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2) See, the government actually already has a lot of the relevant information. But rather than make that available to the taxpayer, it sends a form asking you to enter your income, investments, etc. Asking you to tell the IRS what it already knows.

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3) The consequences of messing it up can be years of lawsuits and frustration. Filing taxes is basically the government issuing you a test, judging how well you do, as it is actually collecting new information.

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4) And above all that-- filing taxes just sucks. It's messy and annoying and expensive and for a lot of people anxiety producing. All to create a form the IRS already has!

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5) So why can't the IRS be transparent and helpful with the taxpayers? Why can't it give you the information it has? You could still make all the decisions about how to file -- but for many people it'd be a whole lot easier.

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4:10 PM · Oct 23, 2021Twitter Web App

6) Anyway, when I was growing, for a few years my dad spent most of his time traveling too and from Sacramento--CA's capital--helping the state build out the ability to send residents the information it already had. For a lot of people, filing taxes when from days to minutes.

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7) But, of course, the harder, more frustrating, and more poorly defined filing taxes becomes, the more it costs citizens to file. And those costs go, in decent part, to tax filing software producers. Anything that made the system better was bad for their bottom line.

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