TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free
I am the developer in charge of CalFile, the free filing software that everyone asks for here for state of California.<p><a href="https://www.ftb.ca.gov/file/ways-to-file/online/calfile/index.asp" rel="nofollow">https://www.ftb.ca.gov/file/ways-to-file/online/calfile/inde...</a><p>I am pushing so hard to make it better and more useful to more people, like being able to add capital gain that is not currently supported.<p>these are the push backs that I am getting:<p>1. Last time they tried to do what all of you ask, a ready return. TurboTax and others hired bunch of lobbyist and put so much pressure on people here and killed the project. People are still afraid and don't want to do too much to grab the attention of their lobbyist!<p>2. Use of CalFile goes down every year and if trend continues, it would be killed in the near future.<p>when you have your Federal return it is much easier to pay a little more and file your state tax with it too. 
No body even knows CalFile exist because we don't have a marketing budget to promote it.<p>3. Even people here buy the argument that free software exist and people could file their taxes for free.