
Shouldn't Robots Be Doing My Taxes By Now? - luigi
http://sunlightlabs.com/blog/2012/shouldnt-robots-be-doing-my-taxes/
======
jarrett
Here's a fun example of why the government should maintain its own databases
and use them to pre-fill your taxes.

This year, the state sent me a letter claiming I had paid zero taxes in 2010.
They said I had to pay 100% of my tax liability right away or face liens,
etc.. Of course, this was patently untrue--my employer had actually withheld
more than my total tax liability for 2010. (I know this because I still have
my 2010 W-2). So I was entitled to a refund for 2010, but the state was saying
I owed them the full amount, plus penalties.

After contacting the state about this, they said the problem was that my W-2
form had likely become "detached" from my 2010 return.

So apparently, the state relies on a _paper copy of your W-2 attached to your
return_ to determine whether your employer has paid them the withheld taxes.
If they can't find the W-2 you send them, they assume your employer didn't pay
them anything on your behalf. Given that employers are already making
electronic payments each quarter, why can't the government just derive its W-2
data from that? (I know, I know--they're probably not collecting that data
right now. But the point is they could do it as part of the quarterly payment
process.)

EDIT: Another funny bit to this story. I asked the state to confirm that my
employer had indeed paid the amount reflected on my W-2. I figured that if the
error was on my employer's end, I could take it up with them. But the state
refused to say one way or another, citing confidentiality.

~~~
nostromo
Eugene McCarthy said: "The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is
inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty."

~~~
scarmig
I've never understood this logic.

We fear bureaucracies, if they became efficient, would become efficiently
brutal and callous. We don't want them to become good at being brutal and
callous. Therefore we should fight against efficient bureaucracies in favor of
brutal and callous inefficient bureaucracies. And if their inefficiencies make
them seem brutal and callous, that's just all the evidence to know that making
them more efficient would lead to even more brutality and callousness.

~~~
Drbble
Eugene McCarthy didn't say ineffecient bureaucracy was brutal an callous. It's
just annoying and maybe callous. That's the point. Also, um, you know who had
an efficient bureaucracy, with computers and everything, in the 1930s? Yeah,
--Godwin'd

------
francoisdevlin
As a developer who's married to a CPA, here are my thoughts:

1\. Taxes are a hard problem. Besides basic W2s, There are a lot of deductions
to know about, and it's hard to keep track of all of them.

2\. Depreciation schedules. They vary from item to item, and there's a bit of
a grey area on what you can use, and what you can't. What can have bonus
depreciation?

3\. Calculating cost basis is too damn hard for most of us. Not just stocks,
but partnerships as well.

4\. When can you take a distribution from a business? How many times is that
money taxed?

5\. Add another 50 use cases, one for each state.

6\. How do the states interact for individuals with diverse activity? Easily
2^50 cases here, and my gut say more like 50!

7\. Foreign activity. Good luck with that.

The bottom line is there still is enough complexity that this needs to be done
manually. Not to mention there are a lot of things that are legitimate
judgement calls, and vary from accountant to accountant (or auditor to auditor
when dealing with the IRS).

So, that's why robot's aren't doing my taxes any time soon.

~~~
dmm
About 60% of tax payers submit a 1040A or 1040ez return. This is a dead simple
return. The IRS already has all of the information needed to process these
returns. The IRS could trivially set up a website that has two pages: 1.
Verify this information is correct. 2. Where should we mail the check.

The _only_ reason they don't is that there is a HUGE industry that exists
solely to fill out these trivial forms for intimidated people. HR block, et al
will never allow the tax system to be simple.

~~~
Retric
There is already software out there to handle your federal income taxes for
free. However, to use _Free File Tax Software. This program is available if
your AGI is $57,000 or less:_
<http://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp?ck>

<http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.html>

PS: Anyone can still use free forms:
<http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=237156,00.html>

~~~
zyphlar
Why a $57,000 limit?

~~~
mynegation
Supposedly if you are over that limit you are rich enough to pay for a
commercial software. Apparently government does not want to take business
completely from the likes of Intuit.

------
untog
I was on a StartupBus to SXSW this year- at the pitching stage, one of the
guys pitched an idea based around simplifying people's taxes. He was a
qualified CPA himself, and had years of experience working in the tax
industry. No-one volunteered to work on his idea. The winning StartupBus team
was a site that let you make your own custom breakfast cereal.

I suspect that if we want to ask "why isn't tedious process [x] automated by
now?", we should be looking at ourselves for answers.

