The IRS has some information about what you make obviously, because employers withhold your income. But they have very little information about deductions. Of course the IRS could calculate a maximum tax amount and put the burden on you to apply for deductions, but Republicans would flip their shit because it’d be a huge effective tax increase. They want tax season to be painful every year.

Which gets to the point that is whizzing by everyone’s head. Intuit and Quickin aren’t single handedly lobbying to keep tax filing complicated. You could probably crowd fund an opposition if that was true. Intuit and Quicken are leveraging a political situation that exists for other reasons.