What makes taxes complicated for an average Joe in the US, who's got a job and doesn't engage in some complex activities that are more useful to the top 0.1% ? I used to do my own taxes in the UK and while the process is fairly straightforward (would never pay anyone to do it) but the terminology in some cases is outright silly. Now I'm in Lithuania, where I could file my tax returns just by logging into my online banking. It'd be interesting to see how it's on the other side of the pond.
Nothing. It's basically just an exercise in copying info from a few sources into a web form.
Once you have your W2s (basically an annual pay stub) you can click through any of the free tax services in under an hour. If you have mortgage interest or student loan interest add however long it takes you to get those forms (they usually mail you a form telling you what you need to know for your taxes that year) or dig up the PDF version on your online account with the creditor. I just magnet the forms to the fridge as they show up at the beginning of the year and file once I have them all.
Those free tax services exist because they lobby the government to keep it from offering free filing itself so companies can push paid services to free filers who don't really need those paid services.
Yes and? That doesn't affect the answer to his question. Regardless of who's letterhead the guy who built the web form's pay stub is on the process is still the same. Having to click "no" on a few more screens doesn't make it much more challenging.
