[pezezin]

Really? I live in Japan, last month I had to fill my taxes, and I found the process to be really convoluted and annoying compared to my home country (Spain). Likewise, banks feel really obsolete and inefficient here.

I shudder to imagine how bad the American system is to make Japan look good :/

[mcherm]

My wife calculates and submits our taxes (here in the US). It typically takes her 40 to 60 hours to complete, and that's after spending around $100 USD on tax preparation software to make it easier.

To be fair, our taxes are more complex than many people's (I live in a different state than my employer and we have some stock market investments), but it's still ABSURDLY difficult.

And I'm not counting the time needed to respond to Federal or State follow-ups 9 months later where they question the values we provided. That happens to us about every 2-3 years. So far it has only once found a minor error on our part.

[georgyo]

What?!

I do my taxes myself for my family. I have W2s, K1s, various 1099s for investments, own a home, and deal with carry overs from the previous years.

It takes me about an hour to do it. And then another hour to amend them many months later when I get my actual K1s.

How hard is it to answer 100 questions and copy numbers over from one place to another? W2 box 1 goes to W2 box 1. No I don't own a corn farm. I donated this much to these organizations. I would consider 25% of my rent for my home office.

Both turbo tax and tax hawk will connect to your investment bank and populate all the obscure 1099 stuff there. Dealing with international investment was definitely confusing the first time around, but definitely not 40 hours worth.

40 hours is 8 hours a day for 5 days straight. I don't know what you value yours wife's time at, but if it really takes that long you might be better off paying a CPA a few hundred dollars.

[zamfi]

Yeah, just taxes alone doesn’t seem like it should take that long—but doing accounting for taxes can take a long time, especially if you’re self-employed and taking deductions, or have employees for your schedule-C business, etc.

Perhaps the poster is including the accounting in the tax prep.

[mv4]

Same. W2s across 3 states, K1s, 1099s, LLC and Schedule C - takes a few hours, incl. state filings. Usually complete it in one day.