[whimsicalism]

> eliminates the need for middle income Americans to pay a yearly fee in order to be law abiding.

Yearly fee? I had to pay for turbotax but I was under the impression that it was because my income is very high.

I don't know, it makes sense to me the way the IRS does it. If I get a massive windfall and the IRS didn't send me information about it, then I would be able to just not file it because I would know they don't know about it. Not so if I don't know what they know.

[LostLocalMan]

> I don't know, it makes sense to me the way the IRS does it. If I get a massive windfall and the IRS didn't send me information about it, then I would be able to just not file it because I would know they don't know about it. Not so if I don't know what they know.

Ideally the IRS would tell you what they think is accurate and you'd submit amendments for anything that's not accurate. That's no different than the current arrangement since you already need to report all income, it just eliminates the extra cost and effort for the majority of Americans that don't receive windfalls.

[Taywee]

TurboTax doesn't charge for standard federal income filing, but they do charge for some forms of return, and for state taxes, and for audit protection.

Even with the "free" standard offering, it's been lucrative enough for them to lobby heavily to prevent taxes from being easier, just to funnel the majority of the country through their slow filing flow and try to upsell to all of them.