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The real problem is that Congress is bought and paid for by the tax return industry so that they can create an ever more complicated tax system that forces people to use the tax return industry

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The "ever more complicated tax system" is actually intended to make it easier for rich donors (with lawyers and tax accountants) to pay less taxes. That the complexity also props up the tax return industry is just gravy.

I don't think this is true. The total lobbying dollars of H&R Block and Intuit is not really a lot of money[1][2] although it is something. I think there is an incentive for these companies to support more complicated taxes but I doubt they are the cause of complicated taxes. The IRS brings in a lot of profit on extra collections and penalties.[3]

[1]: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/h-r-block/lobbying?id=D0000...

[2]: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/intuit-inc/totals?id=D00002...

[3]: https://www.irs.gov/statistics/collections-activities-penalt...

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