I posted the following comment to “Filling taxes in japan is a breeze, why not here?”, T.R. Reid, New York Times, 2017-04-17.
When we lived in Italy and Sweden (1968-1974) we filled out four-page forms for those countries' taxes. And then we had to at least fill out a two-page form for the U.S. But we didn't have much investment income then.
I have tried tax software, but their question format takes longer than doing my own spreadsheet. I tried the Free-Filer that the IRS site links to, but it doesn't provide instant recalculations like my spreadsheet does.
Maybe I shouldn't say this because some lobbyist will get Congress to take this benefit away: the IRS does provide fillable PDF forms that you can fill out offline instead of handwriting the data.
I should have added to my comment the old adage: We have the best Congress that money can buy!
