Everyone who gets a migraine filling out their Federal tax return, raise your hand!
lot of years ago, former Governor Jerry Brown made a bid for the Presidency. One of his pioneering ideas was to make tax filing simple, using a straight percentage of 10% of your earnings, no matter who you were, irrespective of income level. This sounded like a great design, but it never materialized. Having years of experience working as an accountant, you’d think I’d have no trouble wading through the infamous 1040 tax booklet. Although the IRS provides an expected time crucial to set up each section, they must be dreaming or their approximation assumes you’re using software.
Did you know that all of the rules and regulations pertaining to the IRS tax return fills sixty feet of book shelf space? Yes really. This gives us instant proof as to why filing a Federal tax return isn’t simple. Tax preparation software is believed to resolve this trouble, but it’s not foolproof. Should you misconstrue a question and supply the incorrect answer, you’ll hear about it from the IRS just when you’re expecting that envelope to contain your repayment or stimulus check. This can be an annoying, not to state disappointing experience.
Perhaps I’m just too careful . There are just too many potential pitfalls, so I read the booklet, generally three times, so that when my Federal tax filing is sent off, I believe with all my heart it’s right. It’s funny that that old adage, ‘close sufficient for government work’ does not apply to your Federal tax return. The reason I read the booklet in place of relying on software, is that any little detail can blow the whole effort. It’s forever best to be careful, right? Well, one severe flaw in the booklet is that it’s not written in plain English. It’s riddled with IRS jargon, twice negatives and the like. It’s also not presented in sequence, almost definitely because of those sixty feet of shelf space.
You’re shuttled from one worksheet to a further and then back to where you started. By the time you’ve made all the calculations, your head is header and you have no idea what the figure on that line of the Federal tax return represents! It’s unwise to make a decision you need a break, because by the time you come back to it, you no longer know what the heck they’re talking about. Wasn’t it Charlie Brown who famously uttered , “Aaaaargh!”. Death and taxes, both are unavoidable. However, wouldn’t it be nice if our government decided to take pity on us poor taxpayers and carry a booklet in plain English and an abbreviated form.
Here’s your income line, next your inference amount and a straight percentage rate of tax. This is my thought of a dream Federal tax return. How about you? Maybe if our Congressional and Senatorial council were deluged with taxpayer requests for a kinder, gentler taxation system, they’d listen. We can only hope.
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