I would like to think that even if the IRS were to send me some numbers, I'd still spend an hour or so checking them against my own information.

I know that I wouldn't, because I don't want to. I'd just pay the amount the IRS says I should pay and call it good. I'd probably be paying more tax than absolutely necessary, but I honestly wouldn't mind that at all -- especially because I'd be saving money over doing the taxes myself (in the sense of time == money) or paying someone else to do them for me.

I mean, if the IRS was wrong about your income and you got audited, you would probably still be on the hook for penalties and back taxes. You're still going to want to spend some time checking that tax form pretty thoroughly.

True, but the same is also true if a tax preparer makes a mistake. Also, the IRS almost always waives penalties (and often interest) unless they think it wasn't an honest mistake.

I'm not bothered by this risk. If a mistake is made and I owe additional taxes, then I'll just pay what I owe. No biggie.

I mean, that is a hell of a life choice, but I guess if you assume that the government is always honest (see the Iraq war and many other things) and the IRS always interprets the documents they receive correctly (which they don't today - I have gotten letters from them which are blatantly wrong), that sounds good.

I understand that an hour is valuable, but that hour you spend checking your tax documents may be the highest-leverage hour of work you do that year.

> that is a hell of a life choice

This implies that I'm taking some huge risk or would be absurdly overpaying my taxes or something. I don't think either of those things are true. In the larger picture, this isn't really that big of a deal.

> I guess if you assume

I assume none of those things.

> that hour you spend checking your tax documents may be the highest-leverage hour of work you do that year.

It would be more than an hour, but the time isn't even the biggest issue. The biggest issue is the stress, worry, and hassle. It's just a basic cost/benefit calculation here, no different than other cases where I accept a level of increased expense or some risk because it costs more than I'm willing to pay to mitigate it. I have bigger fish to fry than this. Micromanaging this would reduce my overall happiness by adding an additional thing to worry about.

Everyone's cost/benefit calculation is different, of course, and if yours indicates that you'd be better off being more diligent about this stuff, that's entirely fair as well.

It shouldn't take nearly as long to verify if it's presented at all reasonably.