~~~
molsongolden
Do you know who the CPA was? Is he still working on the idea?

~~~
untog
He is- looking at his blog he actually submitted a YC application:

<http://www.cameronkeng.com/>

(after the first day on the bus he and another guy broke off from their team
to work on the tax idea- so it wasn't a total lost cause, but wasn't the
highlight of the competition that it could have been)

------
patio11
There exists a school of thought that says making taxes painful is a great way
to remind you that taxes have visible consequences on your life just like
spending does, which is a point of non-trivial interest ot the American
polity. Someone subscribing to that school of thought might rationally oppose
non-economic ways to make taxation less painful as a way to prevent a
transition to invisible (or even fun!) higher taxes.

I'm stopping here to avoid committing politics on HN.

~~~
paulhauggis
It's funny you mention this.

I worked at an e-commerce store that shipped a lot internationally. In the
beginning, we had calculations for all of the tariffs and taxes required to
ship and added that to the end (ups would allow us to pay for this up-front to
make it easier for our customers).

Customers would bitch at us all the time about how our prices were too high.
We changed it so they had to pay for all of this separately (and so they knew
that we weren't the ones increasing prices) and the bitching stopped.

It's one of the reasons I don't want taxes hidden on goods sold in the US.
Because people won't think about it and won't really know when the government
starts raising taxes.

They will just assume it's the big, evil, companies overcharging.

It's happening right now with gas. Many states have additional taxes/gallon
and people just assume it's the stations.

~~~
eru
In Europe taxes (like VAT and those on petrol) are usually included in quoted
prices, and people are quite aware of them.

~~~
rmc
Not really. In Ireland & the UK, VAT in the region of (22%ish or 17%ish),
prices of goods in shops and online are quoted 'VAT inclusive' (likewise
petrol), it's only 'trade', i.e. companies that sell products to other
business (who then have to charge VAT to the general public) are sold 'ex
VAT'.

~~~
eru
Oh, that `trade' exemption also applies to Germany. I think that's a common
consequence of VAT systems, that only the consumer is quoted inclusive prices.

------
petercooper
It can be done. In the UK, most people don't even do a tax return. And let's
say you're self employed.. if your tax affairs are reasonably straight
forward, you fill out a handful of numbers and dates on a Web site, get an
estimated tax bill within minutes, and you're done. You then get sent a proper
statement later. In a system with flat taxes, it'd be even easier.

I think the author touches on the real problems in the last couple of
paragraphs. The American government isn't particularly good at spearheading
initiatives that benefit voters without allowing "lobbyists" or commercial
interests to take over. It also doesn't help that you have the federal and
state structure (as good as it may be for other things) since the decisions
can't be taken by one central place given all the local tax laws.

~~~
Symmetry
I seem to recall that there's something about the way the way that the US
income tax works, legally, that prevents that from happening. That is, your
income tax has to be something you pay rather than something someone pays for
you.

~~~
dsr_
Most people have their employer automatically deduct a chunk each paycheck.
The annual forms are to figure out exactly how much you owe and whether you
need to make up the difference or get a refund check. Most people get refunds.

It's more complicated for the self-employed, or if you don't want to loan the
government money for free.

~~~
petercooper
Most employed people in the UK also have their employer deduct taxes from
their paychecks. The difference, though, is that if that happens and if
someone doesn't declare their tax affairs as being more complex, the tax
authorities assume everything is order and no tax return is required.

I suspect other things have an impact on this system working though, such as
the much lower ownership of shares and tax-attracting investments in the UK,
as well as the generous tax-free allowance for capital gains (I'd need to make
a realized gain of something like $20k in a year to pay any tax on shares, for
example.)

------
asnyder
I'm pretty sure Intuit lobbied pretty hard to kill any and all progress that
would allow most people to have their taxes automatically completed for them,
equivalent to the 1040AUTO mentioned in some of the other comments.

