In Portugal, if you are an employee or pensioner and have no other sources of income, the tax form is filled in automatically for you. Just confirm if you want, and hit 'send'.
The US tax and banking systems are so bad that it’s genuinely hard to understand from the Euro perspective.
"The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know when it's through, if you are a crook or a martyr." -- Will Rogers
Will Rogers died in 1935.
The only difference is that in the rest of the world, they show you the calculation the government came up with first.
They have no way of knowing what all your business expenses are (especially ones that don't require sending the recipient one of the various Form 1099s). They can look at what you claim as business expenses and retroactively require you to show proof of those expenses (i.e., audit you) if they seem unreasonable, but that's an entirely different thing.
Most of the thousands of hours you hear about comes from working through legitimate complexity (complicated assets, stock splits, self-employment, etc.)
That’s not to say it wouldn’t be good to have more computing thrown at automating the rules for that complexity.
https://apps.irs.gov/app/vita/content/00/00_13_005.jsp#:~:te...
Also can I have everything in a single unified gui?
[1] especially those barebone accounts used for employee stock grants.
The thing I find astonishing about the UK is the sheer number of tax-advantaged savings schemes. Half a dozen different types of pensions. Several different types of ISAs (tax-advantaged savings accounts). And we haven’t even mentioned the wonderful world of offshore bonds…