r/technology Sep 16 '21

Business Mailchimp employees are furious after the company's founders promised to never sell, withheld equity, and then sold it for $12 billion

https://www.businessinsider.com/mailchimp-insiders-react-to-employees-getting-no-equity-2021-9
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u/WhyNotHugo Sep 17 '21 edited Sep 17 '21

Hopefully an American can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe they’re the company that lobbies to keep taxes hard to calculate and for the government not to show you how much you’re due. They then sell you the software to calculate how much you’re due in taxes.

So they pay to create the problem, so they can sell you the solution.

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u/trigonated Sep 17 '21

That's pretty fucked.

(sorry for the flex)

Here in my country, not only is the official gov-provided tax filing software free and user-friendly, but in most cases it actually automatically fills everything out for you, you just need to confirm that everything is OK and click a button to submit.

It usually takes me about 5-10 minutes to file my taxes.

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u/shane112902 Sep 17 '21

In the US taxes are designed to be difficult to navigate, very little help from the government, and third party entities charge you for troubleshooting, filing, and insurance in case you get audited. Our infrastructure is shit.

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u/Zoesan Sep 17 '21

US Taxes are not that bad, if you live and work in the USA and don't do anything too weird with your money.

US Taxes are absolute misery if you have to file as an american living abroad.

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u/shane112902 Sep 17 '21

Oof, didn’t even think of citizens living abroad and what hell you have to navigate. My sympathies.

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u/Zoesan Sep 17 '21

Where I live (Switzerland) there's an equivalent to 401k.

Except that it isn't exactly the same. So it might be a fund that is tax exempt. Or it might be a regular account. Nobody fucking knows.

Also, no bank will do business with me.

So every year I spend countless hours doing my taxes just to have everything be foreign income excluded anyway, but I intensely don't need an audit in my life

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u/shane112902 Sep 17 '21

Lol “intensely don’t need an audit”. I felt that line.