<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100723/09055310339.shtml>

------
carsongross
Another option would be to simplify the tax code to the point where normal
humans could do their own taxes in a few minutes.

~~~
roguecoder
But tax expenditures are the only way for anti-government types in government
to spend money! ;-)

The complexity doesn't come from the simple cases: it comes from the cases
that are legitimately complex. Carried interest, investment gains, charitable
contributions, foreign income, corporate debt and so forth aren't reducible to
a simple equation. For the vast majority of Americans taxes are simple: for
many of the rest, they will never be simple unless they are abolished all
together.

~~~
carsongross
Carried (really, any) interest: income. Investment gains: income. Charitable
contributions: good for you. Foreign income, less taxes paid upon
repatriation: income. House purchase: congratulations.

The tax code is complex because it gives the government power over us, because
there is a huge industry built around it and because rich people can use it to
their advantage.

~~~
ebiester
Agreed except for foreign income: we have treaties with most countries to
avoid double taxation: If I've paid taxes to Turkey for money earned in
Turkey, why do I pay it again in the US?

Now, things get more complicated with foreign investments. If you've paid
taxes on the investment in Ireland, you've likely paid less than you would in
the US -- so that doesn't quite work. That's where things get complicated.

~~~
adavies42
should all work like multi-state commuter taxes--i live in NJ, work in NY, and
my NY tax is credited against my NJ liability (leaving no liability to NJ, as
NY rates are higher (at least with the extra NYC tax thrown in)). tax treaties
(as exist between many states) just make the revenue sharing easier from the
governments' point of view.

------
vyrotek
My father did mainframe dev contract work for the IRS and once told me it's a
miracle you even get your tax returns every year. :) There's quite a mess
behind the scenes due to a number of failed new projects at the cost of
taxpayer money.

I wish we could automate all of this but taxes themselves are also still a
sort of art with all the exceptions. Technically there are rules about when
you qualify for things but from my experience accounting firms operate more
like law firms in that they help you figure out how to meet the bare minimum
to legally qualify for various returns.

~~~
francoisdevlin
> accounting firms operate more like law firms in that they help you figure
> out how to meet the bare minimum to legally qualify for various returns

My wife is a CPA, and many dinner conversations sound just like this.

------
rweba
THIS:

"Better yet: since the agency is already receiving that data from all those
financial institutions through a separate stream, how about organizing the
data for me and simply letting me sign off on my automatically-generated
return? I suspect that a lot of people would like that, given that the
alternative is spending a spring day doing paperwork."

Especially for those who only have a single W2 or a similarly simple state of
affairs, it is quite ridiculous the amount of pain you have to go through (and
preparation fees you have to pay) CONSIDERING THE GOVERNMENT ALREADY HAS THE
INFORMATION!

I definitely think tax preparation firms are lobbying to keep from simplifying
the preparation process.

I remember one year around 2005 or so I was able to file my (federal) return
by telephone directly with the IRS for FREE (I was a student and had only the
one W2) and it was relatively painless but the next year the option seems to
have disappeared. Anyone remember that?

~~~
crusso
Not only do they have the information, but they also are already calculating
your taxes. How do you think they determine that you've made an error?

------
drcube
I once complained on a message board that sales tax should be included in the
sticker price, so that I know ahead of time what I'm going to pay.

I still feel that way, but someone pointed out that it would further hide from
consumers the fact that the government takes money out of every transaction.
Now I contend that every sticker should tell me both the price with taxes, and
the price without. This would make it very clear how much I would have to pay
without government intrusion, and how much extra they get from me.

I'm getting the same vibe here with income taxes. Taxes used to be a _much_
more contentious issue before it was taken out of every paycheck prior to the
worker seeing the money. Now the single pain point in paying taxes is an
hour's worth of paperwork once a year. Eliminate that friction, and the
government becomes an invisible siphon, sucking money right out of the
economy, with hardly anyone noticing.

By all means, make paying taxes easier, but don't obscure the fact that
someone is taking your money, all the time, without giving you a choice in the
matter.

~~~
king_jester
> ...but don't obscure the fact that someone is taking your money, all the
> time, without giving you a choice in the matter.

I've always been curious about this point of view. While it is true that you
are paying money in taxes throughout your life, it is also true that at the
same time you are receiving the benefits, to some degree, of that taxation in
the form of public infrastructure and spending. How you experience life from
your moment of birth depends on how those in the past have spent and dealt
with issues like taxation and public spending and how you take advantage of
those things, knowingly or not.

If you could choose to not pay some or all of the taxes you pay now, would
you? Would you ever spend that extra income to benefit people who you will
never meet or interact with? Would you ever spend that extra income to benefit
people you actively disagree with or find repulsive?

