I make <20k a year (student). I spend about 1 hour doing my taxes, and I don't have any investments or anything.

I cannot imagine how long it takes someone with property, 401ks, etc.

Anecdata: I have a very complicated return due to self employment while overseas, and it takes 3 solid days.

Of course, most of the compliance burden is on tax professionals working for business.

I think we're probably losing 3 to 6 new software features every year due to the administrative burden on you alone. We all lose out when the labor of any of us is destroyed needlessly.

I'm self-employed, but in a relatively simple situation as such things go (single-member LLC), and, aside from my mortgage, no non-trivial assets or investments. It still takes me a solid day and a half to put together my return, and a few additional hours over the next 1-2 days sorting out fine points/details.

401k takes no time on your taxes. The amount you've contributed is already reflected in your (lower) taxable income on your W-2.

Much of that time is spent on trying to maximize returns by ekeing out every deduction and exploiting every possible loophole or even finding them.

It says something about our tax system in the US that people need to spend that much time finding, documenting, and calculating deductions that by right are theirs.

I do wish we went to a simpler base deduction then flat rate past that (something like $20,000 deduction per taxpayer then 20%).