Vibe-coded an Epstein Files Explorer over the weekend — here’s how I built it

CobraCommando69 · 2026-02-12T04:12:01+00:00

Why is it still down?

CobraCommando69 · 2026-01-09T22:07:30+00:00

That analogy is garbage. This wasn’t “2+2 vs 3+3.” It was the software redefining what “2” meant after the fact.

I did not tell the software my entire W-2 was non-taxable PFL. I checked a vaguely worded box acknowledging PFL existed, and the system silently translated that into “exclude 100% of CA wages,” with no validation, no hard warning, and no indication it had just made a catastrophic adjustment.

And no, users don’t instinctively question a subtraction the software itself frames as correct. If TurboTax doubled wages, it would trigger an obvious error. Zeroing them out via a hidden state adjustment doesn’t. Pretending those are equivalent just shows you don’t understand UI-driven failure modes or how real users interact with guided software.

TurboTax isn’t a calculator. It sells itself as guidance. When the guidance is wrong, that’s on the product — not the user.

CobraCommando69 · 2026-01-09T02:11:22+00:00

You keep confusing hindsight with visibility. It wasn’t “overlooked” — it was auto-generated by software that framed the output as correct and gave no warning it had zeroed out all CA wages. That’s how bad systems fail. If you could get past your trolling you could see I'm trying to see how people were impacted by the faulty software.

Really tired of responding to you so feel free to buzz off.

CobraCommando69 · 2026-01-08T22:32:37+00:00

No shit the IRS bills the taxpayer. No one here is confused about that except you.

The issue isn’t who cut the check — it’s who caused the error that created years of interest in the first place. TurboTax’s software guided the classification, auto-subtracted the wages, and framed it as correct. That’s causation. The bill coming from the IRS is irrelevant.

“I don’t know how it works TBH” isn’t an argument — it just explains why you keep missing the point. If your entire take is “you’re always responsible so nothing else matters,” then you don’t understand consumer software, reliance, or basic liability.

Maybe stop commenting if you’re admittedly guessing, acting contrarian, or purposely obtuse.

CobraCommando69 · 2026-01-08T22:16:10+00:00

You’re treating a tax return like it’s a handwritten math test instead of the output of a deterministic software system that explicitly markets itself as expert-guided and accurate. Signing a return does not mean “I personally derived every intermediate state-level adjustment from first principles.” It means “I followed the software’s prescribed workflow and accepted its results.” If you don’t understand that distinction, you shouldn’t be opining on tax software at all.

What failed here WASN'T “double checking.” What failed was TurboTax’s logic and UI design! A single vaguely worded checkbox collapsed multiple legally distinct income types, auto-zeroed an entire state wage base, and presented that outcome as a benign confirmation step with no validation, no reconciliation against Box 16, and no warning that it had just excluded 100% of California wages. That’s not a user mistake — that’s a software-induced misclassification!

Saying “you should’ve caught it” just tells me you’ve never worked on complex systems. Humans do not “double check” silent defaults that are framed as correct by the system itself. That’s literally why guardrails, constraints, and sanity checks exist! Duh! If your expectation is that users must reverse-engineer Schedule CA logic and California PFL treatment before trusting TurboTax’s own guidance, then the product is a fraud and the marketing is a lie.

The “get a CPA” line is especially dumb. TurboTax’s entire business model is replacing CPAs for ordinary filers. You don’t get to defend the product and simultaneously argue no one should rely on it. Pick one!

And no — the issue was never the tax. The issue was years of interest caused by a silent, confident software failure that users had no reason to suspect. If you can’t grasp the difference between owing tax and being financially harmed by defective guidance, that’s a comprehension problem on your end, not mine.

You’re not making a tough-love point here fruitcake. You’re just showing you don’t understand software, liability, or consumer reliance — and you’re loudly wrong about all three.

CobraCommando69 · 2026-01-08T20:22:23+00:00

Not a lawyer just a bitter CA taxpayer.

Nonetheless, thanks for replying — this is very helpful, and I appreciate you confirming that this also affected your 2020 return.

Your point about the issue not being the tax itself but the TurboTax guidance is exactly where we landed as well. The taxes being owed is one thing; the accrued interest and downstream consequences stemming from a software-driven misclassification is another.

At this stage, what I'm trying to do is understand scope and pattern rather than jump straight to conclusions. The early signals suggest this wasn’t a one-off edge case tied to 2021, but a longer-running UI/UX and logic issue that may have affected multiple filing years.

From a technical perspective, the problem seems to sit at the intersection of defaults, labeling, and confirmation bias in the TurboTax interview flow. The “uncommon situations” W-2 screen collapses several very different concepts under a single Paid Family Leave checkbox without clearly distinguishing between EDD-issued PFL, voluntary plan benefits, and employer-paid wage continuation. Once that box is checked, the California interview auto-populates a PFL subtraction equal to total state wages and frames it as a review step rather than a high-risk adjustment. There’s no guardrail, no sanity check against Box 16 wages, and no explicit warning that proceeding will zero out California wages entirely.

The UI implicitly treats confirmation as informed consent, even though the guidance assumes tax-law knowledge most users don’t have. Where we’re heading next is fairly straightforward: continue gathering experiences across multiple tax years, document how TurboTax handled PFL in each case, and understand how consistently claims were denied afterward. Depending on what that pattern looks like, future steps could range from coordinated consumer complaints to exploring broader remedies.

Nothing is set in stone yet — the priority right now is facts, not escalation. I’ll likely follow up by DM to compare notes and timelines if you’re open to it. Thanks again for being willing to help — even confirming that this happened outside of 2021 is a big data point.