~~~
drcube
I didn't say we shouldn't pay taxes, or that there aren't benefits of having
the government those taxes pay for.

But _nobody_ gets a say in the matter. And _everybody_ should be aware of this
most basic function of the government.

I'm basically advocating taxpayer awareness, and government oversight. I'm not
a member of the tea party and I don't want to get rid of all taxes. I feel
that some friction is welcome when paying taxes, because otherwise people will
be less aware they exist, and the government will have an easier time raising
them.

------
camz
I'm working on a tax startup. The two products we're working on right now is
taxcast.co (semi-finalist on the startupbus at SXSW) and autotax.me.

Taxcast.co is a system that forecasts your tax deductions, audit proofs your
information and calculates your current and future tax liability.

you can check out the demo here:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CuvWkKW4w&context=C4404...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CuvWkKW4w&context=C44040d8ADvjVQa1PpcFMR8iGVGidoILkFShlJzk1Av-
qJay210Hw=)

Autotax.me is going to help you deal with your independent contractors. It
contracts, files and audit proofs your 1099 taxes. It's almost like an HR/Tax
service in one.

You can check it out now but its still really rough/ugly. The functions work
but there's no real UI so that's what I'm going to be finishing up.

Any questions, you can check out cameronkeng.com

if you're interested in any of these products, shoot me an email at
cameronkeng@gmail.com or tweet me @cameronkeng =D

------
pgroves
I work on optimization software and I'm pretty sure you could do some serious
damage to the government's tax collection efforts if you hooked up a genetic
algorithm to some very good accounting software to minimize taxes.

The problem with GA's is that they frequently exploit loopholes in their
setups, so you get solutions that technically satisfy your evaluation criteria
but it's not what you really want. This process is basically what corporate
accountants do manually to get ridiculously low tax rates for big companies.
Congress writes the tax code but it will always have loopholes, and GA's will
definitely find them.

Here's a recent blog post of mine that goes into some of the problems with
GA's, which when you're looking for loopholes is actually a huge advantage:

[http://designbyrobots.com/2012/03/29/evolution-is-
cleverer-t...](http://designbyrobots.com/2012/03/29/evolution-is-cleverer-
than-you/)

------
jlm382
Auto-generating a tax return is one thing. Taking advantage of all your
potential tax benefits and considering your edge cases is another thing. I've
seen tax returns for many of inDinero's customers, and it's clear to me that
their previous accountants took shortcuts in compiling the return.

Yes, it'll get filed. But there were probably more tax advantageous things
they could have / should have done. Consider these examples:

1 - tax credits. How is the government supposed to automatically know that
you're paying for child care? How are they to know that you just installed
solar panels on your roof or that you just purchased an electric vehicle?
Sure, they can make this "automatic" -- but then you'd still be going out of
your way to report your purchase, and this is in no way simpler than the
current solution today.

2 - does it make sense to be taxed as a partnership or sole-proprietor? For a
lot of our customers, they're basically flushing $20k down the toilet because
they didn't want to go through the tiny nuisance of filing as an
S-Corporation. Pretty sure you don't want the IRS to dictate your tax
treatment.

3 - should you depreciate your Aeron chairs over multiple years, or do
accelerated depreciation which will allow you to deduct the entire amount in a
single year? The IRS gives us the flexibility to choose, and it's questions
like these that may require the help of a tax professional.

4 - deducting vehicle expenses. How is the IRS supposed to figure out how many
miles on your car were used for business VS personal purposes?

5 - what part of your apartment was used exclusively for hacking? No way for
the IRS to know that the number is 250/1500 square feet.

In short, putting together a tax return isn't that hard. The difficult part is
hunting down all of this other information that we have no way of just
knowing.

Instead of asking why robots couldn't be doing our taxes by now, we might
rephrase the question to read "how can we do year-round accounting in such a
way that taxes are 10X easier to take care of?"

------
doc4t
The real problem is not the lack of systems but the ridiculous complexity of
tax law. Since the complexity is unlikely to go away any system would have to
handle it - and this is not an easy task.

