House GOP: Cuts to IRS & Free tax filing

But catholics are generally not. Something makes them lose their religion...And I think we all know what does that in politics.

Cash.

Bit if you are right, why is a "non profit" forking over millions if they don't need to?

 

You realize that is a fraction of what the major lobbyists spend, right? Why did you bypass all of the actual major lobbyists?

 

You really think he wasn't Pro-Choice, but he became Pro-Choice because of $200K to his campaign? $200K he could easily get from the other "side" of that issue (as their non-profits put up a similar amount into lobbying). That is honestly absurd given the scale of Presidential fundraising (which is currently sitting about 4 orders of magnitude higher than that), and I suspect you would say the same in any other context.

And they aren't forking over "millions" based on the numbers you posted.

 

https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2023&id=D000000591

plan parenthood spent about $1.4 million in lobbying


The top lobbying groups spend more than 10 times that amount.

https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders?cycle=2023

democrats these days are by and large pro choice. 15 years ago it wasn’t quite as uniform - you could find some pro life democratic congressman.

As to Catholics, my perception is in spite of many strict rules, many Catholics tend to be more pragmatic on issues and less dogmatic on issues of religion. Catholics are generally mixed on the abortion issue last time I checked.

 

Both sides are supported heavily by the rich and corporations, you can look it and see.

Also the majority of filers don’t itemize which is free to file with on turbo tax.

 

I'm aware, but it's the Republicans fighting this battle.

 

Only about 10% of individual filers itemize, the other 90% take the standard deduction which is free to file on with turbo tax. So they aren’t making anything on most filers.
Certainly they make money on some LLC and small business filers but it’s way less than what a CPA would charge.

 

HR block and Intuit spend roughly 3M each. That is also chump change.

Planned Parenthood spends it to what? Preach to the choir? My point is PP thinks they need to for some reason. And it isn't to change the minds of pro life republicans.

Regardless my overriding point is, its silly to get bent at lobbyists that you dont like but ignore ones you do. Lobbyists exist everywhere.

My family is 5 generations in the Fence and Deck business. I was actually a contractor myself for 15 years. Do you know why retention ponds in Florida have fences around them in many cases? Yep. There is/was a fence lobby looking for ways to make money.

Here in NC we have no fences around retention ponds. Why? No lobby.

Its out of control.

I like Intuit. I use their products for several things. But i dont support them in this fight.
But its a legal fight and everyone does it, so why are people selectively outraged?

 

FTC finds TurboTax “free” is not free for most

 

Good points but uhhhh, we might have a few alligators walking around.
So maybe fences in Florida are a lobbyist thing and protect children from wandering up to a gator thing too.
Remember the kid who got eaten in a small Disney pond a few years back.

 

Understood and the lobbies used that. But guess what are pretty prevalent in ponds in Coastal North Carolina? Yep. Gators.

Not as many as we had in my neighborhood in Florida growing up lol, we had names for all of them...but still quite common here. One was literally removed from my kids schools pond about 3 years ago.

My point is lobbies arent interested in protecting kids from gators. They were literally paid for by fence contractors to create new revenue.

 

That much is true. It costs me about $100 for state and federal. I dont really itemize like I did as a contractor. Just some straight up W-2's and some rental income. And the standard deduction...Mine takes like 30 minutes. However when i do my kids taxes, they are completely free.

 

You can also just file paper like we did for decades and it’s free..

 

Maybe it's just me but paper filing of tax returns seems to be the equivalent of paying bills by writing and mailing checks every month like we also did for decades. Sure you can do it but it's not very efficient.

 

$6 million is 4x what you were discussing. Regardless, relatively small sums are more likely to affect policy in areas that are not high profile. Voters don't have strong opinions about fences around lakes.

Lobbying in major issues largely is just the ability to get a meeting to try to make sure that your point can be heard. It is highly unlikely to actually change a position. They simply don't want to have an ally choose to focus efforts on another ally on a decision where interests might overlap but imperfectly. The notion that Democratic politicians are in the "pocket" of PP because they spend $1.4 million on lobbying is absurd.

 

Schedule E adds to your cost.

I use it for self employed. It’s about $90 and I find it worth every penny, that’s with a schedule E.