But Turbo Tax is only useful because of how terrible the IRS is. It's a whole cottage industry propped up by a complex tax code and poor filing system.
In Norway, the government already has the data needed for your tax return: Withholdings, bank interest, capital gains, property income, loans, etc. The exceptions are things like foreign income, property, etc. that don't get automatically reported.
The tax return is automatically filled out for you, and if you don't amend it by the deadline (which you do by logging into the government portal and editing the form, adding additional forms, etc., all digitally), it's automatically submitted as-is.
(And the forms are simple! When I look at my US tax returns, which are prepared by a CPA, I can barely make heads or tails of it. But I could easily do a Norwegian tax return from scratch myself without a CPA.)
Most people don't need to anything at all, even if they have a situation that in the US would require a bunch of number crunching.
The above is also true about most European countries, by the way.
In Norway, the government already has the data needed for your tax return: Withholdings, bank interest, capital gains, property income, loans, etc. The exceptions are things like foreign income, property, etc. that don't get automatically reported.
The tax return is automatically filled out for you, and if you don't amend it by the deadline (which you do by logging into the government portal and editing the form, adding additional forms, etc., all digitally), it's automatically submitted as-is.
(And the forms are simple! When I look at my US tax returns, which are prepared by a CPA, I can barely make heads or tails of it. But I could easily do a Norwegian tax return from scratch myself without a CPA.)
Most people don't need to anything at all, even if they have a situation that in the US would require a bunch of number crunching.
The above is also true about most European countries, by the way.