Given that the OP works for an organization which is "focused on digitization
of government data" it is quite peculiar that he doesn't understand the
problem domain any better. It's quite a joke to think that it's a matter of
throwing in some web forms here and there.

In complexity I would say it's up there with his favorite Apollo quote. Maybe
not on par - but close. Just thinking about the size of the rule engine which
is required makes my head hurt.

~~~
a3camero
Not just complexity, but vagueness. Good luck writing a program that
calculates what's "reasonable". Was the construction work a "repair" or an
"upgrade"?

How about determining what would be a reasonable amount for someone to pay if
they were in the shoes of the businessperson but dealing at arm's length?

------
dangoldin
Estonia could be a good model for this - supposedly over 90% of people file
online within 5 minutes.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/15/estonia-
uss...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/15/estonia-ussr-shadow-
internet-titan)

------
stretchwithme
I owed them money a few years back and had to pay them using some online
payment system.

It was necessary to do this because they failed to implement the payment plan
that they agreed to. So interest was piling up and they weren't withdrawing
what I owed them.

So I sign up on this system. They had to MAIL me the password. By USPS mail!

So it finally comes. I log in and pay off the entire amount.

Later, I find out that the system applied the payment to the wrong year.
Apparently this was my fault somehow, as the system defaults to the current
year, not the year that you owe on.

So I have to call to get that straightened out. The person applies the payment
to the correct year. yea!

Now can I find out my balance? Is it paid off? "Let me transfer you to the
department that can do that."

Apparently, that's a different skill set altogether. No way to check it
online. Why would you ever need to do that?

Finally get to a person who can tell me. And it turns out they started the
original withdrawal of funds from my bank. So now they owed ME money.

And that came by paper check, delivered by USPS of course.

------
ableal
Beware answered prayers.

Over in my corner, we have a State provided income tax simulator and filer.
Not too pretty, but correct and useful; it's done in Java and runs under
Windows, MacOS and Linux.

It's been so successful that most tax returns are nowadays filed with it, and
quite a few public offices where people used to queue up to file their (paper)
returns have been closed. There was never much of a setup/tradition of filing
by mail like in the U.S.

Over the last couple of years, they've improved data cross-referencing to the
point where I can get most of my form pre-filled from the government.

~~~
zyphlar
The horrors of Java! It's a single app, and it's cross-platform... oooooh.

Now sit down and let me tell you a tale of Intuit.

------
sophacles
The thing is, complicate tax code is merely a welfare program for tax lawyers
and accountants. If we made taxes easy, or automated parts of the process that
are the same for everyone, we would be cutting off the supply of money to the
leeches. Since they don't want that, and they are better at being parasites
than the groups normally attacked for parasitism (teachers, postal workers
etc), they successfully lobby against making taxes easier for most people.

------
Joeri
Belgium has had this for a few years now. In my case everything is prefilled,
even the deduction for charitable donations. Basically this is a US-specific
problem.

You can see a flash demo (in dutch) of the belgian tax-on-web app here:
[https://eservices.minfin.fgov.be/taxonweb/static/nl/demo_v2/...](https://eservices.minfin.fgov.be/taxonweb/static/nl/demo_v2/player.html)

~~~
jamaicahest
Was going to say the same is the case here in Denmark. Your employer reports
your earnings, your banks report your balances, etc. And if you need to enter
some extra information, like mortgage interests or driving reimbursement it's
all done through a website and a new report is generated instantly. I suspect
all this automatic reporting might clash with the average american's
perception of personal privacy.

------
rogerbinns
If I was ever elected president, I would direct congress to reduce the size of
the tax code by 10% each year. If they fail to do so then 10% are
automatically eliminated - eg all those whose last digit of the article number
is 3.

The real reason for why things are so screwed up is corrupt politicians who
use their power as a fund raising mechanism. For example there were several
taxes added temporarily to see if they worked well. They did, but congress
doesn't make them permanent. Instead they wait to be paid each time to renew
them temporarily again. (This started in the Reagan administration.)

See this excellent talk by Lessig:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc>

The whole tax provisions as fund raising is covered at 7m30s.

------
citricsquid
I'm not sure what the comparison between UK (where I am) and US taxes is, but
I found the process here very easy. I load up an online form, I fill in the
data and click submit, they tell me how much I owe and I pay. Very easy, the
hardest part is saying goodbye to all that money.

