Filing Your Taxes Is an Expensive Time Sink. That’s Not an Accident

As you settle into tax season, you may not be shocked to hear that the Internal Revenue Service has about 800 different forms. For many taxpayers, the government already has the information that you “provide” to it on your tax forms: Employers send wage information to the Internal Revenue Service, and financial institutions send information about financial accounts. To borrow an analogy from the tax scholar Joseph Bankman: Imagine if, instead of sending you a statement in the mail, your bank required you to keep all your receipts and fill out forms about what you bought.

Source: www.theatlantic.com