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IRS successfully launches their own free Direct File - some of my fellow 'murcans are eligible
(sh.itjust.works)
For your simple[r] tax needs: https://directfile.irs.gov
Why did this take the IRS so long where other nations have been doing this for decades?
Turbotax, H&R Block, and the other tax companies are massively wealthy companies that actively lobby to push laws to keep them from being simple. There are states that they have managed to bar the same thing from happening in.
To clarify, TurboTax isn’t the company, it is Intuit. They are pretty shitty when it comes to lobbying congress on this.
They are also the de-facto place for large companies that need automated payroll. So some people (like me) get paid by the same crooks.
They are actually not the de facto for large company when it comes to payroll. I think the majority of their customers at company’s with less than 10 employees. I use to work for Intuit on the Quickbooks payroll product. I left about two years ago but I don’t think it’s changed that much.
Technically, it was a company that Intuit acquired in '94.
The other guy linked the answer, but I'm going to explain it anyway:
In the US, companies have the freedom to ~~bribe~~ lobby our congress members by giving them money that's totally unrelated to their vote you guys. The reasoning behind that being ok is that the congress official in question is still technically free to vote however they choose despite the money given to them. The reason lobbying works is the threat that the congress person might not get that money next time if they vote against that company's interests.
Just so you all know, because our congress members make a government salary of about 150k-250k/year, it's surprisingly cheap (from a rich company perspective) to lobby them, with lots of payments being in the low thousands. So for obscenely wealthy companies (like intuit), it's much cheaper to pay just enough guys off to kill a movement than for them to suffer the actual consequences of that movement.
In this case, intuit's entire business model depends on American taxes seeming like this mysterious and unapproachable thing that Americans have to pay a third party for in order to not get thrown in jail by the IRS. And given that intuit (and companies like H&R block) rake in billions each year, it's comparatively pennies to pay off congress officials to keep it that way.
-> 'Merica
Lobbyists - quite disgusting.
Legalized corruption 😎
Same reason why our Healthcare system is fucked, it being fucked helps the Insurance Companies make money.
Most nations don't require you to do anything other than check your payslips unless your situation is complex.
Ehh, in the Netherlands you need to report all bank accounts, home value, income from salary and contracts and a fuckton more.
It's all done via a web app made by the Tax Authority.
And nearly all of that is usually prefilled correctly to the euro by the Belastingdienst.
Hmmmm 🤔