[masraum]

Originally Posted by stevej37

Especially with the near ending of itemization and all income reported to the IRS....why can't we just go to an automatic tax filing system?

At the end of the year...you get a bill or a refund.
(filing all the papers is redundant)

But then there's state taxes (or not), sales tax, property tax, filing cost, automotive registration costs, dependents, charitable contributions, etc... There are a bunch of things that can reduce (or increase) your taxes besides just the standard deductions. I don't usually get to take advantage of most of those items, but I occasionally get some sort of credit, and don't want to miss out on those.