One year I totally screwed up and they fixed it for me, giving me a considerably larger return than I filed. So I’m really happy that auto button exists now.
I don't like relying on third party apps. Especially that they're now all cloud based so they keep a copy of all your financials and it sucks. Turbotax even does a credit check (via equifax) on me once a year for god knows what reason...
Self assessment nowadays gets all P60 details pre filled in. I run a closed company with two other directors and 20 odd employees. My tax affairs are pretty simple - I don't do anything fancy. It takes me abut 30-60 mins to fill in the HMRC SA questionnaire online. I get a tax calc at the end and I cough up my tax. Dealing with shares etc is pretty straightforward because there is statutory reporting - ie each year you get a standard form declaring all relevant amounts and what to do.
Taxation in the UK is pretty easy to deal with unless you want to take the piss, in which case you don't have a leg to stand on.
I've been on the receiving end of a HMRC audit and I don't recommend it. Bizarrely I came out better off when they found some additional things I could claim for, which more than offset my cock up that caused the audit, including the fine! That was for a former small business I ran (pre IR35) and I had an accountant, that I promptly fired for obvious reasons.
I am honestly surprised that learning how to fill out the IRS form is not part of the high school curriculum.
The 1040 form is only two pages long:
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf
The software to make this isn't too complicated. This has more to do about being able to legally distribute it since an open-source solution could have been distributed already, but there is too much liability in doing so.
If you want to add e-file to the software, you have to be approved by the IRS and that's where the lobbying/corruption comes into play.
In the UK, for most people working as employees there is no tax return. There's no numbers to confirm, no deductions, no extras.
Still, you have some years to ask for correction even after that, but as usual it is somewhat more complicated.
I used to do this and never spent more than 10 or 15 minutes on taxes either.
a) If they screw up payroll and the numbers reported to the government are wrong, you'd have to correct that even if the government sent you a pre-populated form (and if they screw up payroll, but the numbers are still right, then that's also what gets imported into the tax software).
b) If you don't have a bank account, you didn't earn interest from the bank, and there's nothing to report.
c) Robinhood, Webull, and Coinbase all integrate with TurboTax. If you were trading crypto without using an exchange, then yeah, that'll be harder to report. But this will be equally hard regardless of whether the government sends you a pre-populated tax form (which won't include these trades).
b) If you don't have a bank account, paying for tax prep services becomes more complicated. You're also probably using shadow banking services that don't allow you to import info. Have fun doing it manually.
c) Ostensibly. In practice, they all had massive issues with correctly reporting cost basis and other important figures. So even with using an exchange, you had issues to deal with (again, manually).
So, I'd say it's all quite relevant. Your quick dismissal of such concerns is a large part of the problem.
For one thing, it takes more than 10 minutes just to buy a copy of TurboTax.
I typically budget 4-5 hours to fill out the taxes, and give myself a few days to find any missing forms, or call tech support for random corner cases that like to arise.
I also spend at least 2-3 hours a year dealing with donation receipts, etc.
I still regularly either overpay by 5-6 figures, then need to file an amended return, and/or get a (usually mistaken) letter from the IRS or FTB demanding more money.
If that doesn’t happen, I often get mailed a check refunding money with (taxable) interest because they took too long to process my return, which causes direct deposit to fall through.
Most people (87%)[0] are better off taking the standard deduction rather than itemizing. Taking the standard deduction, your donation receipts don’t matter.
If you have just W-2 income then filing through tax software is very quick. Not sure if it’s 10 minutes or 30 minutes but not that much time.
[0] https://taxfoundation.org/blog/standard-deduction-itemized-d...
Of course, figuring out if you should itemize requires the same amount of paperwork as actually itemizing.
Anyway, even when I was a student with nothing but W2 income, I still had to find my W2, and get a 1099-INT for my student checking account. That took more than 10 minutes.
Before that, I had to figure out how to figure the tax on my high school income, which also took more than 10 minutes.
1. Log in to TurboTax and click through a few welcome screens (1 min)
2. Enter employer and AGI - TurboTax pulls in the rest of the W2 (1 min)
3. Enter bank credentials - TurboTax pulls in interest income (1 min)
4. Enter brokerage account credentials - TurboTax pulls in dividends and capital gains (1 min)
5. Enter charitable contributions manually (2 min)
6. Click "no" to some tax situations that don't apply (2 min)
7. Click populate state return from federal, then click "no" to a few more questions (2 min)
8. Enter credit card number and e-file info (1 min)
Total: 11 minutes
I don't see how it can take you more than 10 minutes to pay for TurboTax. You just enter the credit card number on the screen where it asks you for it. And you don't need donation receipts to file your return. If you're audited, you might have to find them (mine are all in my email), but audits are rare.