H&R Block snuck language into a Senate bill to make taxes more confusing for poor people

[mfcorey1]

H&R Block's entire business model is premised on taxes being confusing and hard to file. So, naturally, the tax preparation company has become — along with Intuit, the company behind TurboTax — one of the loudest voices on Capitol Hill arguing against measures that make it easier to pay taxes. For example, the Obama administration has pushed for automatic tax filing, in which the IRS uses income information it already has to fill out your tax return for you. That'd save millions of Americans considerable time and energy every year, but the idea has gone nowhere. The main reason? Lobbying from H&R Block and Intuit.

But H&R Block's latest lobbying effort is even more loathsome than its opposition to automatic filing. At the company's instigation, the Senate Appropriations Committee has passed a funding bill covering the IRS whose accompanying report instructs the agency to at least quadruple the length of the form that taxpayers fill out to get the Earned Income Tax Credit.

http://www.vox.com/2015/8/24/9195129/h-r-block

[yeoman6987]

1. There are tons of places that volunteer to do taxes for fr

Of course turbotax would be against this.

[Lyric]

2. I prefer to do my own taxes

and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the forms to be as efficient and as easy-to-understand as is possible, while still doing the job.

Unnecessary complexity just drives business to the EITC parasites like H$R and Liberty.