Taxes Shmaxes

They say that only two things in life are inevitable: death and taxes. After my experience this morning, I believe that death must be the much simpler of the two.
Fred does our taxes using Turbotax, so I really have very little to do with the complicated issues involved with deductions, owning three houses, etc. All I have to do is the girls' taxes, using the 1040EZ. Yes, they could do their own, but since their W2s have always come to our address and I need their taxes done before filling out financial aid forms online, it's just simpler (ha!) for me to do them. Sometimes I wish the EZ form was EZ-er for government-document-challenged people like me, but generally I have managed without getting a visit from an auditor.
Last year Erica's W2 went to her address in Madison, so I told her she should do her own taxes. She grumbled and procrastinated, but did get them done online by the April 15th deadline, happily receiving a $162 refund for her trouble.
Then in November, Fred and I received a letter from the IRS stating: "We received a tax return from a taxpayer using the same Social Security number as a dependent you listed." Uh-oh. Erica had mistakenly claimed herself as an exemption, and obviously this error would cost us a lot more if we didn't claim her (which we rightfully can) than it would cost her to amend her return. So, I called the IRS and after gritting my teeth through numerous menu selections, actually got connected to a real guy named Bartholomew. Bart told me that Erica needed to file an amended 1040X to correct the situation. Ok, no problem--except she hadn't made a copy of her taxes when she filed online. Another uh-oh. She requested a tax return transcript, because an actual copy of the return costs $57!!! Amazing how her putting down a "1" instead of a "0" was becoming increasingly more complicated and expensive.
This morning I sat down with all the forms, worksheets, and instructions to straighten things out myself, just to make sure we didn't end up getting audited or something. Maybe it's just me (probably), but what would have likely taken most educated adults five minutes to correct left me, after 45 minutes, in a lather of frustration and profanity. The form referred to instructions I couldn't find, line numbers that didn't match, and this doozy: "enter method used to figure tax." Huh?! Is that like showing your work with a story problem?
After going as far as I could without smashing the calculator, I deduced that instead of a $162 refund, Erica owes $122 plus interest. Fred is going to have to look at the whole thing and may come up with something completely different. All I know is that next year when tax time rolls around, she will be married and her tax status won't be my problem. Then I can just go back to messing up our checkbook.