Imagine paying to file taxes, lmao
Land of the fee™
for some perspective:
canada’s federal tax website lists all of the free services that you can utilize, and they even include NetFile so you don’t have to upload or submit any of your docuements.
i hear we’re looking for new provinces…
your political system is already based on legalized bribery and this is where you draw the line? lmao. Lobbying has destroyed america for a century.
Amen
Anyone else starting to think since Trump likes Putin maybe he too would like to gather all of the nations wealth for himself and his leeches. Seems like they’ll get all the money and kick backs and business and we’re left with even less, causing us to work more and get less.
That’s entirely the point of all those tariffs. Raise taxes on everybody without calling it that.
Then stop accepting wealth in your country. You accumulate the capital of the whole world inside your country and then expect them to be there for any other reason than to control the policy there?
Make it make sense
is there a fact check on this? seems wild to me. wonder what the maga cult defense is on this one.
Intuit has been doing this for a long time, just in case anyone was wondering why $1 million seems like a low bribe. And it goes beyond preventing you from filing your taxes for free, with one of their goals being to make it as much of a pain in the ass as possible, so you are too frustrated to do it yourself.
This if from a 2019 Pro Publica article:
But the success of TurboTax rests on a shaky foundation, one that could collapse overnight if the U.S. government did what most wealthy countries did long ago and made tax filing simple and free for most citizens.
For more than 20 years, Intuit has waged a sophisticated, sometimes covert war to prevent the government from doing just that, according to internal company and IRS documents and interviews with insiders. The company unleashed a battalion of lobbyists and hired top officials from the agency that regulates it. From the beginning, Intuit recognized that its success depended on two parallel missions: stoking innovation in Silicon Valley while stifling it in Washington. Indeed, employees ruefully joke that the company’s motto should actually be “compromise without integrity.”
Internal presentations lay out company tactics for fighting “encroachment,” Intuit’s catchall term for any government initiative to make filing taxes easier — such as creating a free government filing system or pre-filling people’s returns with payroll or other data the IRS already has. “For a decade proposals have sought to create IRS tax software or a ReturnFree Tax System; All were stopped,” reads a confidential 2007 PowerPoint presentation from an Intuit board of directors meeting. The company’s 2014-15 plan included manufacturing “3rd-party grass roots” support. “Buy ads for op-eds/editorials/stories in African American and Latino media,” one internal PowerPoint slide states.
It’s a little late now, but don’t forget that FreeTaxUSA is free for federal and cheap for state. Also much less annoying to use than Intuit TurboTax. They don’t do those fake loading animations like “checking the best deal!” As if a computer can’t do like a billion of those a second.
MyFreeTaxes.org has been what I’ve used. Sponsored by United Way and EzPz. Only catch is that it only works up to a certain income level, but free state and federal filing as long as you’re under the threshold.
If I had to guess, this is a holdover from the 90s where people didn’t trust a quick calculation, and probably doubted the application was properly choosing the standard or itemized deductions.
wait you guys have to pay to file taxes???
do they actually want you to evade taxes??
No. You can file your taxes for free. And, if you ever pay to file your taxes, you’re not paying the government, you’re paying for tax preparation software or for a tax professional to do your taxes for you.
But! Even if your tax situation is very simple, filing your taxes on your own is difficult. In Europe, the government sends you a form with what they think you owe based on all the information they have on you. If you agree with the calculation, you just send the form back and either pay or receive a refund.
In the US your employer gives you some sheets of paper with some values on it. Your bank gives you some different forms. And so-on. When it’s tax time, you gather up all that paper, hope you have it all, try to remember what forms you need and if you have them, and then painstakingly try to copy the right values from the W-2, 1099-INT, and so on into the right boxes on form 1040, 1040 Schedule 1, 1040 Schedule 2, 1040 Schedule H, 1095-A, and so on. Then, you try to do the calculations where it says to multiply the value from 1040 row 43 by the correct value in table A9. A9 has different values depending on how many dependants you have, and if you’re filing jointly or alone.
Basically, it’s doable on your own, especially if you have a fairly standard / simple tax situation. But, it’s easy to make a mistake along the way. If you ever need an explanation about what you’re supposed to do, that information exists, but it’s in accountanteze, and it often refers to about 5 other IRS publications that just complicate things further. And, when you’re dealing with thousands of dollars, a mistake could be really costly. So, most people buy a copy of TurboTax every year for $30, which somehow turns into $60 by the time you’re actually ready to file because the $30 version only covers people in situation X, and since you have Y you need to upgrade.
