This program would ease the pain of doing your taxes

Joseph Bankman doesn’t think taxes need to be so painful and anxiety provoking. In fact, he knows the US can introduce a much easier and more straightforward process for paying taxes because he’s already done it.

In 2005, Bankman worked with the State of California to create ReadyReturn—a pilot study with a completed tax return prepared by the state (not an individual or tax professional) that was available to low-income and middle-income taxpayers.

Bankman, professor of law and business at Stanford Law School, teaches mental health law and writes on the intersection of law and psychology. He has developed a course on anxiety psychoeducation and written about how insights from social psychology might be used in the effort to reduce tax evasion. And, it seems, tax anxiety.

Here, Bankman explains why the US tax filing system is so complicated and what can be done to relieve the anxiety we all feel as tax day approaches:

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