Tax Prep Reform, Finally
Originally published on Medium on Jan 7, 2020.
Back in 2009, I was a volunteer tax preparer with New York Cares. One evening a week from February through April, a dozen or so volunteers sat in a room on Mulberry Street. Families waited for hours to meet with one of us, small children wriggling in winter parkas and trying very, very hard to be quiet. Eventually it would be their turn to present their collections of W2s, 1099s, and sundry other papers, and answer a few basic household questions. We typed all of this into some 90s-style software, following a process from one snowy Saturday training. The program would spit out some numbers: $2,468. Or $426. Or $0. Or $3,065.
It was incredibly rewarding to tell people that a significant check was coming their way. The free tax prep program was technically open to anyone with household incomes under $35,000, but a lot of the families that came were living off of about $12,000. (Suddenly, Chinatown’s super cheap groceries made a lot more sense.)
On the way home, I’d grab a couple steamed buns from Mei Lai Wah or Golden Moon and think about the hectic evening. As a tax preparer, I had no professional qualifications. The New York Cares program did a pretty good job of training us, but honestly the training was only because the software was kind of intimidating and really annoying. The only things that distinguished me from those waiting families were (1) my fearlessness of using really annoying software, and (2) access to that software, licensed by the organizing nonprofit.
Meanwhile, my day job at the time was at Google. Before it became the juggernaut it is today, with greater pressures and societal responsibilities, things were pretty simple. The guiding principle was “Focus on the user, and all else will follow.” The UX design and research teams were just turning the corner from service org to true partnerships with engineering teams, and I had spent a chunk of time working specifically on Google Spreadsheets’ number-crunching interfaces, and simplifying workflows via Google Forms. Of course I was convinced that I could make tax prep software usable by anyone. Much as I loved being the bearer of good news, (and the weekly dose of steamed buns 🍜), these families didn’t need me. They needed better software so they could do this at home, on their own time, with their kids playing or in bed instead of slithering around on plastic seats.
This, as you might guess, was my personal gateway into a career in civic tech. Later, I would discover that this really annoying software was the result of years of lobbying by Intuit.
Last week, the IRS finally announced reforms to its Free File program. In ProPublica’s words:
Under the nearly two-decade-old Free File deal, the industry agreed to make free versions of tax filing software available to lower- and middle-income Americans. In exchange, the IRS promised not to compete with the industry by creating its own online filing system. Many developed countries have such systems, allowing most citizens to file their taxes for free. The prohibition on the IRS creating its own system was the focus of years of lobbying by Intuit.
Public programs deserve public access. The IRS effectively has access to all the data it needs to calculate your taxes and mail (or email) you a simple postcard, which you could sign or dispute. I can’t wait to see what great, usable, universal software can be created now that TurboTax’s stranglehold on tax prep software is gone.
