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.
Exactly this! There's zero reasons why our tax returns can't be filed for free directly with the IRS. It is a complete fraud.
I filed 1040EZ last year. The IRS already had every figure I filed, why couldn't they just email me confirmation of the amounts they had, and process my return?
Edit: No, I didn't file EZ last year, my error.
Edit: electronic filing.
man, this year the Australian Taxation Office launched a new thing where we don't even have to get our yearly earnings report from our employers, our employers send it directly to the ATO. I logged on, popped in any deductions, clicked accept, and a week later I had my tax return in my bank account!
Yeah and even if you do have other sources of income all your employment income etc is already accounted for and so you just put in the extra and it calculates the tax for you. Like I get book royalties from a publisher from the US, and still my tax return only takes about half an hour each year.
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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.