SACRAMENTO — When the state offered to take some of the agony out of tax season for thousands of low-income and elderly Californians by filling out their returns for them, the reaction was overwhelming.
Most of the taxpayers who voluntarily participated in a test run of the state's ReadyReturn program said it alleviated anxiety, saved time and was something government ought to do routinely. More than 96% said they would participate again, according to a state survey.
Then a legislative committee tried to kill the program, leaving Stanford law professor Joe Bankman, who helped design it, bewildered. He had thought the logic of it was so obvious, and the enthusiasm from participants so great, that lawmakers would rush to embrace it.
"I can't believe how naive I was," said Bankman, a tax-law scholar with a tendency toward rumpled suits who has temporarily traded the ivory tower for the hallways of the Capitol. "It's unbelievable how little I knew about how things are really done."
Bankman had underestimated how much influence one Silicon Valley company could have on the lawmaking process.
Intuit, maker of the consumer tax software TurboTax, is fighting ReadyReturn. The Mountain View firm has spent about $500,000 on lobbying and campaign contributions since it was proposed two years ago.
Now the program is in legislative limbo. The test period ends next year, and a bill to keep it alive lacks support. Intuit hired a well connected lobbyist, a man whose stretch limousine is regularly parked across the street from the Capitol. So Bankman hired a lobbyist too, using $30,000 his family had set aside to remodel the kitchen of their Palo Alto home.
"It's a shame," he said. " But once I realized that you had to buy your way in to get access, then making the decision to spend the money was not difficult."
Intuit spokeswoman Julie Miller said in a written statement that ReadyReturn is a bad idea, and it is "a fundamental conflict of interest for the state's tax collector and enforcer to also become people's tax preparer."
"The debate over this issue is not -- and should not be -- about politics," she wrote. "It should be about what is the best public policy for every California taxpayer."
Lawmakers opposed to ReadyReturn say it confuses people, creates privacy concerns and could scare taxpayers away from legitimate deductions.
