Tax Day is April 15, three weeks away. If you’ve procrastinated doing your taxes so far, that’s probably for a good reason: After all, the fear of a potential jail sentence for accidentally miscounting something looms over you constantly, turning it into a repetitive, redundant, and reiterative, time-consuming process.
Now, there’s not only a price tag on your returns, but on the effort it takes you to complete them—and it’s costly.
How much does it cost to do your taxes in 2026?
A new analysis from Postal, a virtual mailbox and compliance service, found individual tax returns cost American taxpayers a combined $146 billion in time and out-of-pocket expenses this year—roughly $576 per person in labor hours alone, plus an average of $288 in additional expenses like accountants or software. Reviewing data from the OMB and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the company found Americans will collectively spend 2.1 billion hours on Form 1040 in 2026, or the equivalent of roughly 12 hours per filing—and the IRS expects to receive about 169 million of them.
Businesses don’t get off any easier. Postal estimates business tax returns cost companies more than $126 billion annually in staffing and expenses, or an average of $9,090 per return. Stack on Form 941—the employer’s quarterly return—and that brings additional costs of $47 billion—with the W-2/W-3 series at $8.8 billion. Even organizations that owe nothing in taxes (those filing to not pay) still absorb more than $6.2 billion in staff and expense burden costs.
