创业与商业propublica.org
TurboTax 的制造商如何阻挠免费简易报税（2013）
How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013)
2013 — 2019，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
ProPublica 的调查报道揭露 Intuit（TurboTax 母公司）如何通过游说和广告攻势，阻挠加州等地的“预填税表”（ReadyReturn）等免费简易报税方案，以保住其报税软件生意。文章展示了商业利益如何塑造美国报税流程的复杂性。
为什么经久不衰：它揭示了美国报税为何如此繁琐背后的商业游说力量，多年后仍是理解税制改革争论的经典背景材料。
HN 评论精选
以新西兰为例说明自动报税系统可以简单透明，反衬美国现状的荒谬
我住在新西兰。如果收入只是标准工资，我根本不用报税——雇主自动代扣并上缴税务局，学生贷款和养老金缴款也是自动的。如有问题，年底再申报更正即可。捐赠退税只是一页表格，所有信息都能在线查询，非常透明。为什么会有人反对这么简单的系统？
xupybd查看英文原文
I live in New Zealand. I don't have to file taxes if my income is a standard wage my tax payments are automatic. My employer deducts them from my wage and they are sent to the IRD (Our government tax dept). My student loan and super payments are also automatic. If there is anything wrong then at the end of the tax year I can file to correct things. I also get donations rebates, this is a one page form that lists all my charitable donations. Very easy very quick. All my details are available to me online. All transactions are there and it's very transparent. Why would anyone oppose a simple system like this?
认为税制复杂的根源是各种抵扣条款的利益群体，而非 Intuit 的游说
Intuit 确实这么干，但把税制过于复杂归咎于他们是错的。真正的推手是税法中各种细项背后的利益群体：奥巴马医改多了两张表，州税抵扣、教育或育儿抵扣都带来复杂性。很难撼动这辆苹果车，游说起的作用其实不大。
harryh查看英文原文
Intuit certainly does this, but blaming them for our overly complex taxes is wrong. They might move the needle a little bit but they aren't the primary driver. The primary driver is all the constituencies of all the little things in our taxes that add up to make them complicated. Like ObamaCare? That came with two additional forms. Live in a high tax state and like deducting your state taxes? That makes things more complicated. Big fan of deductions to for education or child care? That comes with complexities. I could go on and on.... Now maybe your answer to all of these questions was "no", but there are a lot of people that say "yes" to a lot of these questions. It's really hard to upset that apple cart. Lobbying doesn't have much to do with it.
抱怨被迫做毫无意义的手动数据录入，因为政府被游说得刻意低效
我的税并不复杂（单身、一个州、一张 W-2），但为了几张 1099 表格，我要花一小时手动录入、从券商导入 CSV、反复核对。问题是这些信息 IRS 早就收到了——我这是在用缓慢易错的方式做数据录入，好让 IRS 做个简单的比对。我不在乎 TurboTax 收的 30 美元，让我恼火的是政府被游说得故意低效。
rm999查看英文原文
This stuff aggravates me. My taxes aren't abnormally complex (single, one state, very few deductions, one w-2), but I get several 1099s for my investments and end up spending an hour filling them in manually, importing CSV files from my brokerages, and double checking the numbers. What annoys me is all the forms clearly state the IRS has also been sent this information; I'm literally filling out forms in a slow, error-prone way just so the IRS can run a simple == check to make sure I entered them in correctly. I feel like it's something my third grade teacher would force us to do to kill time. I don't care about the 30 dollars turbotax charges me, I'll send 30 dollars straight to the CEO or promise to burn it. What bothers me is that I've been forced to do manual data entry - a pet peeve of mine as a programmer - because the government has been lobbied specifically to be less efficient.
分析 Norquist 反对简化报税的逻辑，并质疑其是否站得住脚
连 Grover Norquist 这样的减税派都反对简化报税流程，这体现了两难：让政府承担好的职责，又不给它独裁式的权力。Norquist 认为报税太容易会让民众对被盘剥麻木。但如果几千万美国人像北欧那样发条短信就报完税，其他人难道不会问“为什么我的报税不能这么简单”？这难道不更能推动税制改革吗？
danso查看英文原文
The fact that a tax-hater such as Grover Norquist opposes reforming the tax-filing procedures illustrates the complex dichotomy between giving government good responsibility without giving it dictatorship-like responsibility. In Norquist's opinion, making taxes too easy to file will make citzenry too complacent about how they're being nickel-and-dimed and will lull them into not pursuing reform. OK, fair enough. But what about a scenario in which for 30-50 million Americans file for their taxes by sending a SMS (as it's apparently done in Scandinavian countries)? And all the other taxpayers, they're wondering: "Why the f-ck can't my taxes be that easy??" Isn't this scenario as likely to lead to overhaul of our complicated tax code?
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