On 2020-03-10, Gene Heskett <ghesk...@shentel.net> wrote: > But I didn't know there was a free filing system, Block sure isn't > advertiseing it, I think they much prefer to keep on charging me around > $300 to put their stamp on it. so I may investigate it, thanks for the > heads up. >
This sums up the situation in the USA IMO: https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-free-simple-hr-block-intuit-lobbying-against-it “Let’s call the so-called Free File Alliance what it really is — a front for tax prep companies who use it as a gateway to sell expensive products no one would even need if we’d just made it easier for people to pay their taxes,” said Warren in a statement to ProPublica. Warren’s office put out a report on the issue last year that repeatedly cited our coverage. No member of the hoi polloi in the Gallic regions uses or requires an external software company to do their taxes, nor does anyone I know or whom I've ever known here pay the least centime to get them done (not rubbing shoulders much with any millionaires as part of the 99); the French equivalent of the IRS (the "fisc") provides free, official software online, pre-filled for the taxpayer. And *they* calculate what you owe, if anything. You just fill in the numbers, if they're not already filled in for you. At any rate, the H & R Blocks et. al. obviously have a vested, mercantile interest in keeping the entire process bewilderingly complicated, as well as exclusively within the domain of the private sector. -- "When we encounter computer output that looks like what we produce by thinking, we are liable to credit the computer with thought... By that rule of inference, there would have to be an orchestra somewhere inside your CD player and a farm in your refrigerator." --David Halpern
