confusion galore

Brief description of how my head feels while trying to learn tax law (basis, boot, S-class corporations, also capital gains and losses, this means you):

When I was little, and when my sister was little, and in the church nursery when I used to be a nursery attendant in high school, there was this toy. It was like a little snowglobe on wheels that a kid pushed at the end of a stick. It was full of little colored balls, and as the kid pushed the toy, the floor of the globe bounced the balls around and made a sound like loud popcorn popping.

I generally think of myself as a reasonably intelligent person, but I guess there is a reason why I am not an accountant, because tax makes me feel like someone popped my head off, threw it in that snowglobe to bounce around for a while at the whim of a toddler, and then stuck it back on my neck. So, so confused. I knew I should have taken tax law. Then again, people who did take tax law told me that, entire semester of tax notwithstanding, they still can't fill out their own tax returns. I fill out my own tax returns every year, but every year my head feels exactly this same way: bounced around.