TurboTax is preventing the government from offering a solution and I wouldn't be surprised if they promote complicating the tax code. It's incredibly common for

TurboTax is preventing the government from offering a solution and I wouldn't be surprised if they promote complicating the tax code. It's incredibly common for companies to promote additional regulation to prevent competition. ReadyReturn[1] was a 2005 California Tax prep program. It mailed you a prepopulated tax form. It was incredibly popular during the pilot program and TurboTax spent $1.7 million lobbying against it. Most people don't have complicated taxes, but I find even collecting all the forms from employers and institutions and filling out the forms a pain. I'm confident it's the most error prone part. I honestly don't think capital gains or HSA complicate things all that much if you're automating things. I don't care how complicated the tax code is. I have personal opinions on what they should incentivize, but don't care how it's calculated. Most countries offer prefilled or tax software to cover basic needs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyReturn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyReturn