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by tombert 1065 days ago
Sure, but couldn't that be done on a case-by-case basis, and the fed just sends you a refund/bill at the end of the year that you're responsible for amending?

I'm not saying a company like Intuit adds zero utility, I'm just saying that I think a lot of taxes are simple enough to where it would be relatively easy to just give people a default thing. If the IRS gets something wrong, or is missing some info, then I think a software like TurboTax makes a lot of sense, but isn't that much more of an edge case? Fundamentally, the complexity of my taxes didn't really change in the last five years.
1 comments
cragfar 1065 days ago
When the 1040EZ was a thing, only 16% of filers used it. Those would be the candidates who could safely have the IRS do their return. With anyone else, there's all kinds of information the IRS has no clue about.
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jedberg 1065 days ago
Most people don't use the EZ because even the most common deductions (that the IRS knows about, like your mortgage and state taxes and your stock investments through a firm, etc.) couldn't be put on there.

But the IRS still knows about them.

Also they could put a website where you could spend five minutes entering the most common information they don't already know, and then spit out your bill.

It's not that hard. Most filers situations aren't that complicated.

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cragfar 1065 days ago
>Also they could put a website where you could spend five minutes entering the most common information they don't already know, and then spit out your bill.

That's basically what they're doing.

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jedberg 1065 days ago
No it's not. They are setting up a free filing that will still ask you to input forms they already know about just like turbotax does.
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squeaky-clean 1065 days ago
1040EZ did not allow claiming dependents, and had an income limit of 100k. So many people were ineligible to use it.
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