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> In 2016 alone, Intuit, the makers of TurboTax, spent $2 million on lobbying, ProPublica reports. H&R Block spent $3 million, some of it on the same efforts.

• LanceH 5y ago
  TurboTax is buying influence...who is selling? They are the problem.
  • jeltz 5y ago
    No, both are the problem. Look at how we solved bribes. We made it illegal both to give and to accept.
    • LanceH 5y ago
      The problem isn't bribery, though. It's entirely legal lobbying, made legal by the people accepting the would be bribes.
• jcranmer 5y ago
  I strongly suspect that it's not the $5m/yr these companies are spending that's doing it; there's basically three other camps who push (directly or indirectly) for this: * Special-interest groups whose preferential tax treatment might be threatened if there's a push to simplify the tax code (as having the government do the taxes for you kind of requires the taxes be simpler to do so). * Ideologues who hate government spending but don't think that tax cuts count as spending. * Anti-tax crusaders who want to make filing taxes painful so there's more grassroots support for cutting taxes. (Think Grover Norquist here).