry constituents. The political cost started to climb. So the choice for Intuit became to either back off and let Congress pull the provision, or fork over a lot more money.
This was a clear victory for the free press. It was nice to see journalists actually doing their job for once.
If you want to vote against the slimebags who tried to push this through, here are the two main sponsors:
John Lewis, D-GA
Mike Kelly, R-PA
If you live in either Georgia or Pennsylvania, please vote for someone else.
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They accept BTC because it's been hijacked by banksters.
BCH is for the actual patriots.
BCH is handy for any task requiring maximal hamming distance between encoded group values.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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"Congress scraps..." != "Congressional leaders are planning to scrap..."
Anything can happen to that bill between now and the end of the vote on it.
Like TurboTax buying a suite of rooms at a Trump hotel for a month. Worked well enough for the Saudis.
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IT'S ABOUT TIME. (Score:2, Funny)
Although I'd argue they should have just bought Turbotax and replaced the IRS..
Re:IT'S ABOUT TIME. (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, except it's illegal for the IRS to do that. Until 2021. Which is not being renewed, that's what this story is about, the IRS being able to to implement that in 2 years.
And, the IRS already had all that data pre-digital. They got reams of paper.
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Of course pre-filled tax reports do not suite everyone. But in reality most people get monthly salary or pension and the party doing the payment, reports the sum to government and also the tax of is paid at same time. Similar automated system is in use on stock dividends and bank accounts with interest rate. After year passes, the government sums the income, calculates the needed tax and subtracts the already paid taxes from it and proposes the end result. And it also sends the form for citizen to fill or a
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Only In America (Score:3, Insightful)
Only in America would government services make access more difficult on purpose to fill the pockets of private corporations and corporations claim that government providing accessible services is anti-competitive, you Seppos are so full of shit, like WTF?!?
Re:Only In America (Score:5, Insightful)
If it does go down the way the article predicts (I'm skeptical), I think it's been handled very well. There was a need to be able to file taxes electronic, so rather than just jumping to the government providing everything, private enterprise was given a chance. But they fucked it up, so government service it is.
You're correct that it usually turns out like municipal broadband: private enterprise is so amazingly shit that it makes even the DMV look good, and when local governments try to step in the entrenched companies buy laws stopping them. But in this case, things are headed in a surprisingly reasonable direction.
Re: "Private" broadband is a government monopoly. (Score:2)
Correction, the government does not necessarily provide clean water. Mine for one example, does not come from a government entity. The water comes from a private well.
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Tyranny of the Majority
Warning: This catchphrase is typically used by people who wants to push a system of tyranny of the minority instead.
Is it a bug or a feature? (Score:1)
James Madison stated when advocating for creation of the Senate in the constitution:
Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.
My take is that this "opulent minority" is the root cause of the issues we see in the structure of the American government.
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Private companies DON'T do taxes. You are completely misunderstanding the situation.
Individuals can hire private companies to fill out their tax paperwork. That's it.
Lots of people hire these companies because the US tax code is an insane mess of incentives and exemptions (bribes and punishments) set up by politicians.
These companies, however, make a lot off of that complication - for many people, it's easy to hire the company and let them do the math. Most people, however, do their own taxes. I do my o
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Hired help (Score:4, Interesting)
Most people, however, do their own taxes.
The data says otherwise [homafiles.info]. Even those that do their own taxes, a huge percentage of them use private party developed software (usually Turbotax) to actually do the paperwork. I know very few people who fill it out by hand.
I do my own - I'm not afraid of math, and the IRS supplies all the rules in easy to read formats. But if I didn't want to spend a few hours every year, I could hire these companies to do it for me.
Your claim that the "IRS supplies all the rules in easy to read formats" is demonstrably bullshit. Easy to read? Evidently you haven't actually spent much time reading this bilge. Some of it is easy to read but a lot of it is nigh incomprehensible to anyone who doesn't work as a tax accountant. I'm a certified accountant and I hire a tax specialist to do taxes because it's pretty easy to fuck it up if you don't do it routinely. (I don't specialize in taxes) While you might not be "afraid of math", that definitely makes you an exception. And if your taxes only take you a few hours each year then you have a very simple tax situation.
Re:Only In America (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, only America. In Sweden most people get their tax returns completely filled out by the tax office. Most people just sign it (and there are plans to remove the signature if you simply accept the tax offices numbers).
I do my taxes in 5 minutes. If you sales a house, stock or have a company the process is a little bit more complex but all can be done on the tax office website.
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Don't you know that making something simple, easy and inexpensive is AGAINST CAPITALISM? Private corporations should be able to co-opt, collude and befuddle customers so they can swindle them to their hearts' content, and the government must never intervene because the government is the root of all evil.
(Can't believe I have to put a /s on this, but it's something the libertarians lately crawling out of the swamp to post on /. would say with a straight face.)
