From Pro-Publica – my emphasis throughout – but let’s start
with these two paragraphs out of sync
The industry group behind the program
boasts that almost all taxpayers can use software like TurboTax or more
primitive electronic forms for free. But access to the more sophisticated
software is limited by income. Only about 3.5 million taxpayers used Free File
last year, according to a Treasury Department tally through the end of April.
The pact governing the partnership,
which counts Intuit as a member, includes a sweet deal for the industry: In
return for the companies offering free software to some, the IRS agreed not to
develop its own free, online tax prep services. The current deal expires next
year.
by Liz Day and Justin Elliott
ProPublica, April 15, 2013, 1:34 p.m.
Last month, we detailed how Intuit,
the maker of TurboTax, has fought a proposal that could make filing taxes
easier and cheaper for millions of Americans.
As it turns out, Norquist has also
recently weighed in on the side of the tax prep industry on another issue.
A
House bill introduced earlier this year would bar the IRS from offering
taxpayers software that would compete with programs like TurboTax. In March,
Norquist and others wrote a letter to members of Congress that urged them to
support the bill — what they called a “pro-taxpayer, anti-IRS power grab
legislation.”
The bill is called the Free File
Program Act, co-sponsored by Rep. Peter
Roskam, R-Ill. and Rep. Ron Kind,
D-Wisc. It declares that the IRS, with a few narrow exceptions, “may not
establish, develop, sponsor, acquire, or make available” electronic filing
service or tax software.
Roskam declined to comment.
Spokespeople for Kind and Norquist did not immediately respond.
Yep – you buttwipes better look out for the CORPORATIONS!
Evidently that is who you were elected to represent.
The
bill would also make permanent the Free File program, a public-private
partnership between the IRS and the tax software industry created in 2002
to offer some taxpayers free electronic filing.
Yep – you buttwipes better look out for the CORPORATIONS!
Evidently that is who you were elected to represent.
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