I think trying to squeeze journalists is a really bad idea.
If you fuck up the best thing to do is just ignore it and pray no one notices. I don't think many readers of this outlet really care all that much about this topic. I mean, international readers don't care about US taxes all that much and generally people don't care.
This lobbying is pretty egregious though. But generally lobbying laws in the USA are problematic. In many countries these practices are considered illegal.
This, however, has become very much juicy gossip now, so as someone else mentioned. It's going to be the Streisand effect.
Sasan Goodarzi, CEO of Intuit, seems to not like being on the record about what his company has been doing in Congress.
Shouldn't that prompt introspection about what you're doing in Congress, sasan?
For $27 million a year, he should be able to handle a hard question or two.
I would like the government to just send me a bill and/or check by default please. Sure let people get fancy tax preparation services and advice if they’re making millions to do complicated things but honestly it’s so backwards to demand citizens compute their own bill and then penalize them if they get it wrong. Doing your own calculation should be opt-in, not opt-out (via annoying software).
Among my tech friends Intuit’s reputation is already mud for standing against human decency on tax filing reform for 30 years, but non-tech-sphere people are always surprised to hear about the Intuit lobbying & deception stuff.
Seems like the Streisand effect.
I read the "heated" exchange. And it was heated. But it was more like a reporter grilling the interviewee. "You did xyz. Are you going to do zyx [the opposite]?" And then he calls him to remove this part of the interview. And I don't blame him.
The question was effectively are you going to do the opposite of what you have been doing all along. And that is not a fair question. Instead the interviewee pivots to something they have done (making taxes simpler) in similar line to what the question was asking (lobbying gov't to send a pre-prepared tax bill).
I think they should have deleted the part of the audio, and simply reported on what occurred. We grilled Sasan on pushing gov't to send people an already prepared tax bill, but he deflected to pushing govt to make taxes simpler.
The grip these tax companies have on the market is insane and needs to be put in check 20 years ago. The lobbying these companies do to keep their only business model alive is outrageous, the tax system right now is unbelievably broken and it's the fault of these tax companies, and the behavior that they allegedly committed that's discussed in this article should put them out of business.