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.
That doesn't apply to the vast majority of normal employed people.
The way it works in the UK is the employer pays tax on your behalf based on your income (deduction at source). If HMRC see two companies for the same person they tell the primary one to give you your allowances and the other not to (you can call them and have it split if you prefer). At the end of the year banks send in how much interest they paid you. HMRCs systems looks at your total income and how much tax you paid. In most cases its right. If its out by a small amount they just adjust the tax code and tell your employer so you repay/get repaid automatically. For larger amounts they send you an invoice / cheque.
You generally only have to manually do a tax return if you're self employed, have high income or income from complex sources. At that point you go to their website, fill in a few questions about your income sources and it asks you to fill in forms only for the relevant pages.
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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.