~~~
untog
The comparison, sadly, is totally different. The UK system is relatively
simple (I never even had to do a tax return when living there), the US system
is a byzantine labyrinth.

------
cs702
It won't be happening any time soon. Here's why:

[http://www.republicreport.org/2012/corruption-taxes-
fivemins...](http://www.republicreport.org/2012/corruption-taxes-fivemins/)

------
Spoom
This seems like a startup opportunity. Take photos of your standardized forms,
upload them to a server, server calculates your taxes, only asking questions
when the pertinent data is missing from the forms.

IMHO this service should be offered by the government(s) themselves (and if it
was, it would mean even less data needed to be entered; after all, they have
copies of all your forms already), but fat chance on that.

~~~
mhp
This is exactly what HRBlock and Intuit currently do. They have hooks into all
the payroll processors and investment companies and will download your W2s and
any 1099s from the relevant company. Then you just answer a bunch of
questions.

The problem is that a private company shouldn't have to offer this service.
The government should do it for you for free because it helps them get their
money faster and easier. However, as the article and others noted, those
private companies realize this would be very bad for their business and have
lobbied to stop it.

------
ErikRogneby
Back before my life got a whole lot more complicated and I was a simple wage
slave I recall filing my 1040EZ by phone. This was maybe 15 years ago.

------
zeroonetwothree
Assuming our tax law remains insane, I actually prefer having private tax
preparers. The IRS's incentive is clearly to make me pay much tax as possible,
whereas for private tax preparers it's to make me pay as little tax as
possible.

If our tax law were simple there wouldn't be much difference between the two,
but in its current state there is. Thus I think the tension between the two
groups is healthy.

------
fidotron
My concern about this is that if we fail to simplify taxation laws before any
singularity then we'll reach the point where only robots are capable of
processing taxes.

I have to echo the comments here about the UK system. It's unbelievable to
someone that's only experienced the Inland Revenue, but they're about the
biggest non-event ever when compared to their equivalents elsewhere.

------
bajsejohannes
Some countries do already. In Norway, you get a your tax papers (well, paper;
it's only one sheet) pre-filled. You only have to take action if they got it
wrong.

At least this works for normal employees. It gets slightly worse when you have
your own company.

------
jes5199
I do my taxes on paper!

I'm a professional software engineer. I know how software works and how it
doesn't work.

I don't trust automated tax software at all.

Fortunately, even the 1040 long form is a simple pen&paper algorithm that I
can do in a couple hours.

------
mindslight
The flawed assumption being that tithes are solely financial. The government
would be content to burn your "money" in a pit; your submission and mental
buy-in are what it's really after.

------
patrickod
There are many good reasons to move to the US but having just done so I look
around at friends filing and complaining about their taxes and dread having to
do it myself.

------
mattgreenrocks
Why debate the complexities of filing taxes when the tax code is kept
needlessly complicated?

------
smackfu
The 1040EZ is not exactly a hard form to fill out:
<http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040ez.pdf>

One side of a piece of paper. You enter 12 numbers, and need to look up one
value in a table too see how much tax you owe.

------
CoryMathews
The bigger question is why am I still doing taxes once a year?

~~~
sp332
How often do you think it should happen? Federal income tax is once a year.
Sales tax, tolls on roads, etc. happen much more often.

------
pork
Have you been to H&R block? They already are!

------
gcb
SEVERAL countries does taxes electronically --and i don't mean the lame way
irs does here, where doing it eletronically means auto-filling two boxes in
the PDF to take somewhere else later. Brazil, 3rd world mind you, has a java
application (for years) where you fill in some boxes and it not only
calculates everything it also allows you to compare different ways to use your
exemptions. It's not very good if you have a corporation, but that's because
they choose so. not because oh my god it's impossible to code something so
complex.

Everyone talking about how difficult it is to implement all the rules have no
idea how software works apparently. if it's already worded as rules, you can
code something to work with them just like a human reading those rules. People
code more complex systems than taxes every hour.

Now, if you take the irs.gov experience i just had this month... every link is
link-bait to PAID services. And that's the ONLY reason we don't have robots
doing our taxes.

Someone that already have robots doing our taxes make enough money to pass
legislations that allows them to put links in the IRS own site that have more
visibility than link to the forms.

tl;dr capitalism, bitches.

