April 16, 2003
Representative Deborah Pryce
221 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-2015
Subject: Tax Software
Dear Representative Deborah Pryce,
Look at what it costs to do your taxes on line:
TurboTax $30.00
State Tax $24.95
Subtotal $54.95
Sale tax $ 4.02
Total $58.11
What I don’t understand is that the IRS probably spends well over $1 sending each 1040, 1040a or 1040EZ booklet to each taxpayer. If the IRS sends out about 100 million of these, that’s over $100 million dollars spent per year.
For the same money spent just once, the IRS could develop tax software ten times better than TurboTax and have it run over the web on an encrypted server. Of course not all taxpayers would use it. But enough of them would that it would take little time to pay off the investment.
Plus, think of how much money the IRS saves when people file electronically instead of using paper. Shouldn’t the IRS have to foot the bill for something that saves them money? Why should the consumer foot the bill? They may be able to increase the number of people who file online, but that will reach a maximum number of people willing to pay for something that they can do for free by hand.
And I realize there are places online to file for free, but at what cost to privacy? What information are these people collecting from me to justify their expense of this “free” service?
Last fall, President Bush coerced the tax software companies to offer free filing. Now there is no $10 fee to file, but the software costs $10 more than it did last year. I don’t want their lousy software.
Please introduce legislation to have the IRS write its own software so anyone can file for free online. This software doesn’t have to be flashy like TurboTax or Kiplinger’s TaxCut. To be honest, the flashiness in these programs makes them a royal pain. If someone was able to figure out how to fill out a 1040 and Schedule A by hand, they don’t need videos and other glamour.
Starting next tax season, I’m doing my taxes by hand. I hope many other Americans do the same thing, as a sort of protest against having to carry the work that the government is supposed to be doing.
