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Comment by ratata | Hacker News Reader

Actually, I believe TurboTax has successfully lobbied congress so that it's illegal for the IRS to do that. https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...

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The Inflation Reduction Act appropriated $15M for the IRS to assemble a task force to explore the feasibility of the IRS building a free file system that would replace what TurboTax provides. It’s mentioned near the end of the post.

Discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34764952

Wait...they need $15M to just EXPLORE the FEASIBILITY of the IRS just telling us what we owe? (something they already know and have access to)

It's a big, complicated country. At some point you really just have to get over the concept that things take time and cost money, yes even to plan for.

How much do you think it costs to build a system that affects the finances of 300 million people? If highly-paid professional accountants, lawyers, and programmers meet to discuss if and how this system could be built, it's going to cost some money. This is not a 20 minute "yup we can throw up a React app next weekend" meeting.

Building the thing is going to cost a hell of a lot more than 15 million dollars, it's not a 3 man startup android app. It has to be reliable with high uptime, it has to cope with enormous loads on April 15, it has to be accurate and have no potential for data loss, and it has to be Made in America, no outsourcing for various reasons.

Many smaller nations have had boondoggle affairs with MUCH smaller systems.

It is a system which would have to function for 300+ million people. With every possible financial circumstance ever known.

McKinsey would have likely charged triple.

IIRC they tried to replace turbotax back in the late 90s or 2000s, and wasted a half billion and didn't produce even a bare minimum system.

I don't think they already have access to what you own in any practical way. Sure, for any given person they could figure out what they owe, but they don't have the nearly enough resources to figure it out for everyone all at once.

$15mm doesn’t sound like all that much to me to be honest. You’d have to pay a lot of extremely expensive consultants to cover every perspective. And it’s not full time jobs so you have to pay the consultant premium.

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