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[-] TheThrillOfTime@lemmy.ml 58 points 3 months ago

A million dollars is all it takes to buy whatever laws you want? That's a really good deal for Intuit.

[-] LemmyFeed@lemmy.dbzer0.com 28 points 3 months ago

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.

[-] bamboo 11 points 3 months ago

Except if you're Google or Facebook. Trump will accept your money and still fuck you over. Why anyone trusts him is beyond me.

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[-] endeavor@sopuli.xyz 54 points 3 months ago

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.

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[-] jared@mander.xyz 47 points 3 months ago

Fuck Intuit!

[-] JackbyDev@programming.dev 46 points 3 months ago

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.

[-] bamboo 14 points 3 months ago

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.

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[-] Doctor_Satan@lemm.ee 40 points 3 months ago

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.

[-] TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.zip 38 points 3 months ago

Imagine paying to file taxes, lmao

[-] rippermonty@feddit.uk 36 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

That's called bribery in my country. It's disgusting and very prevalent here but at least we don't embellish the idea with polite terminology 😂

[-] callyral@pawb.social 31 points 3 months ago

There's... there's a tax on taxes??

[-] Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 3 months ago

They might call it something like a convenience fee.

[-] Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz 24 points 3 months ago

Million dollar is practically nothing for this kind of company, they will net billions from this.

Even their corruption is incompetent.

[-] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago

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.

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[-] RealisticDoughnut@lemmy.ml 19 points 3 months ago

I'll stick to FreeTaxUsa even if they charge me. Fuck Intuit.

[-] Lumidaub@feddit.org 14 points 3 months ago

Wait sorry what? Non-USian here, bear with me.

What does "program" mean here? Why is this program necessary to file your taxes for free? Do you guys have PAY to file your taxes if you don't use/apply/qualify for that program?? Am I misunderstanding what it means to "file" taxes? It's been a while since I was this confused by a US thing.

[-] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 26 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

US tax code is (deliberately) complicated and unlike other countries, you need to manually fill out the forms with your financial data even though the government already knows it and what you owe (minus exemptions that the vast majority of citizens won't claim). This is because there is a major industry around tax preparation, and the big names (such as Intuit) have aggressively lobbied for decades to keep the process as complicated and inconvenient as possible so that people are forced to pay them to fill out their tax forms. This lobbying has also resulted in the legally mandated free filing options being buried and hard to find, with many people not even knowing they exist.

Tax prep is a huge scam with many billions of dollars behind it. Weather providers are probably going to be next in the news, since they've been trying to kill the free government-run forecasts and force people onto their paid platforms for just as long.

[-] MutilationWave@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Free Tax USA is easy to use and free for federal, $15 for state. I used it last time. This time I filed for an extension because the IRS might be so gutted by October I won't even have to pay. And I owe a lot because I was a contractor for most of 2024.

Normally I have no problem paying taxes but this time it's different.

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[-] Wanpieserino@lemm.ee 11 points 3 months ago

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

[-] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 3 months ago

Thankfully genocide joe opened up free taxes to everybody and put those leeches out of business!

\s

[-] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 3 months ago

It is funny that it's only an issue in Lemmy that Trump is doing it. Meanwhile the IRS has been stuck doing this for decades because of corporate lobbying from Intuit.

This as much of a regression to about 2023. When America was already behind on tax filing since the 1980s compared to every other country. Even the "shithole" nations Trump hates have had better tax systems for their citizens.

[-] LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee 10 points 3 months ago

Put every manager of TurboTax in prison as a traitor.

[-] turnip@lemm.ee 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Or just put a cap on donations and block corporate donations?

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[-] rayyy@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

The rich pay what they want while the workers must pay what the rich want.

[-] yournamehere@lemm.ee 8 points 3 months ago

i see people are greedy and dumb so they vote one of two parties and pretend it is a democracy? nancy pelosi will rule longer than the elisabeth IV. i fear. did any human order airstrikes in more countries you are not at war with than obama? both parties are nationalistic and selfish like their voters. and thats why it is doomed to fail. both parties cam be seen as collapsed. republicans are taken hostage by maga and dems so crooked they should stop calling themselves democrats.

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[-] lime@feddit.nu 8 points 3 months ago

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.

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this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2025
1962 points (100.0% liked)

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