I used Claude Code to prepare my personal income tax return this year, and so far the IRS hasn’t come after me.

Had Claude generate yaml files for the input/source documents, then had it generate code to process the return into output yaml files.

Manually typed the results into the IRS Free File Forms website, and was pleased to see that it did some input validation.

Had it generate Code modules to match the IRS forms and schedules by name, keeping the nomenclature in code as close as possible to that in the official IRS instructions.

Spot checked a whole lot of it and found very, very little of it that needed correction.

Stored all of it in git so that I could monitor the diffs as it went along.

Maybe the neatest part was when I asked Claude why I wound up owing so much it gave me a list of reasons and dollar amounts in descending order.

Still blows my mind that Americans have to do this.

In the UK almost nobody needs to "file their takes" and if you do you just do it online without the need for software.

A lot of people in the UK file their taxes (~12 million, roughly 35% of employed adults, not taking into account those unemployed with assets and pensions), but the self assessment is straightforward and very easy to use.

But do they have to?

In my country income taxes are automatically deducted. If you've got a single job and don't own large amounts of properties there's a decent chance your tax bill is exactly €0 and that there's no requirement for you to file.

In the UK tax on interest earned on plain savings accounts isn't deducted at source - so if you have a rainy day pot chances are you're required to register for self assessment and pay tax on it (particularly now that interest rates are higher and it's relatively easy to go above the tax free threshold, which has been frozen for a long time).

If you have investments outside of an ISA (tax free investment wrapper) then same story - you need to report disposals and dividends for tax purposes.

That's before we get into side hustles/self employment and investment properties, etc.

> In the UK tax on interest earned on plain savings accounts isn't deducted at source

Yes, but as you point out you should really be using the ISA wrapper or a pension of some sort for most investments. I suspect most of those doing self assessment will either (a) be in the upper 25% of earners or (b) self-employed (~4.5m people).

It is annoying how the government has chosen to make tax slightly more annoying with "making tax digital" for self-employed people with quarterly reporting.

No, you don't have to. If you are employed through a company, stay below £100K income and don't have other income then (generally) you don't need to do a tax return - it's all handled automatically through pay as you earn payroll. However, as shown, a lot of people are self employed, want to claim deductions, have some side income etc. However, for those that do need to, it is really straightforward.

Would you prefer to pay $100 for software, or a 50% marginal tax on a meager £100K?

Depends on what I get for it and it is close to NYC and San Francisco it the 100 to 200k range. I do agree though that it is too high.

Until you have to deal with bed and breakfast rules for RSUs. Good luck getting free software to understand that. There are a couple of open source attempts but they are skeleton at best.

Here in Portugal, tax comes pre calculated from the government on a free web application. It works very well! I just need to do very small adjustments every year before deliver the taxes.

In the US every Republican takes the Grover Norquist pledge to always make taxes as salient and as unpleasant as possible. The idea being that it will make voters more anti tax

I wish this were true but they get paid by taxes. Besides, there are few things more unpleasant than having your hard earned money taken away from you, regardless of how it happens. I don't think it takes fancy paperwork to make people oppose it.

Once you get habituated to it, it really is easy. When I was younger I was appalled by how much I was losing to taxes. Now I don't even glance at the line items. All that matters is that the end numbers. Hell, if I didn't need to enroll my kid in school which requires a receipt for property taxes, I wouldn't even know that literally 80% of my local taxes to schooling. My property taxes are pretty invisible to me. I don't file, my bank does. It really puts into frame why when a city gets old, they start cutting taxes and squeezing schools.

If taxes were filed automatically, honestly, I'd pay no attention at all to them, but having to sit once a year an actually look at the amount I paid, does get me to think about taxes and what they go towards, at least a little.

I’d wager the money from lobbies and companies like Intuit more than make up for it.

Also, republics are “anti-tax” in word and pro-tax in practice, as is the American way. When it comes to particularly republicans, anti-tax is code for removing social safety nets. They want taxes if it pays them, or pays the right contractors, or funds the military etc but when those tax dollars could go to social welfare they suddenly think it’s time to trim the fat.

To have the tax code easily dealt with and returns filed by IRS's own software will be a happy day. At that point maybe most of Intuit's employees can find other jobs.