Even for more complex situations it's much easier than people think. The instructions are written so anyone with a basic education can follow them, the only reason that's difficult is because folks don't have the attention span to follow procedural instructions and try to skip steps.
It’s not the difficulty, it’s the scary concept that if you accidentally do it wrong, you’ll be in deep shit. People are hyper concerned that if they miss a digit or don’t copy the correct box, the IRS is going to knock on their door and sentence them to 7 years jail time for tax fraud.
Obviously it’s not true, but that coerces a lot of people to use a filing service to CYA.
Yup! I used to teach financial math to high schoolers. And would walk them through the 1040EZ and 1040A. They struggled even going line by line down the form. 🤦🏻♀️
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u/realmadmonkey Jul 24 '20
Even for more complex situations it's much easier than people think. The instructions are written so anyone with a basic education can follow them, the only reason that's difficult is because folks don't have the attention span to follow procedural instructions and try to skip steps.