I really don't get why people want to kill turbotax. I get the following:
1. the tax system in the US is broken
2. It needs to be simpler
...
3. kill turbotax???
For many people, such as myself, turbotax is doing exactly what most people want to kill it for... simplifying US taxes so I don't have to think about it.
Am I missing something? Do people just think oh, if turbotax dies, a free open source version of it is going to be as usable, consistent, bug free, and adopted? Or tax code itself is going to be as easy to use as turbo tax currently is?
I'd bet the cost of killing turbotax is probably greater than the entire net worth of turbotax as a company, with lifetime future revenues discounted to today, 10 times over.
TurboTax is preventing the government from offering a solution and I wouldn't be surprised if they promote complicating the tax code. It's incredibly common for companies to promote additional regulation to prevent competition.
ReadyReturn[1] was a 2005 California Tax prep program. It mailed you a prepopulated tax form. It was incredibly popular during the pilot program and TurboTax spent $1.7 million lobbying against it.
Most people don't have complicated taxes, but I find even collecting all the forms from employers and institutions and filling out the forms a pain. I'm confident it's the most error prone part. I honestly don't think capital gains or HSA complicate things all that much if you're automating things. I don't care how complicated the tax code is. I have personal opinions on what they should incentivize, but don't care how it's calculated. Most countries offer prefilled or tax software to cover basic needs.
1. the tax system in the US is broken 2. It needs to be simpler ... 3. kill turbotax???
For many people, such as myself, turbotax is doing exactly what most people want to kill it for... simplifying US taxes so I don't have to think about it.
Am I missing something? Do people just think oh, if turbotax dies, a free open source version of it is going to be as usable, consistent, bug free, and adopted? Or tax code itself is going to be as easy to use as turbo tax currently is?
I'd bet the cost of killing turbotax is probably greater than the entire net worth of turbotax as a company, with lifetime future revenues discounted to today, 10 times over.