this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2025
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Wait sorry what? Non-USian here, bear with me.
What does "program" mean here? Why is this program necessary to file your taxes for free? Do you guys have PAY to file your taxes if you don't use/apply/qualify for that program?? Am I misunderstanding what it means to "file" taxes? It's been a while since I was this confused by a US thing.
US tax code is (deliberately) complicated and unlike other countries, you need to manually fill out the forms with your financial data even though the government already knows it and what you owe (minus exemptions that the vast majority of citizens won't claim). This is because there is a major industry around tax preparation, and the big names (such as Intuit) have aggressively lobbied for decades to keep the process as complicated and inconvenient as possible so that people are forced to pay them to fill out their tax forms. This lobbying has also resulted in the legally mandated free filing options being buried and hard to find, with many people not even knowing they exist.
Tax prep is a huge scam with many billions of dollars behind it. Weather providers are probably going to be next in the news, since they've been trying to kill the free government-run forecasts and force people onto their paid platforms for just as long.
Why don't Americans vote for politicians who want to get rid of the "tax preparation industry?"
Why don't more politicians mention it at all?
Why has the working class been conditioned to squabble over bullshit while the ruling class robs them blind, again?
I'm starting to think consumerism breeds stupidity.
Turns out that when you do make that vote, the fucking Cheeto looking stupid fucker who takes bribes still wins. And I voted as hard as I could!
Culture needs to change.