Why are taxes so hard to file?

The answer is easy: Intuit, makers of TurboTax, has spent over $10,000,000 lobbying the federal government to keep it from reforming the tax code. Both Democrats and Republicans have been recipients of lobbyists’ money on this issue, and both have kept tax-reform bills from passing.

Your W-2 and 1099 forms should be arriving by the end of the month, so unless you’ve got the dough for an accountant, you’ll probably have to use TurboTax 2014 unless you’re in the mood to sweat out a stack of forms with a pencil, a calculator, and a heavy sense of resentment towards everyone involved.