[chaimedes]

I totally agree with this article, except:

"That’s what tax preparers are – they use the exact same software that anyone can use at home, but they allow you to talk to a human instead of learning the software"

IMHO this is one of those edge cases where software might simplify the process 99 times out of 100, but a skilled/experienced human may help avoid uncommon but costly mistakes. There is enough nuance and vagueness in taxes that it pays to have a human look over your numbers -- even if they use software to do it.

[toyg]

Taxes cannot be completely automated because they are laws. Laws are expressed in language, and language is not exact - even our own understanding of such language will change through the years, as any constitutional scholar can attest.

[dave_aiello]

The biggest reason to use a tax professional in the USA is that it's their job to know what a reasonable amount of expense is against a certain amount of income where withholding taxes aren't taken out.