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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: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday April 29 2019, @03:14PM (34 children)
The procedure for petitioning to get on the ballot is well documented, accessible to anybody with a degree of motivation. There is no requirement to join a particular party. And there is no requirement to vote for one. And you sure don't have to vote for, much less, reelect the cheaters. You're still trying to pass blame onto others for your own choices.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Pav on Monday April 29 2019, @09:16PM (19 children)
That's some next level eastern philosophy - "Even if you feel the shackles and the lash, if you believe you could be free enough, then you are". The biggest voting block are the ~51% of people who've so lost faith in the voting process they don't bother anymore. You should talk to them!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday April 29 2019, @10:33PM (18 children)
The biggest voting block are the ~51% of people who've so lost faith in the voting process they don't bother anymore. You should talk to them!
I do! Democrats and republicans are out of reach, a waste of time. The non-voters could vote out all the incumbents.
That's some next level eastern philosophy - "Even if you feel the shackles and the lash, if you believe you could be free enough, then you are".
Well, see? They have it backwards. The prison is self made, and the door is still wide open. You can step out any time.
I believe in the old fashion "Eagles" philosophy - "So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains And we never even know we have the key"
You cannot place blame beyond the voters (and non-voters). It's all right there, plain as day. The only problem is the people don't want to see. They prefer to live the comfortable lie to avoid responsibility for their choices.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Pav on Monday April 29 2019, @11:55PM (17 children)
It seems the powers that be are much better at politics than you are.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday April 30 2019, @03:32AM (16 children)
I'm not trying to be "good" at anything. And you still haven't shown any cause of misfortune that goes beyond the voters' own responsibilities. Guess you can't be bothered...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Pav on Wednesday May 01 2019, @04:17AM (15 children)
Dictatorships LOVE elections... they often have them. The "voters" did what they thought was their duty... and when they were denied a legitimate win with Bernie they f**ked over the establishment with Trump (giving the Trump true believers the false impression they have more electoral power than they do). The "voters" are starting to realise they've been disenfranchised... they're going to try once more. Already Bernie has more money than the rest of the Democratic party combined, and significantly over 1 million volunteers already signed up... again, more than the rest of the Democrats combined. He'll of course be denied again (through superdelegates), even if he chose to run as an independant (via the electoral college). That's just a necessary step to make most people finally realise they're living in a dictatorship.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday May 01 2019, @04:33AM (14 children)
He'll of course be denied again (through superdelegates), even if he chose to run as an independant (via the electoral college).
If he wins enough votes in enough states he will win the electoral college also. Nobody is required to vote for either party. Every two years the House could be swept can of all incumbents. Until the chance is taken, it is impossible to know if voting really works. It's just something that has to be done to prove me right or wrong. Until then we are farting into the wind. The blame passing must stop.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday May 01 2019, @04:36AM
*sheesh!*
One more time, in case it matters:
Every two years the House can be swept of all incumbents.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Pav on Wednesday May 01 2019, @06:09AM (12 children)
Pffft... One could clean sweep and still get rolled by "faithless electors" in the electoral college... look up what they are. Faithless electors have changed presidential results often enough in recent years. This is why the Bernie people elected to try to take over the Democratic party rather than start a new party or go independant... that's the only way not to be rolled by faithless electors. Regarding taking over... then theres the Democrat superdelegate thing to overcome. Bernie won, but Hillary had the super delegates. Game over. As for clean sweeping the party... that SHOULD have happened, but voters were cheated again. Tim Canova is just one example, but he's notable because he was loud about the cheating, and knew his rights because he is a law professor, and fought in the courts. He easily won in pre-election polling. He tried to get in first as a Democrat, then in the main election as an independant... was blatantly cheated in a number of ways BOTH TIMES, and provably so. There were 70 emails from the Wikileakss DNC emails with some pretty damning evidence, and there's even video of cheating. And there were no consequences despite favourable court rulings. There was even a judge too afraid to rule on the case, so he recused himself for dubious reasons. Despite winning in court there were no consequences for cheating... None.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Wednesday May 01 2019, @06:36AM
BTW, for anyone who's interested... here's Tim Canova [youtube.com] taking the lid off the sorry story himself.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday May 01 2019, @03:40PM (10 children)
Faithless electors have changed presidential results often enough in recent years.
No, they followed the majority of votes in each state. Everybody is already aware they don't have to, and yet they still accept the results. You gotta make a better case. You gotta show where the voter has a gun to his head and forces him to vote republican/democrat, or prove a fraudulent count. If you do, I will be suitably impressed!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Pav on Wednesday May 01 2019, @10:26PM (9 children)
You're RIGHT... I've seen the light. I checked Wikipedia... it's always best to assume it's lying... and I could therefore ignore [wikipedia.org] the (sourced) Wikipedia propaganda that 10 electors voting against their states wishes in 2016 alone. And Vox [vox.com] is the height of journalistic integrity! I can therefore accept their otherwise strange assesment that Broward Countys election supervisor was just incompetent for destroying ballots multiple times preventing recounts, even during litigations relating to vote rigging, transporting (and losing) ballots without the required security measures etc... Tim Canova's vote numbers were uniformly 5% in every single demographic across the board... wow... that was certainly a coincidence, but we can't accept his assertion that this (and the huge polling discrepency) proves rigging. 2018 showed us how polling companies are actually just guessing results... those election integrity activists are fools for getting excited about exit polls differing from results across the country well beyond the margin of error (well into the double digits). Ha! Margin of error... there's nothing scientific about the polling agencies guesses! The DNC was right to cancel exit polls in the last few states - they really did hire incompetent guessers! I bow to your wisdom for seeing through the propaganda!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday May 01 2019, @10:46PM (8 children)
The majority does accept it, the fraud, everything, with a 95% reelection rate. Whaddya gonna do??
