I’m writing this from a tax party. Six people sit on couches and force themselves to finish filing — a task that is very boring and should mostly belong to the government. Despite the lo-fi tunes in the background, the mood is not good.

I was going to write about protein bars today, but to honor our wasted time, I’m unsheathing this long-held rant. Here’s to all the people filling out forms on couches across America.

The average American’s life contains around 650,000 hours.¹ They’ll spend a few hundred hours filing taxes.

If the U.S. were like most developed countries, that number could instead be close to zero. Japan, Germany, and many others “pre-populate” tax returns to some degree — estimating what people owe, rather than making them calculate it themselves. Someone with a simple tax situation might spend only a few minutes reviewing and approving the number. California tested a program like this, ReadyReturn, in 2005.² The results led Brookings to estimate that most filers would save around four hours each year (and some would save more).

While ReadyReturn’s test users loved it, the idea never became a federal program. Intuit (TurboTax) and other tax prep firms spent millions of dollars lobbying against it. They found an ally in Grover Norquist, an anti-tax advocate who claimed that pre-populating tax returns would (a) let the IRS overcharge people and (b) make taxes less unpopular.

I haven’t found evidence for (a). From what I’ve seen, pre-population reduces tax evasion but also makes it easier for people to notice and claim deductions. If anything, people who were already paying taxes might save money — even discounting the money and time they’d save on tax prep.

With (b), Norquist holds that Americans’ lives should be worse and more annoying because we’ll hate our taxes more, and then vote to reduce them. Some wonks want us to waste money and time on things that won’t do much good; Norquist wants us to do it on things that hurt us! This argument seems outright silly when I think about all the countries that pre-populate (I’m sure their people still prefer low taxes) and the implication that four hours a year is exactly the right amount of annoyance. To quote Sam Hammond: “Why not require taxes to be filed quarterly, on papyrus, while doing push-ups?”

Norquist’s war on efficiency pairs weak arguments with high costs. If pre-populated returns could save 50 million Americans four hours a year, that’s 200 million hours — roughly 300 American lifetimes. Let’s say Norquist holds 20% of the responsibility for holding back this policy.³ How different is that from killing 60 people each year?

Considerations:

• Is doing taxes as bad as literally being dead? Four hours a year times forty years of taxation is 160 hours, or four workweeks. If I had to lose one week of life, or spend a full month where my job was “filing taxes” and my salary was negative (TurboTax ain’t free), I’d take door #1.
• Is taking four hours from 175,000 people the same as killing two 40-year-olds? Killing one specific person is bad for reasons that don’t apply to stealing hours piecemeal. But stolen hours are still real! People could use that time to play with their kids or watch a movie or go to the park.⁴
• Shouldn’t we also blame the tax preparers? Yes! Intuit and H&R Block are also killing us. But I can punish those companies by refusing their services.⁵ And their actions are at least driven by rational self-interest. Norquist just wants me to suffer, and I can’t do anything to make him suffer back. All I can do is point out that he is complicit in the fractional murder of Americans.
• Don’t we lose even more hours to other stupid regulations and evil schemes? Indeed! This won’t be my last post about the theft of our time.

1. For this post, I’ll ignore the odds that AI kills us or extends our lives.
2. ReadyReturn’s champion was Joe Bankman. I applaud his desire to save me time, even though his son cost me a few hundred hours of work and play.
3. This is Claude’s estimate, which also gives ~45% of the credit to tax preparers, ~25% to the GOP, and ~10% to other factors. Seems fair to me, and my point stands even if Norquist was only 5% responsible.
4. Elizabeth, from the tax party, says filing day is her least favorite day of the year; millions of other Americans would likely agree.
5. I quit TurboTax last year, after paying them $500 to do what the government should do for free.