Making your income tax return yourself!?!?!

[N1tro199]

Hey guys, 

 

A while ago linus mentioned on the wan show that making your income tax return yourself was a bad idea and talked about the software companies being some kind of monopoly. 

 

Any of you know what he was talking about? 

[starsmine]

9 minutes ago, N1tro199 said:

Hey guys, 

 

A while ago linus mentioned on the wan show that making your income tax return yourself was a bad idea and talked about the software companies being some kind of monopoly. 

 

Any of you know what he was talking about? 

Its only a bad idea depending on how complex it is, for the majority of Americans who take the standard deduction, its just fine. when you are able to itemize past that is when it gets complicated. Contract workers also have complications.

Yes, Intuit is an effective monopoly on tax software and does a number of shady things like MASSIVE ammounts of monitary lobbying to prevent the simplification of doing taxes and even though they are legally required to offer a free version, making it near impossible to find but not having a link to it, and taking out all SEO to make it impossible to find with a search engine.

I assume he was talking about american taxes here, even though he is Canadian because of your comment on the monopoly and complexity.

[N1tro199]

Thanks alot. Makes sense, I was wondering since this is our (canadian) time of the year and I've been making it myself for the last couple years. I'm sure there might be accountants that make it better that I can but considering the price and how simple my situation is (full time worker with no kids).

 

It intrigued me alot when he said that and didn't elaborate. 

 

A gains thanks for the help

[Andreas Lilja]

Personally have them done with an accountant which does this as a side hustle. It's like $70 CAD and I'm lazy.

[Ja Krispie]

I just have basic W2 returns. I've been using the free version of HR Block for years. If it was more complex then yeah it would make more sense to use an accountant.

[TetraSky]

I got nothing more to declare other than wage and capital gains from dividends. Most/all of which can be imported straight from the CRA to whatever free tax filling platform you use in Canada (auto-fill) and I just need to double check the numbers to see if they match the paper copies I have. (they often don't, they might be missing the provincial taxes on them and if you don't check, you may now suddenly "owe" money to the gov when you actually don't). Quite easy.

Dunno if the US has something similar.

 

But as far as a monopoly goes... While Intuit does own a few tax filling companies, they are not the only game in town. Unless they also control UFile behind the scenes. And H&R and...

[Lurick]

The fact that these companies (H&R, Intuit, etc) lobby hard to make tax filing as complex as possible is the issue. There are free versions for now but they're lobbying to get rid of those requirements as (iirc) they are currently required to offer the free option for simple returns. There have been instances even recently where one or multiple companies have been found to be hiding or making it as difficult as possible to locate the free option.

 

The government knows all about my reported income and stock sales, home taxes, etc. since all of that is already required to be reported to the IRS and they should be able to send me a form with all this already filled out and I add only deductions if needed that aren't reported and send it back, it SHOULD be that simple. The entire tax industry lobbies against making it as simple as possible for most people to file is the issue.

[airborne spoon]

I've been filing my own taxes since i was 16 its not hard, and now that TurboTax is around and free (at least I've never paid for it) its easier than ever. I used to do it on paper by getting the forms and tax book from the post office and have to read the tax manual while filling it out. If a kid in high school can do the taxes easily anyone can do it easily.

 

Also for people that say the government can do our taxes for us yes they can but it will be wrong. A lot of people yes they do a standard deduction and call it a day. but everyone that has special circumstances or additional deductions the gov doesn't know about those and your return will be wrong if they did it. Like this last year i got an extra $900 back on my return for school supplies and a few other random things.

[wasab]

How owns and runs a bussiness so of course it would be a bad idea for him. For regular people who does not own a home, does not own bussiness, gets income from wages and maybe some token capital gains, prepare your own taxes is the way to do. 

[Donut417]

On 2/25/2023 at 5:22 PM, N1tro199 said:

Any of you know what he was talking about? 

People like Linus who own business and such generally have more complicated taxes than a person like me. 

 

For me it's simple. I provide Turbo Tax with my info on my W2, Provide info for my student loans and thats about it.