TurboTax then takes $1 out of the $60 you paid them, and goes to Washington with that to lobby politicians to keep the tax code complicated so that people need to buy a new TurboTax every year. (Oh yeah, and things change just enough that every year you need to buy the latest software to file your taxes.)
The tax system is so complicated, most people can’t handle navigating it on their own. Most people have jobs where taxes are automatically removed from pay checks and sent to both state and federal tax agencies. However, that amount is just an estimate and once a year (or quarter) you need to file paperwork to confirm whether you over or underpaid and then you either get a rebate (without interest), or you’ll need to send in a payment to make up the difference. That paperwork has been lobbied to remain as complicated as possible so that companies like Intuit can provide services that tax payers find useful and continue to pay for. This is more complicated for business owners, both big and small.
Well, in my opinion this will be a good platform for American progressives to run on: make taxes less complicated by getting rid of middle men.
This will absolutely 10000% never happen as long as lobbying exists in my opinion.
There is nothing wrong with lobbying…. There are lobbies for woman’s rights, black rights, all sorts of good causes have lobbies.
The politicians just bend over for corporate lobbies. Very important distinction. I think what would fit your argument better is will never happen as long as citizens United exists.
Any paid lobbying is bribery. Legislators should raise people’s opinion who voted them in and act as representative, not say what others pay them to say.
I can’t believe it is legal in so many countries. Apparently though it seems more problematic in the US but European countries aren’t immune either.
When we were legalizing cannabis in Maine the local growers had to form a lobby to fight against the out of state corporate growers who also had a powerful lobby. Banning lobbying doesn’t help it just takes away peoples voices. Lobbying is just a group of people pooling resources to enact common legislation or political goals. It’s an important part of the political process people neglect. and it’s been diluted by money. Don’t need to dilute it further with misinformation.
and it’s been diluted by money
That’s why they said “any paid lobbying is bribery”. While anyone can sign a petition to your representative and that’s technically also lobbying, what we’re talking about here is not that. In a democracy, every person gets their voice heard. With lobbying, only the dollar speaks.
I mean someone has to pay the lobbiests. The National Organization for women pays lawyers to write laws for them to present to congress, through lobbiests who are also paid. You want feminist groups who are allowed to write feminist laws and present them to congress right? You want someone to advocate for laws you want right? That’s lobbying?
Citizens united is what you guys are thinking of. The one where corporations can donate infinite money to politicians? So when a corporate lobby brings anti-feminist legislation, they then contribute lots of money to the politician they are lobbying. And magically the politican ignores their voters and sides with the anti-feminist pro corporate law. That’s citizens united. It’s not a problem with lobbying. You have a problem with corporate lobbys not womans rights lobbys right? You have a problem with your representatives favoring corporate lobbys because they get infinite money throught… DRUM ROLL… Citizens united.
I really hope this helps.
There needs to be more citizen lobbying. What really needs to happen is citizens organizing, pooling their money, and hiring lobbyists, just like big corporations do.
A look at the Forbes Fortune500 should point out why that’s basically impossible.
Just looking at the top one, Walmart, not even considering anyone else on this list, their raw profit in 2024 after all expenses and payrolls and everything was
$15,511,000,000.00
Amazon in the #2 spot made almost double that. Remember this isn’t revenue, this is profit, this is extra money after all normal expenses are paid.
If I pulled together every single person I’ve ever met in my life, regardless of their opinion of me, and we all donated all the money we had ever made in our lives, we might approach a tenth of Walmart’s 2024 profits.
The wealth inequality gap in America is large enough that it is actually difficult to wrap your head around. The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is about a billion dollars - to be exact, you’ll need 999 million more dollars to reach it after you have your first million in the bank. Fighting corporate money with citizens’ money is not only wasteful but impossible.
Now much of that money do they spend on lobbyists?
You and I will never know, but it could be up to that amount without even impacting daily activities.
Working within a corrupt system often serves to more deeply entrench that system.
I mean, yes, because if they catch you evading taxes then they get a free slave for the term of your incarceration. To them it’s a win-win.
oh shit yeah, theres that too.
beacon of democracy.
No they just want us to do our part by both paying taxes to the government and paying corporations that pay the government. All makes sense in a tidy corporofascisit system.
Oh good I’m not the only one who doesn’t understand.
Yeah I figured the Canadian system we have was as bad as the US’s but apparently not. Having to pay to file is wild
No, and no. It is typically more convenient to pay to file taxes though. These companies hand hold you through the process and often have some protection for you if you get audited.
