I don’t understand this weird defense of the IRS in this thread. The IRS has always been problematic, and you highlighted the dumbest part: everyone is required to file. Why? So H&R Block and TurboTax can make billions off you. The government knows what you make, your employer reports it, your bank transactions report it, and the only income that truly depends on self reporting is cash “under the table” pay, which doesn’t get reported anyway… The IRS takes an 0 interest loan from every American, makes them jump through hoops to fill various complicated forms or pay a company to do it, just to get your money that you loaned them back. It’s a stupid system designed to create complex scenarios for rich people to pay less taxes, why are you all defending it exactly? You should want something more reasonable like a flat tax, and use that to fund social safety nets so it doesn’t effect low income earners as much. Instead everyone is throwing insults to defend the IRS? It was already designed to make you pay more taxes than the rich, there’s nothing to defend about it. It would be significantly cheaper for the IRS to simply tell you exactly what you owe out of every paycheck, and get away with the whole “filling” process.