[yellow_postit]

I think this is a false equivalence. The IRS is already "doing taxes" for most people when they get their paystub and investment data electronically sent by those institutions and using that to compare against the self-willed returns. If anything for many individuals (not self-employed, minimal investments, basic mortgage) this plan would reduce overhead.

[gdulli]

In theory, the goal of the government is to maximize your amount of tax paid while the goal of professional tax preparation is to minimize it. (In order to compete with other services.)

In practice, I don't know whether there ends up being a net benefit to taxpayers or not in the current setup.

[yellow_postit]

Outside of extreme wealth cases it appears that many "bulk" prepares operate on a volume business where turnover and automation is the focus. Given sufficient transparency and a way to manually file a return if you disagree with the auto-return (like in the UK) then I believe the efficiency problem you point out would be addressed.

[loeg]

Also: private filing via tax prep firm would remain an option.