Turbotax lobbies the fuck out of preventing reforms that would make filing easier precisely to encourage people to become dependant on their software and pull more of the same

the official government website is basically identical to the turbotax website, minus the 90 dollars or however much they take, five for john oliver who now cannot travel to several world destinations for the rest of his life because of this show

Because I'm a poor college student, I got to use H&R Block's online tax preparation for free. It was so good I might just pay for it when i'm not poor any more.

These keep getting better and better.

Not meant to be a reply.

Anyhow, last time I went on the IRS website I ended up at Turbotax and said fuck it. Next year I'm back to paper, though.

I've used TurboTax every year since like maybe 06 or 07, and this year I didn't. I kid you not, starting on Tax Day right up until yesterday I was getting average three emails a day imploring me to e-file with them.

I use TaxAct because when I was overseas TurboTax claimed to be able to help with your taxes if you were in another country but refused to accept payment if the address from your credit or debit card was in another country so WTF. Fuck you TurboTax.

I still do the papers. In my experience, the "free" e-filings aren't free if you're self-employed. And I'd hate to spend money on software and then discover it won't work for me.
Anyone here in the same boat? Any software recommendations?

Also, fuck you, congress.

I've used TaxAct for years, and it seems to handle my various crazy stuff quite fine. My part-time home business? No problem. Giant transaction log from when I was experimenting with algorithmic day-trading? Easy as pie. Live in a state with no income tax and want to deduct your sales tax instead? I've had harder farts.

I do wish it were easier to just go based on forms like "hey I have a 1099-DIV here, can I enter it" instead of them asking everything in a certain order. But you can work with it that way if you want. (It's just a little cumbersome.)

I qualified for the free version of Turbo Tax the last two years and I thought this year's version was a major improvement. I don't recall them trying to sell me anything, maybe cause they know it'd be hopeless trying to shave anything off my poor ass.
We'll see how they do this year, when I'll have income from two contracting side-gigs and a ton of deductible expenses related to them, a regular job, and hopefully an apprenticeship...

Thanks, fluffy! I'll check that out.

I used TurboTax this year and had no issues, but they keep moving functionality to the more expensive versions. If that keeps up I might use TaxAct next year.

There are a lot of politicians who want the tax code written to serve the common man better, but it's out of vogue to believe that any politicians at all believe in public service.

I've got no trouble believing many of them do, but I'm pretty skeptical of those sorts of politicians being able to advance far enough to actually get it done.

This is where I get mad at the Left: angry enough to know what they want, not angry enough to work to get it. Why can't be like those nice Teabaggers who primary candidates to their liking and then show up in force at the general elections?

Dude, I vote once every 4 years, stop riding me!

I'm too busy maintaining my tumbler and writing songs to worry about political minutia.