House Votes to Keep Tax Filing Complex and Pricey

FEATURING ELIZABETH ZACH – It’s that time of the year again when millions of Americans scramble to meet the IRS’s deadline to file taxes for the previous year. Tax preparers like H&R Block and TurboTax are part of a multibillion-dollar industry relying on a complicated filing system that makes people dependent on their services.

But this week the House, in a bi-partisan vote on an ironically named billed called Taxpayers First Act, closed the door on the IRS’s ability to put up a free web-based tax filing portal. Plenty of other nations have simpler filing systems that cost nothing. So why do we put up with a complicated and often expensive method of taxpaying?

Read Elizabeth Zach’s article HERE, and for all her writing go to http://www.elizabethzach.com.

Elizabeth Zach, staff writer at the nonprofit Rural Community Assistance Corporation, where she covers rural poverty and economies, the environment, and tribal issues. Her latest article was published on In These Times magazine called, Why the Government Makes Filing Your Taxes Intentionally Difficult.