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by cragfar 1059 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.
2 comments

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.

>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.

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.
1040EZ did not allow claiming dependents, and had an income limit of 100k. So many people were ineligible to use it.