We're a day away from Tax Day in 2014. The idea that it doesn't have to be a complicated abyss of receipts and sadness is finally gaining some mainstream traction.

Last week, Vox outlined, in simple terms, why doing your taxes does not need to be terrible. Places like Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Spain, Chile, Iceland and Norway all have taxes that are filed to you. Your employer and bank sends a statement to the revenue service, and if everything looks right, you sign your name and send it back.

Your taxes are then filed. That is the end of it.

Not only do you feel like less of an idiot, but it would also save the government an estimated $2 billion and taxpayers 225 million hours of productivity each year. Why isn't it like this? Because Intuit, the people who make Turbotax, have spent about $8 million in the last three years lobbying Congress to keep taxes complicated.

That is the only reason your taxes are still complicated.

Now there is a "grassroots" campaign in the op-ed sections of newspapers nationwide with one message: Let's keep in place the time-honored tradition of doing our own taxes.

The op-eds say that taxes filed to you would mean "higher taxes for the poor" and it would "take advantage of the most vulnerable people in American society."

But there are two problems with this:

1 - Americans would still be able to file their own return if they felt the IRS didn't take into account a move, a baby, or any other omission. And more importantly,

2 - All of these op-eds are being written by a lobbying firm, paid for by TurboTax. All of them. And a lot of them are identical.

ProPublica found a handful of them. Most of them contain one paragraph that is, save for some syntax, almost identical to the others.

[file id='334']

[/file]

The talking points are being disseminated to community leaders, who have been asked to get the word out about "alarming and offensive" return-free tax filing.

At least one of those people, Rabbi Elliot Dorff, was approached by a former student, who didn't identify herself at any point as a lobbyist. He appears to regret writing it now.

So if you hear of a pro-tax filing argument in your local newspaper, just know that this person either loves paperwork or is paid for by the Turbotax people.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io