Historically, April is tax time. (We will hold briefly for boos.) But there is a silver lining: Most people don’t need to pay for special software to file them.
Though taxes aren’t uniquely American, the way we handle them is. In most other countries, the government calculates how much you owe and tells you. Filing your taxes is simple and free.
In America, a system fiercely protected by paid special-interest lobbyists forces taxpayers to do the math themselves, often with a paid intermediary guiding them through the process. The reason anyone would need a guide, of course, is that the process is intensely complex; a feature, not a bug, that keeps money flowing to the companies that back those lobbyists.
About 20 years ago, the federal government mulled creating an option that would make it free and easy for most Americans to file their taxes electronically. The private sector pushed back, and a compromise was born: The Free File Alliance, a coalition of software companies that offer a free version of their tax software for Americans who meet certain criteria. To be a member of the Free File Alliance, companies have to offer a free version of their software that could be used by 70 percent of taxpayers. Of course, other companies can also offer free tax software, and some do.
