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.
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.