The vast majority of taxpayers take the standard deduction and do not itemize, so in real practical terms this is an extremely irrelevant straw man.
(https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-standard-....)
(https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/taxes/2023/02/15/itemiz...)
I don't have any creative deductions. And I expect many others only have one or two "interesting" deductions to add. I haven't actually measured this but I honestly expect >95% of what I enter into my tax return is information they already have.
These are not "interesting", but nearly everyone has 'em, and the IRS cannot know, without bending space time, how much you'll owe because of those deductions (assuming an itemized deduction, though they're still in play either way because they can help tip the balance between taking a standard or itemized deductions).
Only 13% of all US federal tax filings each year itemize deductions. That means it would help the vast majority of filers and not harm the rest in any way whatsoever. Weird thing to be against if someone isn't misanthropic.
I wasn't disagreeing with the idea of pre-filling tax return data.
I was simply offering examples of "normal" deductions that can easily change what you owe, and how those deductions aren't as uncommon as the person I was commenting to would have you believe.
This is not really accurate. If you're a typical employee, IRS has a pretty good idea of your income, which is just one of the many factors that goes into calculating your tax.
In particular, the IRS doesn't independently know most of the things that could cause you to get tax deductions, like whether you got married since last year, or you moved out of your parents' house and started living on your own, or you're taking care of a child, or you had self-employment expenses, or you bought textbooks for your college classes, or you donated to charity, or you paid expensive medical bills, etc.