In Portugal, if you are an employee or pensioner and have no other sources of income, the tax form is filled in automatically for you. Just confirm if you want, and hit 'send'.
While Intuit and their friends do lobby, the US tax code was fiendishly complex long before Intuit was even a thing.
"The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know when it's through, if you are a crook or a martyr." -- Will Rogers
They have no way of knowing what all your business expenses are (especially ones that don't require sending the recipient one of the various Form 1099s). They can look at what you claim as business expenses and retroactively require you to show proof of those expenses (i.e., audit you) if they seem unreasonable, but that's an entirely different thing.
Their taxes are easy, too. Just a handful of clicks through a free e-filing system. Most can also use a free in-person filing service (VITA.)
Most of the thousands of hours you hear about comes from working through legitimate complexity (complicated assets, stock splits, self-employment, etc.)
That’s not to say it wouldn’t be good to have more computing thrown at automating the rules for that complexity.
If you're an American and have 0 deductions you're seriously incompetent as an adult. The standard deduction is available to almost all taxpayers and requires no evidence, documentation, or proof of any kind:
In the UK, less than 10% of the population even file a tax return. For 90% of people tax is just taken at source. Unless you have a small business, rent out properties or work abroad, HMRC already knows what you needed to pay and get's it right 99% of the time and your employer/pension provider just withholds as required. It's always baffled me that so many rich countries don't operate like this...
I do my own taxes on the UK, it is not complicated, but it would be everything a billion time easier if all brokerage accounts [1]and banks had a simple way to get all transactions in a tax year in a single csv file instead if having to do a billion clicks and having to parse dozens of pdf files!
Also can I have everything in a single unified gui?
[1] especially those barebone accounts used for employee stock grants.
That would be perfect. It would be so much better if they just sent you a form with a few numbers on. And the maths and format were the same irrespective of the firm. One from each of your brokers, add the numbers together, put onto tax return, submit and sleep soundly.
The thing I find astonishing about the UK is the sheer number of tax-advantaged savings schemes. Half a dozen different types of pensions. Several different types of ISAs (tax-advantaged savings accounts). And we haven’t even mentioned the wonderful world of offshore bonds…
The US tax and banking systems are so bad that it’s genuinely hard to understand from the Euro perspective.