Draconian decision by Intuit (or not?)

AK6DN · Aug 24, 2025

KevTech said:
All the forms and instructions for them are on the irs site.
If you can read and do basic math anything related to doing taxes is not hard at all.

Written by someone who has never had capital gains, stock options, owned rental properties,
or significant charitable, medical deduction, or state/local tax liability.
Or needed to determine alternative minimum tax liability. Or not.

IRS forms and documentation are written for CPAs, not regular people.

Basic math is the LEAST of the problems in doing taxes in the US.
Knowing which forms and rules and regulations apply given a user's inputs
is the real benefit of tax software.
Not doing arithmetic.

mngerhold · Aug 25, 2025

AK6DN said:
really 'arithmetic' not 'math'

Hear hear (from a Brit) - or at least, 'maths'.

jimbo45 · Aug 25, 2025

AK6DN said:
Written by someone who has never had capital gains, stock options, owned rental properties,
or significant charitable, medical deduction, or state/local tax liability.
Or needed to determine alternative minimum tax liability. Or not.

IRS forms and documentation are written for CPAs, not regular people.

Basic math is the LEAST of the problems in doing taxes in the US.
Knowing which forms and rules and regulations apply given a user's inputs
is the real benefit of tax software.
Not doing arithmetic.

If A.I is all the rage these days and improving surely things like doing taxes etc should be simplicity itself -- plus it should be able to research pages of tax regulations etc etc -- far faster and more efficiently than any Human tax accountant.

What one has to bear in mind though the nearer A.I starts to replicate Human Intelligence is that Humans often lie, cheat, hack things etc etc too so there's no reason to think that sophisticated future A.I won't replicate these "Human traits" too/ I think it already happened in a "Computer A.I chess contetest" where one of the contestants was hacking the other one in order to win.

I'm not Anti A.I but don't expect it to behave always as St.Francis / benevolent Buddhist monks etc etc -- it will of course develop "Human characteristics" - ALL OF THEM both good and bad.

Cheers
jimbo

AK6DN · Aug 25, 2025

jimbo45 said:
If A.I is all the rage these days and improving surely things like doing taxes etc should be simplicity itself -- plus it should be able to research pages of tax regulations etc etc -- far faster and more efficiently than any Human tax accountant.

What one has to bear in mind though the nearer A.I starts to replicate Human Intelligence is that Humans often lie, cheat, hack things etc etc too so there's no reason to think that sophisticated future A.I won't replicate these "Human traits" too/ I think it already happened in a "Computer A.I chess contetest" where one of the contestants was hacking the other one in order to win.

I'm not Anti A.I but don't expect it to behave always as St.Francis / benevolent Buddhist monks etc etc -- it will of course develop "Human characteristics" - ALL OF THEM both good and bad.

Cheers
jimbo

Yeah I can't wait to be called into an IRS audit because my AI tax program hallucinated some IRS rules and regulations to make me feel better...

mngerhold · Aug 25, 2025

jimbo45 said:
If A.I is all the rage these days ... it should be able to research pages of tax regulations etc etc

Of course, AI things like ChatGPT don't acutally 'research' anything, they just re-assemble what they have 'read' into a plausible format. If the last tax rules they 'read' were last year's, then they won't have a clue about this year.

KevTech · Aug 25, 2025

AK6DN said:
Written by someone who has never had capital gains, stock options, owned rental properties,
or significant charitable, medical deduction, or state/local tax liability.
Or needed to determine alternative minimum tax liability. Or not.

I have had to do most of those at one time or another.
Still not really an issue for me.

Before personal computers taxes in the USA were done manually for most people every year.
IRS sent you an instruction pamphlet and inside the pamphlet were the forms and an addressed return envelope.
You filled out the forms then placed them in the envelope and sent it back to the IRS.

cereberus · Aug 25, 2025

I am always amused how our friends across the Pond seem to think US tax is the most complicated on the planet.

The UK invented tax a millenia before US was even heard of and (trust me) our Governments change our tax system more times than you change your underwear.

Anyway, try understanding the Danish tax system - even the Danish Government(s) do not understand it!

pseymour · Aug 25, 2025

Except no one said the US tax code is the most complicated. It's possible for multiple countries to have complicated tax codes.

We know all about the British tax system. And where to dump British tea.

mngerhold · Aug 25, 2025

I don't know if the UK is the winner, but apparently our tax code has 10 million words and 21,000 pages. I know most of it, but...

mngerhold · Aug 25, 2025

pseymour said:
We know all about the British tax system. And where to dump British tea.

...and that is why you have yet to learn how to make a proper cup of tea (NB boiling water).

pseymour · Aug 25, 2025

We made a whole harbor full.

trevo · Aug 25, 2025

pseymour said:
We made a whole harbor full.

Did we put the milk in first?

jimbo45 · Aug 25, 2025

cereberus said:
I am always amused how our friends across the Pond seem to think US tax is the most complicated on the planet.

The UK invented tax a millenia before US was even heard of and (trust me) our Governments change our tax system more times than you change your underwear.

Anyway, try understanding the Danish tax system - even the Danish Government(s) do not understand it!

