The forms, the forms...

Tax in the US is due 15th April, and I'm not sure who has watched The Simpsons, but that episode about Homer doing the tax at the last minute finally makes sense. We're not quite at the last minute, but we are getting towards the end of time, and patience...

Forms are not named, but numbered - ie, a W2 is a group certificate from your employer, and there are hundreds of them.

We are filling out form 1040, which is a form for jointly filing taxes for a couple. There is a 104 page explanation document that is supposed to help you fill out the form.

Every three lines or so, another form might be called for - ie, there is a tax credit for having children (I think Australia should look into this), and to get that you need to fill out Form 8812 (I think), and submit with the 1040. But in the process of filling out 8812 we realised that our children need to have either a Social Security Number (SSN) or a ITIN (can't remember what this stands for, but if your child isn't able to get an SSN, they can apply for an ITIN). to get the ITIN, we need to fill out a W7, and then travel to an IRS office that can validate their passports, which means...Road Trip!! to Baltimore, to submit our 1040, and W7, and (with the children present) get their passports validated. 

After sorting out the federal tax, we need to fill out a separate form(s) for State Tax.

Before April 15th. No pressure. We think, as insurance, we will fill out Form 4868 to apply for an extension of time...
Another example - to fill out Schedule B for 1040, I had to investigate whether or not we needed to fill out Form 8938 and FinCEN Form 114...