Intuit Seeks To Scrub CEO Comments on Tax Lobbying From Tech Podcast (theverge.com) 32
Intuit, the maker of TurboTax software, asked technology news outlet The Verge to delete part of a podcast interview with CEO Sasan Goodarzi, The Verge reported on Monday. The request came after Goodarzi was questioned about Intuit's lobbying efforts against free government tax filing options, a topic that has drawn scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers.
The Verge said it declined to remove the segment, instead choosing to highlight the exchange by playing it at the beginning of the episode. In the interview, Goodarzi disputed claims that Intuit lobbies against free tax filing, stating the company spends "a couple of million dollars fighting for simplified taxes." However, The Verge's editor Nilay Patel pressed Goodarzi on reports of Intuit's lobbying against government-provided tax returns. Patel adds: I got a note from Rick Heineman, the chief communications officer at Intuit, who called the line of questioning and my tone "inappropriate," "egregious," and "disappointing" and demanded that we delete that entire section of the recording. I mean, literally -- he wrote a long email that ended with "at the very least the end portion of your interview should be deleted."
The Verge said it declined to remove the segment, instead choosing to highlight the exchange by playing it at the beginning of the episode. In the interview, Goodarzi disputed claims that Intuit lobbies against free tax filing, stating the company spends "a couple of million dollars fighting for simplified taxes." However, The Verge's editor Nilay Patel pressed Goodarzi on reports of Intuit's lobbying against government-provided tax returns. Patel adds: I got a note from Rick Heineman, the chief communications officer at Intuit, who called the line of questioning and my tone "inappropriate," "egregious," and "disappointing" and demanded that we delete that entire section of the recording. I mean, literally -- he wrote a long email that ended with "at the very least the end portion of your interview should be deleted."
Tax help (Score:3)
Tax help is a dirty racket but I think everyone knew that right?
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Tax prep for normal people is essentially a huge premium they pay for basic form filing on their behalf. Often by people who are not particularly motivated and are probably using the same software you could use yourself to auto fill your tax forms.
If you really need help with your taxes, you have an accountant or financial manager already.
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If you really need help with your taxes, you have an accountant or financial manager already.
Plus your accountant is accountable (no pun) to you if they make a mistake/omission in your filing; yes TurboTax offered that as an extra premium, but I'd rather deal with a real person rather than a for-profit corporation if such matters came up.
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True, but the cost difference is massive. Ie, the accountant who did my mother's very simple taxes got a dignificant discount ~90% discount, but the full price was $1000. Meanwhile, Turbotax or HR Block (please choose HR) is roughtly $45 for premium. Yes, it takes longer to do it yourself because you're not as practiced. I was amazed that the accountant doing my moms taxes was so far, even with a simple form, she had the whole thing done faster by hand than it takes me to fill in my identifying informat
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If you really need help with your taxes, you have an accountant or financial manager already.
Paying an accountant to do your taxes will cost way more than using TurboTax.
90% of the time, the accountant will take the information you give and plug it into TurboTax.
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Paying an accountant to do your taxes will cost way more than using TurboTax.
90% of the time, the accountant will take the information you give and plug it into TurboTax.
But if you pay your accountant, someone that needs to be accredited/registered, they're on the hook if they mess up filing your info. If you use Turbotax yourself, unless you buy into their premium stuff that protects against audits, you're the one on the hook.
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If your taxes are wrong, your accountant will likely claim that you provided incorrect information, which is true 99% of the time.
So you will be on the hook.
You're more likely to catch your mistake if you enter the data yourself.
But you're way too paranoid about the IRS. I've filed Sched-C, Sched-E, and K-1 returns for decades and have been audited several times. The penalties are insignificant.
Re: Tax help (Score:2)
The last couple of times I filed I later got notices that I was wrong and they were adjusting my return.
Motherfuckers, if you know what I owe, why the fuck do I have to file?!?
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Grover Norquist
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Re: Tax help (Score:2)
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Somebody's about to get acquainted with... (Score:4, Insightful)
the Streisand effect [wikipedia.org]
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He was a moron to ever agree to the interview in the first place.
