They do have to make the site usable by everyone including the non-tech savvy, I can definitely see good reasons for keeping the input extremely limited.
One of the "downsides" of it being a government site is that it needs to be usable for everyone. Which can be a bit frustrating for power users.
Not necessarily easy either, and I don't really see the point. It's perfectly usable as it is, might as well keep it simple and invest time/money in stuff more useful than satisfying the .5% of users that are techy (made up number) for the few times a year they have to use the website
It really wasn't, 2 years ago there was one place where they told you which type of accounts to submit made up of 10 pages of single questions.
Except, I knew which type I had to submit and it was telling me the wrong one. I was obviously answering one question wrong. But I couldn't go back and I could see my previous answers, I could only start again.
That's basically a ten page glorified wizard with no back button, which is actually a big UX no-no. Must have gone through the damn thing 5 times before I finally got the right form.
One of the "downsides" of it being a government site is that it needs to be usable for everyone. Which can be a bit frustrating for power users.