That said, this still means the government needs to make things easier for everyone. You shouldn’t feel like you need help to just file a standard tax return if all you do is have a regular job, no investments, and no deductions. Which is something like half of the US.
Imagine having to pay to give the government money. I had to open this to confirm what I was reading.
A million dollars is all it takes to buy whatever laws you want? That’s a really good deal for Intuit.
Remember all those (exactly) 1 million dollar “donations” all those CEOs were giving to Trump’s inaugural campaign? Those weren’t donations, they were bribes and kissing of the ring. Pledge loyalty (and pay a small fee) and the government will work for you.
Except if you’re Google or Facebook. Trump will accept your money and still fuck you over. Why anyone trusts him is beyond me.
They don’t trust him, but they don’t want to get on his bad side. They’re basically hoping that he’ll ignore them or forget about them, and focus his attention on his other enemies.
Politicians are cheap, I remember once seeing a list of how much a lobbyist buys support from politicians for and the list was like $5k $2k $3k $6k. It’s ridiculous
It’s much more complicated than that though. The lobbying firms hire people who are former politicians or former senior staffers who have all kinds of contacts all over Washington. Getting those guys on the payroll is extremely expensive.
Then, those lobbyists generally don’t just go off and bribe someone. They build and strengthen relationships. They know all the pain points that the politicians have, and they just make things easier. If a politician’s staffer is having trouble finding a good place to live in DC, the lobbyist knows a guy who knows a guy who can get them a great apartment.
Eventually, the lobbyist isn’t this guy who tries to get the politician to change some laws. He’s basically part of the team. So, when new legislation comes up, the whole team works on it together, including the lobbyist.
The end result is that the $5k or whatever is only the direct contribution to the politician’s re-election campaign or something. Most of the spending is hiring the lobbyist and paying all his/her various expenses that make them indispensable for the politician, so that they can step in at the right time.
That’s affordable. Maybe I’ll buy one
Now you need to save it for your tax filing fees
Fuck Intuit!
1 million to make filing taxes annoying af, well I’m not filing anything again
Million dollar is practically nothing for this kind of company, they will net billions from this.
Even their corruption is incompetent.
Historically senators and representatives side with companies who’ve only given them thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in contributions. It’s very cheap to buy a vote.
Though often there’s also the understanding that a career spent supporting them will be rewarded with a cushy, high-paying lobbying job once they leave politics. Or paid speaking gigs if you’re the President.
It’s not incompetent to give someone a penny and have them give you back $100. That’s a great investment. So I would have to say their corruption is very confident if they can give a million dollar bribe and get back a billion dollars of revenue.
I meant that the administration (i.e. Trump) is incompetent for selling the country for pennies.
Art of the deal baby
I think they mean the government corruption. How cheap it is to buy votes. You can buy a Supreme Court justice with an RV.
deleted by creator
Unfortunately, the tool WealthSimple provides used to be called SimpleTax. It was made by a team in Vancouver and operated as donationware. You could file your taxes then choose however much you wanted to donate to them for the tool. They promised that they’d never sell your data, and never charge for the tool.
But… then they sold out to WealthSimple, who of course removed that promise to never sell your data.
And if you’re in France, don’t use TurboTax, use the official government website that calculates everything for you reliably every year :o
With the nice simulator mode so you can run the numbers and see how much you need to budget for well beforehand.
deleted by creator
every time this comes up i am flabbergasted.
this year was my most complicated tax filing yet since i was involved in a bankruptcy, switched jobs, bought a house, contracted work on the house which was eligible for tax credit, and got an inheritance within the span of a few months. it took me almost 20 minutes to do, which was basically only because the tax agency don’t package their various calculators in the pre-filled form and i had to double-check the credit thing.
it drives me mental, then i hear about “tax month” and i feel it could be worse.
This might be way too personal but did you declare bankruptcy because you were expecting the inheritance? Pretty smart. If your debt was high that’s like free money. It seems this has to be the case if you filed for bankruptcy and then bought a house. Most people who don’t have to file bankruptcy will never afford a house.
no, the company i worked at went bankrupt.
Oh ok that makes far more sense, thanks.
I spent the entirety of apr 15th making fun of my friends for not doing their taxes in feblueberry.
Next year we’re going to be making fun of the people who paid taxes
Pissed I didn’t sign up for a W-4 this year. They’re already taking my money and I’m gonna have to file just in case I get a refund. But next year I’m evading so fucking hard.