He knew what they were gonna ask and had nothing to gain by answering.
CEOs tend to be people with big egos surrounded by yes men, so they think they can talk to the media like they talk to obsequious subordinates.
Streisand Effect (Score:5, Insightful)
Classic Streisand Effect [wikipedia.org]. If they hadn't said anything, much fewer people would have even noticed the interview.
How the game is played (Score:5, Insightful)
Intuit has every right to ask the question (and they did, but in the form of a "demand"), and The Verge has every right to decline (which they did). That's the best possible outcome in my book, because it adds just a little bit more out there for people to see, and learn about Intuit's shenanegans.
If Intuit really thought they had a leg to stand on (they don't), the request would have come from their lawyers. But it came from the communications director - who, I'd wager, got his metaphorical wee-wee slapped after the fact for not preparing the top dog to answer that particular question in a way that would be least-bad for Intuit, which of course was bound to come up, and is now trying to save face.
I've never used a product like TurboTax. In my youth, I did my federal taxes by hand, on paper, and mailed them in. Now I use a tax professional. I can do that, but many other people can't for various reasons, and I look forward to the day when such products is legislated out of existance.
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for not preparing the top dog to answer that particular question in a way that would be least-bad for Intuit
Funny how there are people who defend the ROI of a CEO being in the millions, allegedly because they do something that a 5 dollar wrench could not. Meanwhile, as you point out, this super mega amazing CEO's needed their hands held to not paint their own company in a negative light.
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Now I use a tax professional.
Your tax professional is just typing your data into tax prep software, most likely TurboTax.
I guarantee they aren't using paper forms and a calculator.
read the article before commenting (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems more like Rick Heineman (CCO) heard from the lawyers and got his panties in a bunch.
Re:read the article before commenting (Score:4, Insightful)
what the government is providing is not free. You’re paying. Your tax dollars are going toward building software
It's clear Intuit's position is the government is stealing revenue that Intuit thinks belongs to them.
I'm HAPPY to have my tax dollars go to providing assistance paying taxes to the government. It's a better use of my tax dollars than much of what the government pays for. (And a shout-out to the Medicare.gov website, which I find pretty easy to use. Government websites have made significant progress in the last 5-10 years.)
For a long time, I used Intuit software to prepare taxes (starting with the original MacInTax), my tax situation is somewhat more complex than the average retiree. But about 5 years ago, after reading and seeing for myself how Intuit did business, I decided they should just Rot in Hell. The primary reason I use tax software now is to facilitate on-line filing.
All this being said, I strongly support tax simplification. But I frankly don't believe that is Intuit's real motive.
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The government has to write the software anyway.
Or at least I hope so. It seems to me they collect all the tax data given to them by the various places that I get tax forms from, and make sure my numbers match.
I'd much prefer to pay the government extra to write the part that provides data to me and then let's me sign off.
Between my employer, my 401k provider and my IRA provider they should have everything they need.
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TurboTax has gotten very expensive now too.
2 states and my federal was $267. The prices have been slowly creeping up, but I think people didn't really notice because tax returns used to be significant enough to hide it.
The standard deduction now being high and therefore withholdings being pretty accurate I think is causing a lot of the current pushback.
The higher house prices and interest rates may actually be a great thing for TurboTax, giving incentive for a lot more people to itemize and get more back hi
Intuit should be sanctioned! (Score:1)
"inappropriate," "egregious," and "disappointing" (Score:3)
"who called the line of questioning and my tone "inappropriate," "egregious," and "disappointing""
This reminds me of a tantrum recently thrown by a particular political candidate.
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In all seriousness, both of the major candidates have claimed this sort of thing recently. So which are you referring to?
Trump doesn't know what "egregious" means, so he must be talking about Harris.
Should've converted tele-file (Score:2)
Nowadays, for a simple, single W-2, I use taxhawk.com. Free federal and state is like $12, often times a discount code can be found.