I’m told in European countries that y’all have your taxes pre-calculated and sent to your homes? I’m flabbergasted that we don’t do the same.
Going from 2017 to 2018, the 1040 went from 79 lines [1] to 23 lines [2]. The remaining 50 or so lines? Moved to Schedules 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. So if your return had any amount of complexity, you probably needed more pages that year.
Today's Form 1040 [3] is somewhere in the middle. The form itself has 38 lines, and the numbered schedules have been consolidated from 6 to 3.
[1] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/f1040--2017.pdf
But things get complicated in a hurry in the US. My taxes aren't unreasonably complicated with only maybe a couple things that aren't pretty routine. And I still end up with a 1" thick sheaf of paper between federal and state taxes from my accountant.
It is because Intuit and other large tax preparers have lobbied heavily against anything that makes taxes easier to file.
> Internal presentations lay out company tactics for fighting “encroachment,” Intuit’s catchall term for any government initiative to make filing taxes easier — such as creating a free government filing system or pre-filling people’s returns with payroll or other data the IRS already has. “For a decade proposals have sought to create IRS tax software or a ReturnFree Tax System; All were stopped,” reads a confidential 2007 PowerPoint presentation from an Intuit board of directors meeting.
https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...