[gerdesj]

PAYE (Pay As You Earn) is automatic for all employees. Anything more complicated involves a P11D ie "benefits".

Self assessment nowadays gets all P60 details pre filled in. I run a closed company with two other directors and 20 odd employees. My tax affairs are pretty simple - I don't do anything fancy. It takes me abut 30-60 mins to fill in the HMRC SA questionnaire online. I get a tax calc at the end and I cough up my tax. Dealing with shares etc is pretty straightforward because there is statutory reporting - ie each year you get a standard form declaring all relevant amounts and what to do.

Taxation in the UK is pretty easy to deal with unless you want to take the piss, in which case you don't have a leg to stand on.

I've been on the receiving end of a HMRC audit and I don't recommend it. Bizarrely I came out better off when they found some additional things I could claim for, which more than offset my cock up that caused the audit, including the fine! That was for a former small business I ran (pre IR35) and I had an accountant, that I promptly fired for obvious reasons.

[EduardoBautista]

The US is also "pay as you earn" and automatically gets deducted from salaries. For most people working as employees, the tax return is just for you to confirm your numbers with the government's, specify any deductions if necessary, and see if you owe any extra or are entitled to a refund.

I am honestly surprised that learning how to fill out the IRS form is not part of the high school curriculum.

The 1040 form is only two pages long:

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf

The software to make this isn't too complicated. This has more to do about being able to legally distribute it since an open-source solution could have been distributed already, but there is too much liability in doing so.

If you want to add e-file to the software, you have to be approved by the IRS and that's where the lobbying/corruption comes into play.

[maccard]

> For most people working as employees, the tax return is just for you to confirm your numbers with the government's, specify any deductions if necessary, and see if you owe any extra or are entitled to a refund.

In the UK, for most people working as employees there is no tax return. There's no numbers to confirm, no deductions, no extras.

[arcticbull]

Until 2018 there was a 1 page version called 1040EZ

[mancerayder]

What's the story behind its disappearance? I remember filling that out when I first started working long ago.