Free tax prep; IRS publication 17 and taxpayer betrayal; The failing MSM

How capitalism deals with free tax preparation: ProPublica writes:

Under the Free File agreement, Americans who make less than $73,000 per year should be able to file their taxes for free with one of the tax preparation companies that partners with the IRS. But this program has been historically underutilized, with just 4% of eligible Americans filing for free in 2021.

In 2002, Intuit, H&R Block and other tax prep companies signed a deal with the IRS to provide free tax filing services to millions of Americans. In return, the IRS agreed it would not create its own tax filing system that could compete with the tax prep companies.

A government-run tax filing system, often known as return-free filing, is already a reality in many countries around the world. With a return-free filing system, the government fills out the tax forms with the information it already has, and taxpayers simply have to review the forms for accuracy.  

Switching to such a system would devastate tax prep company profits. That’s why Intuit and other members of the industry spent millions through the years lobbying to preserve the Free File agreement, particularly the part that restricts the IRS from creating its own free filing system.

That’s not all Intuit did to limit the scope of Free File. Intuit purposefully suppressed its own Free File product. It added website code to block its Free File page from showing up in search engines and used manipulative marketing patterns to trick customers into paying for TurboTax even when they qualified for Free File. It later removed the code.   

Internal documents previously obtained by ProPublica show these strategies were intentional on the part of Intuit and H&R Block.  

Following ProPublica’s reporting in 2019, the IRS reformed the Free File program. It barred companies from using deceptive practices to deter taxpayers from using Free File and removed the prohibition on the IRS creating its own tax filing system.

Once again, the public interest is shafted by (i) brass knuckles capitalism, and (ii) the government the corporations corrupted with their free speech, a/k/a/ “campaign contributions” and lobbying. The IRS or congress should have set up return-free filing decades ago. But it did not do that to protect needless, unjustifiable corporate profits at our expense. An immoral industry built on vaporware and marketing is what one can easily get when corrupt capitalist markets get to run free, wild and butt naked (unregulated).

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Taxpayer betrayal: IRS publication 17 mentions the option taxpayers have to direct $3 or $6 into the federal Presidential Election Campaign Fund. The fund has been subverted by congress and/or the IRS. At page 14, Pub. 17 reads as follows:

Presidential Election Campaign Fund 

This fund helps pay for Presidential election campaigns. The fund also helps pay for pediatric medical research. If you want $3 to go to this fund, check the box. If you are filing a joint return, your spouse can also have $3 go to the fund. If you check the box, your tax or refund won't change.

Diverting funds from elections to pediatric medical research betrays taxpayers. The campaign fund is a lie. The same thing has been done dozens of times by the federal and state governments for decades. Taxpayers are told that money promised to go for one thing gets diverted to something else. Legislators usually do the diversion and they do it quietly. That happened to hundreds of millions that cigarette makers paid to settle state lawsuits. That happens to lottery money, which taxpayers are told will go to one thing, often schools, but then a lot of the money is quietly diverted to other things. 

Once again, the public is lied to and there is little or no blowback or accountability. 

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Is the MSM, naïve, complicit, both or neither?: In my opinion, America’s mainstream media is in bad shape. Mandatory profit demands have sapped most of it’s professionalism and capacity to  report. It went from mostly news to mostly infotainment, with a heavy emphasis on ’tainment and light emphasis on info. An example that has been around for years is the presence of commercial advertising in news. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine writes:

CBS’s 60 Minutes News Segment Was an Unlawful Weight Loss Drug Ad, 

Physicians’ Complaint Alleges

Pro-Drug Doctors Interviewed by CBS Received $100,000+ From Novo Nordisk

After receiving advertising payments from Novo Nordisk, CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a 13-minute promotion of Wegovy, the Novo Nordisk weight loss drug, during its Jan. 1 broadcast, making it appear to be a news story. The segment violates the FDA’s “fair balance” requirement for ads, according to a complaint filed today by the Physicians Committee, a nonprofit public health advocacy organization.

Four “news” segments promoting Novo Nordisk drugs remain on CBS’s site. The Physicians Committee is asking that the stories be removed from the website and that a corrective ad explaining the side effects and risks associated with Wegovy be issued immediately and distributed similarly.

“The 60 Minutes program looked like a news story, but it was effectively a drug ad. And there are FDA regulations on prescription drug advertising related risks and contraindications,” explains Physicians Committee President Neal Barnard, MD, FACC, adjunct professor of medicine at George Washington University School of Medicine. “Wegovy can cause digestive side effects and increased heart rate. Gallstones, pancreatitis, and serious drops in blood sugar have occurred, especially when Wegovy is combined with other diabetes drugs. There is also a risk for women who are pregnant or who may become pregnant.”  

“Also concerning is that Novo Nordisk’s political action committee has paid more than $250,000 in campaign contributions to members of Congress in an effort to pass legislation to make the U.S. government pay for Wegovy, a $1,300-per-month-per-person proposition,” Dr. Barnard says.

That sounds a lot like corrupt crony capitalism to me. The point of touting a commercial product in a “news” program is to disinform the public. That boosts sales and profits. This exemplifies why the professional MSM arguably deserves a grade of F. The partisan media, e.g., Faux News, has been proudly failing to serve the public interest for years. Its grade remains proudly unchanged. 

The likelihood of this complaint doing much is low. The CBS segment has already aired and taking it off the website won’t make much difference now. The sales job has been done.