It usually is a simple process to file our federal taxes each year, copying more or less what we did the previous year. Free Fillable Forms generally works well, but it is always apparent that the instructions are written from the point of view of the IRS and not with the audience in mind. This year, I started running into confusing things right away--kind of ridiculous no one noticed and fixed these problems--and I decided to keep track here of all the confusion and how much extra time it took.
