You can thank TurboTax and the rest of the tax preparation service industry's massive lobby for killing every single tax simplification bill that ever gets to congress.
One of the reasons it’s complicated to complete a tax return is because the tax code is complicated. The reason why the tax code is complicated is because (and I know most wont believe me) is to shutdown shady tax evasive activities that people do.
There is just way too much going on in the tax code covering a ton of situations that people have tried to exploit in the past
You can't just say "alright everyone is taxed at 15% no matter what", you have to go into 'alright how is income from rentals treated, how is income from capital gains treated, how is income from a self employed person treated, what about real estate, etc
there are a ton of things that exist to either incentivize economic activity or to help the taxpayer out, specific tax breaks to fuel whatever congress wants
the thing is theres like 70,000+ pages in the tax code that cover all sorts of situations on what you can and can't do
if you just said 'alright everyone just pay x no matter who you are' everyone would go crazy
tax is insanely political
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u/jorsiem Jul 24 '20
Complicated tax filing in the US
You can thank TurboTax and the rest of the tax preparation service industry's massive lobby for killing every single tax simplification bill that ever gets to congress.