What do you want to change that won't require people to vote on it?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Pav on Wednesday May 01 2019, @11:03PM (7 children)
That's not up to me. I guess we'll find out when the voters are cheated (again) despite the electorate being a lot more switched on to the cheating and media bais. My guess is that things will get ugly, and the outcome is uncertain. Some [youtube.com] saw this coming a long time ago... (video link to Naomi Wolf's talk on her book "End of America" where she outlines the ten steps that all dictatorships born from democracies take).
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday May 01 2019, @11:50PM (6 children)
That's not up to me.
Well, you're either part of the majority, or you're not.
Some saw this coming a long time ago
We saw it in '68, and many times since. Nothing comes of it. Republicans and democrats still win. Reelection rates remain stable. The electorate wants a piece of that cheating and bias, all looking for preferential treatment. The government reflects that. The decline continues. Nobody's fault but our own. Yes, it will get ugly. Despite all our great powers, we are leading ourselves into a very dark age. What's disappointing, it's all happening for the denial of our own failures.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Pav on Thursday May 02 2019, @01:53AM (5 children)
So your answer is voting independant in the completely-legit-and-not-rigged (despite evidence to the contrary) general election?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday May 02 2019, @02:31AM (4 children)
When 95% of the voters vote for the status quo, it's hard to find where the fraud is. I mean, between the factions in the monolith, sure plenty of it, but there is still insufficient demand to correct it. To conduct a real test of the system, a sufficient number of people have to vote outside the limits they imposed on themselves. Then we will know if there is real fraud. I don't give a damn what goes on between republicans and democrats. That's just thieves stealing from thieves, or from the famous movie, *assassins accusing the assassins*. I can't get too upset about it if nobody can be bothered. I just do my thing, and let people accuse me of "wasting my vote" or "supporting Trump"... What else can I do?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Pav on Thursday May 02 2019, @03:31AM (3 children)
Cheating an independant who would have won = voters not voting outside the two party duopoly. That's some wicked zen eastern philosophy tai-bo you've got going on there. :-O
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday May 02 2019, @05:31AM (2 children)
:-) You couldn't be more off. From publicly available physical evidence people aren't voting for independents. The numbers are right there in black and white. There is nothing difficult about this. You haven't proven otherwise. If independent votes really aren't being counted, we got a real story, but there's too little demand from the voters for more transparency. I do demand, but am not getting, paper ballots, along with electronic tallies for rapid feedback. In many things (like voting for non aligned candidates) I'm in the tiny minority, no use in complaining about it. But it is dead simple to see where the problem comes from. And the excuses I'm getting only serve to clarify exactly what I'm talking about. Hardly matters, next year's results will be the same as last year's, plus or minus a few percentage points. Still can't blame anybody but the voters who make it so. Every two years they squander the chance to make real history. The ant mill continues.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Pav on Thursday May 02 2019, @09:02PM (1 child)
Despite disappearing ballots, and grossly different exit polls your understanding is... that people are voting according to the official numbers, and against the independants and insurgent Democrats that virtually the entire media and political apparatus have been canvasing against? (Well, except for certain media like eg. Ed Schultz, who was sacked from MSNBC for covering Bernie). Yes, of course! The majority were never in danger of votin independant or insurgent. Thanks for setting me straight.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday May 03 2019, @12:50AM
The people accept it. What can I do? Tell you the truth, I just don't care any more. People will do what they want. It's none of my business. I'm only responding to the complaints.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday April 29 2019, @11:26PM (13 children)
In theory, you might be right, but it's no accident the US has two parties, and always did.
This piece [nbcnews.com] details a few of the tricks the incumbents use to prevent challenges to their duopoly.
This is worth a quick look too. [newrepublic.com]
The US has a sort of illusion of democracy, but in reality the two parties have a total lock on power, and have no motivation to allow outsiders in.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday April 29 2019, @11:30PM (12 children)
Sorry, it's still up to the voters to play along. The choice is still, and always has been theirs.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday April 30 2019, @12:03AM (11 children)
The article is about how the tax industry uses lobbying to have laws made to enrich themselves at the expense of the citizenry.
What choice?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday April 30 2019, @06:04AM (10 children)
What choice?
The voters have a choice (more like an obligation) to stop reelecting politicians that take bribes from lobbyists. Is it really so complicated to you people?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday May 01 2019, @01:09AM (9 children)
If by that you mean they should stop electing Democrats and Republicans then I wonder why it has not happened over the last 150 years or so?
