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Comment by psxdude | Hacker News Reader

The majority of high school graduates can probably easily file their taxes, since their income is likely entirely W-2.

If they're single, have only W-2 income, and have no children, then maybe... Just the child tax credit for 2022 requires filing an additional schedule 8812 (which is somehow referred to in some places as schedule 8) and in order to complete schedule 8812 you have to choose the correct worksheet and fill that in, but not file it. All of that results in a single credit value which is 1 line on the form 1040.

This is not simple: https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1040s8

That is horrible indeed but I guess it is unavoidably so - you can't effectively have n-level nested if-else and lookups on a paper without making it complicated. Translated into code, it should become much simpler with progressive inputs/filtering.

It's not unavoidable. This is my point.

You could just say something like "multiply the number of dependents entered previously on form 1040 by $2000, enter value on line X" and you'd still have a child tax credit and the vast majority of people who claim it would see no difference other than taking significantly less time to figure out the amount of their child tax credit. By the time you get to the child tax credit line on form 1040 you've already written all your dependents and their social security numbers right at the beginning of form 1040.

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