Originally published at: Intuit TurboTax gives up any pretense of 'free' tax filing | Boing Boing
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That’s fine. Then we can ignore the lobbying from Intuit and have the IRS just send everyone their estimated tax bill instead of requiring us to figure it out ourselves.
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Except I think Intuit will continue to lobby to keep that from happening, and the politicians will keep gobbling up the lobby lucre, because it’s the proven method of making sure laws are enacted that favor you and yours.
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I wonder if this means Free Fillable Forms (powered by Intuit, IIRC) also go on the chopping block? They’re a bit of a PITA to use (probably by design, so that we’d pay to use the easier TurboTax UI) but, having used them twice, I think filling out the paper forms might be less of a PITA.
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I would’ve gone with
or
but whatever
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Inuit wants every American to be free to pay Intuit for services they could easily perform on their own.
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This past year I grudgingly returned to Intuit because HR Block dipped out of free file (and I had been using HR Block because a few years ago the ‘free’ Intuit totally scammed me and held the returns I’d spent hours putting together for ransom unless I ponied up). Looks like next year I get to switch over to yet another service, and no longer get to carry over info from last year.
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Bait and switch seems to be perfectly legal, and pretty succesful for Intuit - I wonder why they’re changing to something more honest?
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Freetaxusa guys.
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further reading: Open-source-software movement - Wikipedia
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Intuit tightened up their security a bit last year, and went overboard with it. When I went back in to do my second return, it wanted me to reinstall it, on the same laptop, with the original code again.
Like a dope, I downloaded it, installed it, and entered the code before assuming I wouldn’t need it again. I wasn’t going to put it on a different device or anything, and I wasn’t going to uninstall until I was done for the season (I did two other returns this year for friends).
Their forums were full of this complaint, with no answers from Intuit. I spent more time arguing with them online and on the phone than I spent doing 3 sets of taxes.
In the end, they refused to help, and it was only by accident that I came across the Digital Purchases page of Amazon, which kept the code visible. Not the page where your orders are displayed, a special page for Digital orders. I also noticed it was keeping the codes there for a couple of cheapie video games I had bought.
And no, Intuit didn’t consider the digital receipt from Amazon valid as a proof of purchase of their product.
What a hassle!
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I’ve been using Free File Fillable Forms for many years and I really hope they don’t go away. They are a bit like filling in a paper form, with the only real advantages being that they will do most of the math and (of course) file electronically. My tax liability is always exactly zero so I have no motivation whatsoever to pay for electronic filing unless it’s cheaper than mailing paper forms. It will take more advance planning, especially with Louis DeJoy’s USPS, but I will definitely go back to paper if all the free e-file options dry up.
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I’ve discovered that even though I have been living overseas for decades, have no assets in US banks or on US territory, I still have to file US income tax by reason of having US citizenship. No, I don’t owe anything thanks to foreign tax credit and such, but when I went to get the forms I was amazed at how complex they make it. And how the cheapest offer to file was USD $400 per year.
I’d rather go through the pain of filling the paperwork out and dropping it off at the consulate, you vultures.
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Same here as an expat in Japan. I decided to go ahead and do it for the stimmy, but because you have to do three years (plus six years of FBAR, ugh) to be forgiven for all the previous years you didn’t file, I spent about half of the stimmy just on filing…
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The Free video ‘needs more claves’ (or perhaps cowbells)
“Hear me calling, Won’t you give me, A free ride?”
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