Americans Spent 225 Million Hours on Tax Preparation

The IRS already collects most of the information from employers and banks that you've just used to fill out your income-tax form. Why couldn't it send you a pre-filled return, let you make needed changes and send it back in? President Obama's former economic advisor, Austin Goolsby, says "return-free filing" of income taxes could save a collected $2 billion and 225 million hours of time filling out income tax forms. Will it ever happen? Not likely, according to a report co-produced by NPR and ProPublica, where Liz Day is director of research.