The UK tax code apparently has more chapters and pages than the King James Bible -- Many other jurisdictions too have equally baffling and complex regulations.

I never understood why there just can't be a basic flat income tax of say 30% or whatever once you earn more than a decent tax free minimum threshold -- and no "cliff edged" cut off points. Modern computer systems should easily be able to calculate an individuals liability without causing bonkers distortions at the cliff edged boundaries !!!

I'm sure many once their rate changes say from 20 to 40 or even 50% - especially free lance / independent contractors can't be bothered to work a few extra hours if 50% of their extra earnings goes straight in tax -- that's a huge loss of qualified experienced people and productivity to these countries.

I.R 35 was (and still is by all accounts) a killer in the UK -- but there's similar hideous stuff in loads of other places too !!!!

Cheers
jimbo

Winuser · Aug 27, 2025

pseymour said:
And where to dump British tea.

I know a place were it can be burned. It's a short drive from where I live. Greenwich Tea Burning

AK6DN · Aug 27, 2025

jimbo45 said:
The UK tax code apparently has more chapters and pages than the King James Bible -- Many other jurisdictions too have equally baffling and complex regulations.

I never understood why there just can't be a basic flat income tax of say 30% or whatever once you earn more than a decent tax free minimum threshold -- and no "cliff edged" cut off points. Modern computer systems should easily be able to calculate an individuals liability without causing bonkers distortions at the cliff edged boundaries !!!

I'm sure many once their rate changes say from 20 to 40 or even 50% - especially free lance / independent contractors can't be bothered to work a few extra hours if 50% of their extra earnings goes straight in tax -- that's a huge loss of qualified experienced people and productivity to these countries.

I.R 35 was (and still is by all accounts) a killer in the UK -- but there's similar hideous stuff in loads of other places too !!!!

Cheers
jimbo

A flat tax on income is regressive, it hits lower income people proportionally more than it does higher income people.
And many higher income folks don't get their income from a paid salary; it comes from capital gains and investments.

cereberus · Aug 27, 2025

One of the early property taxes in the UK was Windows tax lol. People paid tax on how many Windows they had. This was to intended to be a progressive tax i.e. you were more well off the more Windows you had.

That is why a lot of old buildings particularly in London bricked up the Windows. Also terraced flats tended to be long and thin to minimise number of Windows.

Of course, these properties (before electricity) were dark and gloomy. The tax was eventually repealed, interestingly due to medical advice mis 19th century which highlighted the negative impact of lack of light on peoples emotions, especially in winter.

Of course, it took over a century later before Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) was really recognised.

PS I would not put it past the UK Government to reintroduce Windows Tax i.e. a Tax on how many PCs you have. Even fresh air is taxed now (congestion taxes in city centres).

kiwiaz · Aug 28, 2025

cereberus said:
This seems to me to be an artificial constraint rather than a genuine computing constraint.

My bet is Intuit are worried being deemed to be liable for any financial issues arising from incorrect tax calculations that could possibly arise from it being used on an unsupported OS e.g. if a hacker managed to corrupt valuable data?

Lawyers could argue Intuit vendor had not done enough to protect their users interests knowing the OS was potentially insecure.

My bet is it isn't even that thoughtful. They are a giant company and have made themselves "the standard", so the actual consumer doesn't really feature in board room meetings any more.

As much as their attitude galls me, when my accountant says "upgrade QB and your computer", I can rail at the system all I want .. but it doesn't change anything. I upgrade - it's deductible.

AK6DN · Aug 28, 2025

kiwiaz said:
My bet is it isn't even that thoughtful. They are a giant company and have made themselves "the standard", so the actual consumer doesn't really feature in board room meetings any more.

As much as their attitude galls me, when my accountant says "upgrade QB and your computer", I can rail at the system all I want .. but it doesn't change anything. I upgrade - it's deductible.

Well since a new computer is not deductible for me LOL, I just installed Windows 11 23H2 into VirtualBox on my perfectly fine Windows 10 box. Simulates a TPM 2.0 (I guess IDK how one would even know). My PC is native TPM 1.2 8c XEON with 128GB memory. But just Windows 10. And Linux. Guess we'll see if it works come tax season. Otherwise I'll just put TurboTax on my wife's MacBookPro and be done with Windows for taxes.

PhilB · Sep 1, 2025

mngerhold said:
I say 'BS'. If W10 is out of support, and thus not changing, how can that require Intuit resources to keep their sw working? Just an excuse to get people to upgrade.

Because if a new bug is discovered, or is caused by a newly added feature to the vendor's software,what is the vendor supposed to do? Not fix the bug, and piddle off the customer? Or not release this new, presumably useful feature, just so the Win 10 people can be appeased.

Yes, this is a difficult issue. People on right budgets (maybe retired on a fixed income) are going to hurt. Buy used but Win 11 compatible equipment?

antspants · Sep 1, 2025

AK6DN said:
A flat tax on income is regressive, it hits lower income people proportionally more than it does higher income people.
And many higher income folks don't get their income from a paid salary; it comes from capital gains and investments.

And they can afford the $200 + for an accountant.

Draconian decision by Intuit (or not?)

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