Why is Filing Taxes So Complicated?

Guest: John Barrick, Professor in the School of Accountancy, BYU If you’re anything like the average American taxpayer, you spent about nine hours and $120 to file your taxes this year, including all the time it takes keeping and tracking down records to do the filing. That doesn’t count the hours spent fretting about and trying to ignore the rapid approach of the April 18th filing deadline. Why is filing taxes so painful and time consuming? It’s not nearly so bad in a lot of other countries, so clearly there’s another way. But is it a better way?