TurboTax’s Fight Against Free Tax Filing
18th April 2022
For the vast majority of Americans, the IRS already knows what we owe in taxes. Instead of telling us, though, the IRS tasks us with filling out a slew of complicated forms and doing a bunch of arithmetic, which drives many people to tax-prep services.
Government regulation invariably leads to a complicated and burdensome web of restrictions and requirements. This, in turn, creates a service industry of ‘experts’ devoted to helping people to cope with that burden. This, in turn, motivates that industry to impede any attempt to make that burden any lighter and easier to navigate without the help of the ‘experts’. It also motivates the businesses in that industry to lobby their favorite politicians to preserve, and if possible extend, the scope of the regulatory burden so as to provide further business opportunities for the existing service industry players. The ordinary citizen invariably winds up with more stress and a much lighter wallet.