Second, the reason it's this way...is because of the excessive lobbying to keep it this way, of which Intuit is one of the largest players. In fact, there is no reason for the IRS not to just tell you "here is what we think you owe/should be refunded", and for you to say "Nope, here's why (and e-file relevant forms)", or "Yep, that's correct", except that lobbying has prevented it (well, and the last time it came up one of the two political parties was against it ostensibly because 'big government')
Only for certain definitions of "you". All the available offers have various restrictions.
https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...
>Intuit revved its new lobbying machine. Even before the OMB report was publicly released, a group of Republican lawmakers, led by TurboTax’s hometown congressman, wrote to the agency arguing that there was no reason for the government to “compete” with the “well-established” private tax prep companies. Intuit’s lobbyists also went above the OMB and pressed their case directly to the White House, Forman recalled.
>At the IRS, “all hell broke loose,” remembered Terry Lutes, who was then the head of electronic filing at the agency. Intuit’s clout on the Hill meant that lawmakers were soon accusing the IRS of making “secret plans to undercut the industry,” Lutes said. The agency ran the risk of seeing its funding cut if it were to pursue the Bush plan.
>The IRS commissioner at the time, Charles Rossotti, also opposed the idea. The IRS’ customer service staff, already too thin to respond adequately to Americans’ questions about the tax code, would have to grow substantially to handle millions of software queries. Congress “will never give you sufficient funding,” Rossotti told ProPublica.
https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...
You can expect people to do what is in their own interest without supporting them. I expect that the muggers will mug me. I don't support them in mugging me.
They are an amoral profit seeking company who is screwing you and I over so they can benefit. That doesn't mean it should automatically be illegal, but it's not clear to me why you would like this.
I just don't understand why they're encouraging e-filing when they can't keep track of them properly.