Another tax software company bites the dust

[Black Bart]

Okay,

1. There is a continuum of possible situations running from forbidding something through discouraging it then not encouraging it and finally encouraging it...I am not a socialist...

I misread the part of your post about "not encouraging" small business rather than prohibiting it (although it seems wrongheaded NOT to encourage it). Sorry for implying you're a socialist -- maybe instead just a (yuk-yuk) Marxist-Leninist.

2. I personally think that if a worker gets hurt on the job the employer or insurance should do everything money can do to make the worker whole and if that puts the employer out of business so be it...

But this attitude is what bothers me about the liberal viewpoint -- its followers, while absolutely devoted to "fairness and safety" -- seem to have little or no regard for how their policy affects people in the real world. To illustrate: AR Wage & Hour once audited my wife's retail shop. Minimum wage is common here, but we paid more -- no change. We asked the aggressive (dedicated to "fairness") auditor about our aged handicapped relative who worked for us (could not find a job anywhere else); suppose we couldn't pay that minimum; what then? Said "I'd close you up." And Auntie's irreplaceable job? "That's just tough," she said. And that seems to be their view -- people aren't as important as their sacred "rules and regulations." Ask New Orleans residents who's putting up houses down there? Habitat for Humanity or Mayor Nagin's government crew? Google John Stossel's report on that.

3. ...I would like to know at what point you would favor regulations to bust up the conglomerates in our industry. if nothing is done one day there will be only one company owning all of the software products marketed to tax professionals.

I wouldn't favor it at any point because I believe, like John H said, that the market will take care of it -- it's much more efficient and quick than any government regulation can ever be. Gas prices for instance -- look how fast OPEC got moving (next day emergency meeting) when the market spoke harshly to them? Nobody likes vendors throwing us to the wolves, but for $40 million who probably would not do the same? If cheap software is needed, a small businessperson will provide it, get bought, and then another will do it all over again.

I guess the argument's about sticks (force 'em to do right) or carrots (entice 'em to do right).

[joanmcq]

My Max package has unlimited efiles for about $1100 this year. For any ATXers that used the old board, a user run board replaced the official board within about a week of them closing down the old one. Its at atxcommunity.com

ATX did put the board back up, but its not used much, that I can see. Our board is lively, and I can usually get a workaround there and not have to call tex upport (as JB calls it). And we don't even care if you dump ATX and go to Drake; there is a part of the board for alternate software evaluations. Although the thread for intellitax isn't much use anymore.