There's no reason they couldn't contract a private company to build the system, perhaps with a hand-over plan at the end of it with advice on how to build and manage a development team to maintain it in-house.
There are plenty of dev companies capable of doing this and doing it well. Put it up for tender.
Why?
I mean, presenting a specious premise such as "the government sector is incompetent" ignores the fact that whatever private company which offers tax preparation must, by definition, interact with IRS systems.
Unless your premise is that one or more startups can replace federal tax collection.
> There are plenty of dev companies capable of doing this and doing it well.
The position argued by both @Obversity and @tlb is that somehow "private companies" can satisfy what the IRS is required, by statute and Congressional oversight, to provide. "Private companies" are not subject to such constraints.
Hence my reductio ad absurdum conclusion of:
> Unless your premise is that one or more startups can replace federal tax collection.
IMHO this implies they will also be unable to create a meaningful tender and evaluate the results.
The hardest part of writing this kind of software is not the coding, but getting all the details right.
If they automatically filled in the information they had and fleshed out the calculator bits (like not making you use a tax table by hand) it would be a fine tool.
i have a feeling, if not defeated by anti government types they could do the job.
You're likely thinking of USDS (US Digital Services), or possibly 18f?
You really want to give them more power?
It will end when it ceases to be true, and reliably so.
My statement should not be construed to imply that Intuit handling it is morally superior (not only because of the incentive for corruption involved), even while the thought of using tax filing software written by government contractors makes me shudder.
Freedom to own guns without many restrictions or permits is probably unique to the US.
Freedom to not have health insurance (mind you I prefer not having to worry about crushing medical debt in Germany, but it is a kind of freedom).
There's probably more than these 3,but for certain definitions of freedom the US is quite high.
You could say that Germany for example has a very different view of freedom. The government mandates that you get at least 4 weeks vacation, that you are insured at least half way properly, that you pay a lot more taxes for public goods (trains, roads, television, food subsidies, ...). This restricts the freedom of employers, your freedom to do with your money what you want, etc. but in return you have more freedom from debt traps, you have free time to go on vacation, you can get around the country without a car, etc.
So by limiting certain individual freedoms you can gain a different definition of freedom.
If you answer "yes" to both, then there's no issue and you're happy.
If you answer "no" to either (or both), it doesn't matter. You're still stuck with them.
Therefore, the real "freedom" you have is to agree with them. Everything else is decorative.
Honest question.