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Here in Norway pre-filled tax papers actually predate electronic delivery, we got that in 1999 and the first ability to deliver online in 2003. Silent acceptance was introduced in 2011. Employers are required to report income and collect taxes (or withhold 50% if you don't deliver a tax card), banks have to report balance and interest, there's a registry of who owns stocks and funds through buy/sells and the government has the property registry, DMV registry, marriage registry, registered children etc. so f
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Blame Reagan. He was on a kick to privatize Fed. Gov. functions. Once companies got wind of the idea, they never let the Republicans forget about it and new form of graft...and possibly grift, was born. The Republicans were only too happy to oblige. Then the Democrats got wind of the scheme and companies found they could be bipartisan in shaking down the taxpayers.
Not just in America... (Score:5, Interesting)
Only in America would government services make access more difficult on purpose to fill the pockets of private corporations and corporations claim that government providing accessible services is anti-competitive
"Only in America"? No. Plenty of other countries restrict government services to benefit private individuals, particularly in developing nations. India famously had their license raj [wikipedia.org]. China has lots of government owned corporations that effectively do the same thing. But yes America has a definite flair for doing it in a uniquely absurd and self defeating way.
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Only in America
I guess you don't get out much.
"Where I live, organized theft is simple." (Score:1)
At least Americans are reminded regularly of the importance of a limited government.
Re:"Where I live, organized theft is simple." (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: "Where I live, organized theft is simple." (Score:2, Informative)
Don't worry, the US pays more in taxes for healthcare than the UK does already, the private insurance and the copays are *in addition* to that not instead of it!
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very important, that 'limited' government is.. for the wealthy and corporate thieves that fleece the population, and their 'yes men' in washington.
Re: "Where I live, organized theft is simple." (Score:2)
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How much paperwork would there be in moving to not-the-USA?
WORST. SUMMARY. EVER! (Score:1)
My God! This is bad even for here. It reads like nonsense. Was this cut-paste from some GOP staffer's PR? It is that bad.
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editors subject line should be revised (Score:4, Insightful)
Congress Scraps Provision != Congressional leaders are planning to scrap a provision.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Another backwards system (Score:1)
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Not especially.
Fact is that for 95% or so of taxpayers, current IRS freefile is more than adequate - his income, her income, Standard Deduction, maybe a mortgage deduction that is larger than Standard Deduction, and done.
The only time you really need something like Turbotax is if you've got something more complicated than that, or you're lazy (the main reason I used Turbo
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These are still done by private companies, who still use ads to make it "free" or try to trick you into paying for "optional upgrades" through misleading statements. I mean, you can use Turbotax to freefile, buy you should look at the percentage of people they convert to the paid version in the recent year, primarily though misleading UX. Like, people arrive from the freefile, and are told they still have to pay $100 (or find the button hidden to really freefil
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If that were the case, Congress would never have signed that last tax giveaway. Now we have $1 Trillion deficits as far as the eye can see. Oh, I forgot, the promise was that the tax giveaway would pay for itself. Anyone who believed that had their eyes tied behind their backs.
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Yes, although at least unlike health care the costs don't bankrupt people and you're not going to literally die. Basically, all the companies offered to make a free version of their software to people making under $66,0000/year if the government kept the IRS from making it's own software. (I don't know why the income limit was there). Which means the government refers people to those companies. Each of those companies then tries to hide the free version, even on the free version webpage, and trick a sub
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So, most people end up losing $160/year for unnecessary tax prep. It sucks.
So it's a stealth tax tax?
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No, my taxes pay for government services for me and my fellow citizens. This is a stealth tax fee which enriches TurboTax and H&R Block shareholders.
Not as clever wording, but it's an important distinction.
Does the IRS have to be correct? (Score:1)
If they do the tax filings?
Because we all know that the tax code can't be understood by any mere mortal. The "god" that is government can never be held accountable, right?
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In all likelihood, the question is going to be more complex. Were you hiding assets from the IRS? You committed a crime. Did the IRS form add things up wrong? You probably owe/get the difference. Did the IRS make a bad decision? They probably never notice, but if they do you'll just get/owe the difference. There's probably an affirmative-ish obligation to check what the IRS sends you.
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In the current progressive tax system, the working poor would be least likely to be able to pay their tax liability because of the cost of necessities, such as food, clothing, shelter, and medication. To which country or countries would you deport all the poor people in the United States?
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That came out wrong. Let me try again, spending more time on preview:
The current progressive tax system charges the working poor less in order to subsidize their purchase of necessities required by nature, such as food and medication, and necessities required by law, such as clothing to avoid indecent exposure and shelter to avoid violations of sit/lie ordinances. In your proposed system, the working poor would be least likely to be able to afford necessities. To which country or countries would you deport
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Um, what? (Score:2)
That summary had so many double negatives that I'm dizzy.
I may have to scrap not doing whatever I was going to not do. Or something.
Just nullify the "deal" (Score:2)
I would approach this differently - OK, tax software companies, apparently you really DON'T agree with the deal we made, since you are trying to get out of / hiding / Free File.
So! No more Free File requirement. There you go - happy now?
IRS - create and provide your own tax software, for free, to all Americans.
See? Problem solved!
Death & Taxes (Score:2)
Intuit is fighting to preserve monopoly (Score:1)