It's vast and unpredictable.

Example: Two weeks ago I re-entered US as a citizen. Several people ahead of me smoothly went through the border control line. I was 'randomly' chosen for inspection by border patrol, an agent fabricated a story that a dog alerted, and I was forcibly strip searched where yet another agent fabricated he saw a 'plastic baggy' coming out of my ass. This 'evidence' was used to cuff and shackle me and drive me all over the state, while the government failed to find a doctor to anally probe me against my will. A warrant was even written by a crooked agent testifying this absolute bullshit. Government incompetence cost me 16 hours of my life, cuffed and shackled and mocked by doctors and agents publicly in waiting room of multiple hospitals. After two agents examined my feces to make sure there were no 'drugs' I was released, sans the discharge paperwork that was stolen from me and sans the affidavit of the testimony the agent wrote which he conveniently neglected to hand to me when he served me the warrant.

Will you end up like the guy in front of me, smoothly going through, or will you end up cuffed and shackled while agents try to get you anally probed. It's anybody's guess.

The IRS is quite ok to deal with. When I was freelance i called them a few times and always got somebody to explain the situation in a competent manner. That’s better than calling support at most private companies.

As a Canadian who’s (very) thankfully becoming American I can guarantee you that American government is very incompetent. At least in comparison to a Commonwealth one. The wait times, the level of uncaring, the general attitude was jarring when I first moved here.

I even worked as for a few years for the gov, and the bureaucracy is even worse inside!

In matters of finance the government gets it right eventually - but it can take its sweet time getting to that eventually.

Amusingly one of the “nicest” government arms to deal with is the IRS.