Not to me it's not, but then I live in country that destroys political parties on a fairly regular basis. That helps keep them under control.
I suspect your expectation that the voters can do the same in the US is optimistic.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday May 01 2019, @01:45AM (8 children)
If by that you mean they should stop electing Democrats and Republicans then I wonder why it has not happened over the last 150 years or so?
Voters' choice... There's just nothing else to say about it. If they were to choose something else, they would have something else, but they have convinced themselves that there is nothing else. They did it to themselves. They choose to believe the lies. It always boils down to the person's personal choice, to play along, go out on their own, whatever they want to do. Either way, the government is their reflection.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday May 01 2019, @02:21AM (7 children)
If that's the case why does my parliament have 5 parties in it?
Why does the UK parliament have 8? They also have first past the post voting, the worst voting system. (For the voters anyway. political parties love it)
I think you guys have just done a similar thing to what the USSR did in Eastern Europe after WWII, except no-one gets thrown in jail for starting a new political party.
I mean you're free to start one, and you're free to campaign for votes, but you're not free to actually win any seats in any of the various governing bodies anywhere.
Am I missing something? 50 states, plus the Feds, each with 2 houses plus the executive, and every single one packed with Republicans and Democrats, with not a single third party anywhere.
I don't think the voters have anything like the freedom you think they have.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday May 01 2019, @02:43AM (6 children)
Because that's what they are accustomed to. They allow themselves to be convinced there's too much to lose by rocking the boat.. This is primary psychology, not political at all. It is still on the voters to get their shit together.
I mean you're free to start one, and you're free to campaign for votes, but you're not free to actually win any seats in any of the various governing bodies anywhere.
Don't know about elsewhere, but in the US, if you win the votes, you win the seat. Even if your name isn't on the ballot. A write in with sufficient votes can win. The money can't do that, doesn't matter how much is spent.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday May 01 2019, @08:10AM (5 children)
If that is the case, why is everyone either a Democrat or a Republican?
Because that's what they are accustomed to? I'm not buying it. Not enough of you want something new? Not even 10%?
No, you have the illusion of choice.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday May 01 2019, @03:34PM (4 children)
Because that's what they are accustomed to? I'm not buying it.
Sorry, facts are facts. Your denial is exactly my point. It's better for the ego to pass blame. And peer pressure is a thing.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday May 01 2019, @08:50PM (3 children)
Your facts seem more like opinions, but fine, if you're of the view that you and your countrymen could elect third parties, but choose not to that's none of my business.
I will go back to figuring out which of the 5 or 6 party candidates I will vote for in our next election.
Coalition governments are great.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday May 01 2019, @10:41PM (2 children)
Your facts seem more like opinions
How so? Not a single person is able point out anything intractable. All choices are personal, regardless of claimed motivation. The choice is still theirs to make. There is nothing to argue about. It's silly to be even discussing it. We know what the problem is and we can fix it like flipping a switch. All difficulties come from entirely within.
I will go back to figuring out which of the 5 or 6 party candidates I will vote for in our next election.
Well, see that's what I already do. There are more than two parties on the American ballots too. I simply ignore the republican/democrats and work with what's left. I can't fret over what other people do. But I will respond to their silly complaints about how mine is a "wasted vote". I say theirs is. That's all that I'm doing.
And coalitions? Not always so good. I've seen the Greens hook up with some pretty unsavory cohorts to get a win. That can only mean they owe favors to somebody that does not represent the people that voted for the Greens. Their are many other examples, but they stick out more when they exhibit their righteous indignation over some injustice. Coalitions are entangled alliances, requiring the most egregious comprises (clean up the environment, put catalytic converters on the state crematoriums). Europe is every bit as messy as the US, more so... And Canada? There's an amusing bunch. I hope you're not using them as an example of anything special.
If people can't make majority rule function properly, they can still only blame themselves, read Lord of the Flies, and then it's time to dream up something else a bit more robust. But they are on their own, stranded on a very big island (Surf's up!). There is just no other way. That's not an opinion, it's just plain old nature.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday May 01 2019, @11:23PM (1 child)
I have several times in this very discussion. If it were possible for a third party to win, why does it never happen? Because the Republicans and the Democrats prevent it from happening.
You guys have a lot of elections, in some places you even elect your police chiefs, but nobody outside the two parties ever wins.
Not in the US you haven't. I had a quick look at their Wikipedia entry, and they hold exactly 0 seats.
They have never won anything, so I'm not how you think they have had a win.
Illusion of choice.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday May 01 2019, @11:37PM
Because the Republicans and the Democrats prevent it from happening.
Wrong! It's because people aren't voting for them. Your claim of fraud is meaningless, unless you believe (and I can too) the actual count was compromised. If not, then you can deny all you want, but the simple fact is right there in the official results. To win the seat you have to win the count. At this point you have lost me. I don't know what you want. All the suffering you describe is self inflicted. Your illusion of an "illusion" is your own creation. The solution is as simple as changing the channel.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..