If all you need is the 1040-ez (as most people do) then it's trivial to automate with records that the IRS already has. Then you're given the opportunity to rev

If all you need is the 1040-ez (as most people do) then it's trivial to automate with records that the IRS already has. Then you're given the opportunity to review and correct your automatic taxes like other countries already do. This is already what happens, except you're paying a third party for the privilege of copy/pasting some fields from one form to another. America isn't unique and special, solutions to problems in other countries aren't magically impossible here. The reason you think this is because you've been tricked into thinking our tax code is complex by necessity. In reality, things are only this bad because TurboTax and other tax preparing companies have lobbied for more complex tax codes and less access to free automated filing. If an independent company can produce software to file your taxes and charge you $150 for it, there's absolutely no reason the IRS can't do the same thing for free.