The government has tried to do away with filing taxes more than once. The tax lobby in the US, specifically Intuit the makers of Turbotax, has paid a lot of good money to prevent that. Add to that the anti-taxation people want taxes to be painful so that you associate that pain with taxes and now you understand why you can't file electronically directly with the IRS who already knows how much you owe, or just get your return back if owed one.