Spend a couple hours reading the instructions, use the IRS free fillable forms website, and you do it once and every year after it’s quick and easy. Things don’t change much year to year. If you don’t understand, post a question a personal finance forum and someone will pipe in with an answer.
IDK about that. As a non-resident alien for tax purposes for a couple of years I couldn't use any of the existing software (TurboTax, etc). I even tried to contact a tax accounting firm like HRBlock and they had no idea about things I needed to file that I discovered on my own reading the IRS publications. So I did the taxes on my own and every time it was the most painful thing happening that year (yes, that likely means I lead an otherwise stress-free life), it took 3 weeks at least spending most evenings a few hours making little progress on it each day. And at the end of it I never felt very confident about it and I likely left on the table possible deductions.
But if there's one thing doing that helped with is appreciate how easy and painless is to do it as a resident alien with something like TurboTax (takes a few hours instead of weeks) and it helped me understand the terms and instructions of some of the more complex issues that you may have to deal with even with TurboTax.
You need a real CPA with a tax focus if you have "complicated" taxes.
It seems like you are (were) a good candidate for a more comprehensive service for sure. Perhaps a better wording would have been "it's pretty simple as a resident and (W-2) employee," which encompasses the majority of those filing, and who probably don't need a service like TurboTax or an accountant.
So, having an accountant handling all the details, in the en puts the information at your fingertips that otherwise you have to scrape out of the box of receipts/etc. The tax filing parts are easy.
So why do people complain about it so much? To the point where they're writing their own custom software (?!) to do it?
Non W-2 or 1099 incomes with various deductions get things complicated though, and I would punt that to an accountant.
I have always done my taxes myself, on paper, even years when I had capital gains, education credits, 1099s, and small business (single member LLC) income. It's a bit time consuming but not difficult per se.
https://www.ftb.ca.gov/file/ways-to-file/online/index.html
Maybe a bit of an open secret? Found with "site:ca.gov", halfway down the DDG page.
Other little-known, useful USA services:
weather.gov new.nowcoast.noaa.gov
lol bro, I'm employed and married with 2 kids.
I guess that's considered a partnership.
;)
But I also had a few hours to burn. I understand preferring to spend that time with kids instead. But it is worth noting that it’s a much smaller time commitment after the first couple years.
Complexity covers corruption.
Why not just pay the nice mafia boss the protection money, and stop complaining?
First and foremost, it's a matter of principle. It's just not right to have the tax code written in the way it is written. It is written by special interests. If we all just said "complexity is no problem, we'll all just pay a small fee to accountants", not only will that "small fee" keep going up, but it will get more complex, and special interests will be better served to the detriment of everyone else.
Pragmatically I do hire a CPA, and in general like paying for the high level strategic advice. But the tax compliance services should be unnecessary. My tax returns should be a single text document that I can keep in git and copy/paste/update each year.
But why do you even need a tax return? Most countries don't need it for the vast majority of people. Why does the US?
Why not pay an accountant? Why is everyone trying to do their own taxes? By the time you've spent a couple of hours looking for alternatives... you might as well have just paid a professional to do it!