> 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.
I strongly suspect that it's not the $5m/yr these companies are spending that's doing it; there's basically three other camps who push (directly or indirectly) for this:
* Special-interest groups whose preferential tax treatment might be threatened if there's a push to simplify the tax code (as having the government do the taxes for you kind of requires the taxes be simpler to do so).
* Ideologues who hate government spending but don't think that tax cuts count as spending.
* Anti-tax crusaders who want to make filing taxes painful so there's more grassroots support for cutting taxes. (Think Grover Norquist here).
jcranmer|4 years ago
* Special-interest groups whose preferential tax treatment might be threatened if there's a push to simplify the tax code (as having the government do the taxes for you kind of requires the taxes be simpler to do so).
* Ideologues who hate government spending but don't think that tax cuts count as spending.
* Anti-tax crusaders who want to make filing taxes painful so there's more grassroots support for cutting taxes. (Think Grover Norquist here).
LanceH|4 years ago
jeltz|4 years ago