The "Stanford Professor Loses Political Battle To Simplify Tax Filing Process" article[1] discussed here a year ago [2] is relevant to this topic, although in t

The "Stanford Professor Loses Political Battle To Simplify Tax Filing Process" article[1] discussed here a year ago [2] is relevant to this topic, although in that case it concerned California state taxes. That article also answers a question many here have ("why don't they pre-fill the form like <insert EU country here>"). It's because Grover Norquist, the well known promoter of the "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" took the counterintuitive view that just making the process easier equated to a new tax, since taxpayers might end up paying taxes already on the books that they might have previously unintentionally evaded. The same applies to any such improvements in the IRS filing process. 1. https://www.npr.org/2017/03/29/521954033/stanford-professor-loses-political-battle-to-simplify-tax-filing-process https://www.npr.org/2017/03/29/521954033/stanford-professor-... 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13990391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13990391