Fury

That's my present mood. I just got finished filing my federal and state income taxes via the internet.

The IRS shunts you to a "private company" that collects your data and fills out PDF forms which then can be submitted back to the IRS. The IRS then tells you if the transmitted data was acceptable, and if there's an error, gives a fairly understandable explanation - whereupon, you must go back to that "private company" and fix the problem - and try again.

Four tries later, I have gotten an acceptance form the IRS. This by no means says I am out of the woods - just that the math all lined up.

The PDFs the "private company" provide are pretty good, but there are several places where data that should be automatically linked is not, and there's not a good explanation of exactly WHAT data needs to be transferred from one form to the other. There's no error checking to ensure all the IRS required entries are filled in. But - whaddaya want for free?

I wonder how much the IRS paid that "private company" to provide that "free" service? They offer their own "free" service - IF you meet their requirements for income, etc.

OK. Feds taken care of, and I expect a refund. On to Wisconsin.

The WI E-file site tries to open a PDF that calls in to the WI Department of Revenue. It requires you to have on hand an electronic copy of the IRS forms you just filled in - you DID download a copy, right?

Fill in the form - attach the IRS stuff - after spending a few frantic minutes looking for the PDF "attach" paper clip. Submit the mess to the WI DOR.

Find out you made a mistake on the fed form - fix that, resend - and try to update the WI stuff.

There's no way to do that. File once, and you are locked out.

I'm dusting off that time machine I started when I was eight - who wants to travel with me back to 1913 and shoot the progressives who pushed 16th amendment? Be warned - we will likely cease to exist upon finishing our quest. But think of how much suffering and waste would be saved in the next century!