the problem is that the tax code is huge and there are loopholes. There should be a simple flat tax, with no concessions etc., just a two-pager. The amount of money and time spent on poring over the IRS rules is crazy.
I tried a little experiment of my own a handful of years back. I called three different IRS offices located in two cities other than my own (so, three offices altogether). I asked each office about home office deductions with the exact same question and got three completely different answers from each office. The IRS can’t even explain its own tax code let alone convey it consistently.