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u678u | 4 years ago

Its not the predatory companies that are the problem its the US tax system. If it was possible for people to "check the numbers from the government" on an app, it would happen here too.

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warricksothr|4 years ago

It absolutely is a problem of predatory companies spending money on lobbying against simpler tax code. An equal share of the blame is on the politicians accepting these “legal” bribes against the interests of their constituents.

Lobbyists were supposed to be for promoting the interests of small groups that might not have the representation among a politicians constituents to warrant paying attention to. Instead we have rampant and excessive spending by corporations that lobby to keep their monopolies over segments of the market that harm American citizens.

- https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/turbotax-h-r-block-sp... - https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre... - https://abcnews.go.com/Business/turbotax-lobbies-lawmakers-t...

u678u|4 years ago

> In 2016 alone, Intuit, the makers of TurboTax, spent $2 million on lobbying, ProPublica reports. H&R Block spent $3 million, some of it on the same efforts.

I'm not convinced $5m a year would make such a big impact.

jjoonathan|4 years ago

The companies spend an enormous amount of money lobbying to ensure that this sort of thing doesn't happen, so yeah, they're culpable.

viraptor|4 years ago

Of course it's possible. The government will charge you if you filled out the forms wrong, so they have a lot available - instead they could prefill a lot of the information.

mensetmanusman|4 years ago

It is somewhat known that these companies continue to lobby to keep it complicated enough to require their services.