You can blame Intuit, the company behind TurboTax, for this nightmare. For most people, the government already has all the information it needs to complete your tax return for you automatically, but the tax-preparation companies don't want them to do it. There's a good Planet Money episode about it: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/03/709656642/episode-760-tax-hero
Incidentally, and for unclear reasons, the UK interface for paying self-assessed taxes is extremely well-designed. And they have people you can call for free to work through tax questions, who tend to be helpful and responsive. Strange!
It wasn't clear to me from the post, did you use tax software for filing? I use FreeTaxUSA, which certainly isn't the world's most straightforward piece of software, but I think would save you the difficulty you described in your end bullets? In my experience it truly is free federally, and something like $16/state to supplement the federal taxes. I also throw in audit defense for a few dozen dollars and consider it overall a great deal
You can blame Intuit, the company behind TurboTax, for this nightmare. For most people, the government already has all the information it needs to complete your tax return for you automatically, but the tax-preparation companies don't want them to do it. There's a good Planet Money episode about it: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/03/709656642/episode-760-tax-hero
Also covered in this article: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-10-21/california-tried-to-save-the-nation-from-the-misery-of-tax-filing-then-intuit-stepped-in
Incidentally, and for unclear reasons, the UK interface for paying self-assessed taxes is extremely well-designed. And they have people you can call for free to work through tax questions, who tend to be helpful and responsive. Strange!
I was in your house last week, where I wrote a post using much the same logic — something in the air?
https://aarongertler.com/grover-norquist/
Oh wow that is a surprisingly similar theme! I'm not sure what is going on with the air in my house :o
It wasn't clear to me from the post, did you use tax software for filing? I use FreeTaxUSA, which certainly isn't the world's most straightforward piece of software, but I think would save you the difficulty you described in your end bullets? In my experience it truly is free federally, and something like $16/state to supplement the federal taxes. I also throw in audit defense for a few dozen dollars and consider it overall a great deal