<story><title>H&amp;R Block and Intuit Lobby Against Free and Simple Tax Filing (2017)</title><url>https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-free-simple-hr-block-intuit-lobbying-against-it</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bluejekyll</author><text>This is a great example of why the way in which politicians raise money and how they are lobbied is corruptive.&lt;p&gt;This is a case where quite easily 80% of their constituency would applaud the change. But a minor set of companies with an ability to contribute large sums of money (for or against) is able to influence something like this passing.&lt;p&gt;Citizens United and similar SCOTUS cases have made it even that much more unlikely that the situation will be improved any time soon.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fmardones</author><text>&amp;quot;You sit down, review a prefilled filing from the government. If it’s accurate, you sign it. If it’s not, you fix it or ignore it altogether and prepare your return yourself. It’s your choice. You might not have to pay for an accountant, or fiddle for hours with complex software. It could all be over in minutes.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This is exactly how it works in Chile...since 2005!</text></comment>
<story><title>H&amp;R Block and Intuit Lobby Against Free and Simple Tax Filing (2017)</title><url>https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-free-simple-hr-block-intuit-lobbying-against-it</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bluejekyll</author><text>This is a great example of why the way in which politicians raise money and how they are lobbied is corruptive.&lt;p&gt;This is a case where quite easily 80% of their constituency would applaud the change. But a minor set of companies with an ability to contribute large sums of money (for or against) is able to influence something like this passing.&lt;p&gt;Citizens United and similar SCOTUS cases have made it even that much more unlikely that the situation will be improved any time soon.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>grecy</author><text>Yes, this is a failing of Democracy as it currently works in the United States, because the money of large corporations has more say that the will of the people.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, it&amp;#x27;s true of so many aspects of American society right now that are in desperate need of reform or rebuild - education, health, roads, public transport, safety, just to name a few.&lt;p&gt;There are so many hundreds of billions of private profits tied up in these things they will never be allowed to improve.</text></comment>