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The United States' tax-filing software industry actively prevents search engines from discovering their free-filing versions, it has been discovered, adding further criticism to an industry that drives Americans toward unnecessary paid-for products.
Internet users, incensed at efforts by the tax filing software market to legally lock-in their business model, have been digging into the actions of Intuit and competitors including H&R Block and discovered that the webpages for their free tax filing software has code to stop search engines like Google from linking to or indexing to it. It is, of course the robots.txt file that is used by webmasters to indicate where it doesn't want search engine robots to look. Typically this is used to stop search engines from accidentally gathering confidential information. It is a sort of honor system that has been in place since the early days of the internet.
[...] The IRS has agreed not to develop free software for its own systems so long as the software industry offers free versions for anyone earning under $66,000 a year or anyone receiving an income tax credit. Over time however, the power dynamic between the IRS – which has increasingly been starved of funds – and the software industry – which has grown rich from charging tens of millions of Americans every year to navigate the overly complex US tax system - has flipped.
That dynamic blew up earlier this year when it was revealed that a tax reform bill due to become law made it illegal for the IRS to develop software for its own systems. Previously it had been a voluntary agreement that the IRS was in charge of. Following a public outcry, the IRS's general counsel said that his understanding of the new law is that the IRS can terminate the entire Free-File system and design its own direct-file product if its provides 12 months' notice. But that assurance has failed to mollify critics who say the software tail has started wagging the tax dog.
[...] Intuit uses the name "free" and also loads its non-free product websites with SEO terms that someone looking to file for free will type in, in order to direct people to paid-for editions. Unless you land on the right webpage – the one for Free File – there is literally no way to find the TurboTax free edition; it will always loop back to a paid-for version. Which is why Intuit and TurboTax go to such lengths to stop people from landing on the Free File versions of their software.
Read TFA if you want to build up some rage.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Monday April 29 2019, @08:13AM (3 children)
It's a whole, scummy industry that does not need to exist. And only exists because of the
incompetencecorruption of the government. The government makes you file taxes, the government should make it possible for you to file taxes. There should be no need to enrich entire armies of tax consultants and tax preparation companies.FWIW, in another comment on another thread, a poster pointed out that the IRS site has links to the truly-free versions of the programs. So go via the IRS, rather than over the company sites.
FWIW, as much as I appreciate Switzerland, it's no different here: our tax laws are massively complicated. The only difference is that the government doesn't have all the information, due to bank secrecy laws, so you really do have to be honest and declare your stuff correctly. But they could still simply the byzantine regulations that force taxpayers to pay professionals to do their returns.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 29 2019, @09:08AM
> The only difference is that the government doesn't have all the information
There is another important difference: The government (at least in my canton) provides the software that I use to file my taxes, for free, in form of an interactive web app (and it works on any somewhat recent web browser, on any operating system).
They did not make a deal with some "industry" that gives said industry a license to print money. Yeah the laws are more complicated than necessary and have more exemptions than necessary, but it *is* different here. While I dread doing my taxes every year, I am easily able to do it without spending money on that industry.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Monday April 29 2019, @02:34PM
The government already has all the information to say if you filed correctly. They should just do it themselves.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday April 29 2019, @03:27PM
And only exists because of the
incompetencecorruption of the government.The government is only a mirror.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..