We gave up and hired an accountant when hubby started having to deal with AMT.

Intuit and H&R Block spent $7 million on federal lobbying in 2025. (https://itep.org/intuit-helped-limit-americans-tax-filing-options-while-raking-in-millions-in-tax-breaks/ )(Intuit is the maker of TurboTax, which I will probably be resentfully purchasing next year since this year was *such* a pain.)

So it’s millions of hours *and* more than millions of dollars annually, probably.

The US has, at various points, strengthened consumer protections and made it so that we have less of a “fox guarding the hen house” situation but this is… not… one of those phases.

More power to you! The year I moved to Florida, I hired someone to figure out the complexities of my taxes, between selling the condo and two states, and it was so much easier on me that I decided it was worth the money. Doing it on my own, even as simple as my taxes should be, was always several hours of tearing my hair out, and verging on tears of frustration at least twice. No, thank you!