I guess the reason why it's not done this way in the US is a combination of the general mistrust of government, and the lobbying from companies like Intuit to keep the tax system as complex as it is now.
They wouldn't make a decision on how things would be taxed until after our IPO - so we were able to exercise the options and sell the shares to cover the worst case tax scenario.
After the IPO nice tax man said that the best case rules applied and we got to keep the money that would have been used to pay our tax bills.
Thank you HMRC!
Here's their lobbyist's disclosure form. It says "Oppose IRS government tax preparation" right there in Box 16. https://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=getFilingDetails&...
Their SEC disclosure says essentially the same thing. Grab it from here: http://investors.intuit.com/financial-information/annual-rep... Specifically, on page 10 of the 2016 version:
"We are a member of the Free File Alliance, a consortium of private sector companies that has entered into an agreement with the federal government. Under this agreement, the member companies provide online federal tax preparation and filing services at no cost to eligible federal taxpayers, and the federal government has agreed not to provide a competing service.... However, future administrative, regulatory, or legislative activity in this area could harm our Consumer Tax business."
I'm totally fine blaming them.
If you make less than that, the "Free File Alliance" let you submit a simple federal return for free using their software. They may try to upsell you on various things and may charge for a state return too.
Above that threshold, your only free options are the paper forms or the "Free Fillable Forms" online. The latter option is really simple. It will copy some numbers from place to place and does some basic math, but beyond that it is very similar to filling in the paper form--it won't help you optimize your return or anything like that.
More here: https://www.irs.gov/uac/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-...