The major tax-prep companies have spent the better part of this millennium lobbying to knee-cap their competition.

It’s been a two-front lobbying war, trying to keep out both the little guy and the big guy. 

H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt lobbied for stricter regulation of tax preparers, with the aim of knocking out independent part-time practitioners. 

The Obama administration was so on board with this lobbying push that President Barack Obama, violating his own revolving

The Obama administration lacked any authority to regulate tax preparers, and so these cronyist rules were tossed out by a federal judge.

At the same time they were teaming up with Big Government to create a cartel, the big preparers were also trying to keep Big Government from encroaching on their business. 

For decades, liberals have been arguing that the government should simply do our taxes for us and send us a bill. 

It’s called “return-free filing.” The argument, as columnist Marty Smith put it, is “if the IRS already knows how much I owe in taxes, why do I have to file at all?”

You can see why TurboTax’s parent company, Intuit, would oppose this idea, along with Jackson Hewitt and H&R Block.  

You can also see why taxpayers and the government shouldn’t care very much about what these companies want.