'Under the radar' plan to kill beloved tax filing program hidden in GOP bill

[progree]

11. "one reason the government keeps free filing to simple returns..."

I’m convinced one reason the government keeps free filing to simple returns, is that they can’t figure the more complicated stuff out precisely and the agency heads don’t want to take blame for screwing up.

Yes. And also with more complex returns, they'd be getting a lot more technical support calls, and more difficult ones ...

DU member "question everything" has posted quite a lot about his interactions with TurboTax technical support over the years. I could post a lot of stories too.

I know I shouldn't say this on a progressive website, but I think they earn their fees. I've used a professional tax preparer for 35 years before I switched to TurboTax. Even my tax preparer's software had issues.

Another one: paying taxes on IRA withdrawals -- OK, that's real common (I'm not 73 yet, but one has to take RMDs on inherited IRAs no matter what age, and pay taxes on the withdrawals). But some of my IRA contributions way back in the 80's were non-deductible. I could explain further but enuf. Anyway, that flabbergasted TurboTax in the last 2 years, and it also flabbergasted my tax preparer's software in the last 2 years or so that I used him. We both had to shoe-horn in some numbers to make it come out right.