Just finished mine up and it was less than the hassle that it usually is. But....

What a royal PITA to have to deal with every year. It is just ridiculous.

Deductions and credits for everything under the sun, from being a first time home buyer in Washington DC to using organic fertilizer on your crops. What a fucking convoluted confusing joke our system is.

I propose that a letter be mailed to everyone in the US on January 1 every year with a short form and a self addressed stamped envelope enclosed.
The form asks "How much did you make last year?" and "Enter 10% of the above amount here _____."

"Send check for the above amount in the enclosed envelope."

Done quicker than getting a burger at a fast food joint and we'd be rolling in money.

But no...every politician has to be allowed to pander to their chosen special interest.

And to make it worse, even in this age of computers, we need to manually adjust for cost basis on things like stock purchases or grants lest we get get double taxed on gains.

Don't know what it's like now, but 20 years ago, in Japan, a buddy of mine was paying 3.5% in taxes and the company did the work and filed for him.

quote:

And to make it worse, even in this age of computers, we need to manually adjust for cost basis on things like stock purchases or grants lest we get get double taxed on gains.

^^^^^^^
??? I remember doing this years ago. My brokerage provides a cost basis on a daily basis for my holdings. Mutual funds now have to do the same. When I inherited some stocks I just had the brokearge enter the date of death and their computer entered the stepped up cost basis.

stock purchases are easier.

stock purchase plans and restricted stock units, for me, takes annoying effort to figure out the correct basis. I actually have to do algebra.

Did mine this morning. 1 W-2 and 1 1099. It's nice that Turbotax is free,
but I could have done it faster the old fashion way. Pick up the forms at the
post office, sit at the dining room table and fill it out.

I used to do my own. I'm self-employed, so the deductions/credits etc were complicated enough to suck up some time.

Then, I started getting the "corrections". One year I'd owe an extra buck or two, another year they'd owe me a refund of a buck or two. It was unnerving to think I was making a mistake somewhere.

Now, I pay to have it done. I'm not paying them to fill out forms... I'm paying them for what they know. I'm renting peace and quiet.

I've been doing H&R Block online for several years now. Return is more complex than normal due to circumstances beyond my control so I paid extra for a professional review with 3 day turnaround. I did the same thing in 2019, and the professional review turnaround was 2 days.

I'm now on day 11, and am on hold demanding a refund.

My father retired from IRS. He would rent an office on the main road in town,
January through April. Amazing how much he made in four months.
Preachers from all over the country would mail him theirs, he did those for free.

quote:

Now, I pay to have it done. I'm not paying them to fill out forms... I'm paying them for what they know. I'm renting peace and quiet.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Exactly. I get regular correspondence from the IRS. One year they decided to audit my one person retirement plan. My CPA took care of that. No issues were found. It took two eight hour days.

10 percent ? For ease of use, they will charge at least 20%

Doing taxes is annoying, but I don't consider it that big a deal.

Now that I'm retired, it's about a one hour deal start to finish using TurboTax.

Heck, I'm not even retired, and it still only takes about an hour using TurboTax...

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
And to make it worse, even in this age of computers, we need to manually adjust for cost basis on things like stock purchases or grants lest we get get double taxed on gains.

Don't know what it's like now, but 20 years ago, in Japan, a buddy of mine was paying 3.5% in taxes and the company did the work and filed for him.

Manually adjust? Using Turbo Tax, it downloads directly from Schwab for my capital gains and dividend transactions. There were two transactions that came from a stock split that I did have to correct for the cost basis.

quote:

Originally posted by oldbill123:
10 percent ? For ease of use, they will charge at least 20%

The problem with 10% like the presidential candidate slogan of 10/10/10 is that 10% from everybody isn't going to equal the current tax revenue.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Heck, I'm not even retired, and it still only takes about an hour using TurboTax...

Most of the work is organizing the documents which I do throughout the year as they come. And that just means recognizing if a document is tax related and throwing that in a folder.

Since I scan everything now, I use a file naming convention to automatically sort them.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:

quote:

Originally posted by oldbill123:
10 percent ? For ease of use, they will charge at least 20%

The problem with 10% like the presidential candidate slogan of 10/10/10 is that 10% from everybody isn't going to equal the current tax revenue.

57% of Americans pay no federal taxes. Include them in the 10% and we'd have more revenue than we do now.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:

quote:

Originally posted by oldbill123:
10 percent ? For ease of use, they will charge at least 20%

The problem with 10% like the presidential candidate slogan of 10/10/10 is that 10% from everybody isn't going to equal the current tax revenue.

57% of Americans pay no federal taxes. Include them in the 10% and we'd have more revenue than we do now.

Or switch to a sales tax only system as it'd encourage people to:

buy quality products that are built to last rather than throwaway ChiCom junk

earn a living

save & invest money

This Fox News article articulates the merits better than me.

---

Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

I'm partial to a flat tax for every person, but could get on board with a fair tax.

Anything but the abortion we have now.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:

quote:

Originally posted by oldbill123:
10 percent ? For ease of use, they will charge at least 20%

The problem with 10% like the presidential candidate slogan of 10/10/10 is that 10% from everybody isn't going to equal the current tax revenue.

57% of Americans pay no federal taxes. Include them in the 10% and we'd have more revenue than we do now.

Nice wish. But the math still doesn't work out. I'm not worried about the people paying less taxes below me. The math forces MY tax rate and YOURS to go above 10% in order for the tax rate of the people in the top brackets to go down.

The average tax rate for all taxpayers is 13.3% based on 2019 tax year. So 10% isn't going to cut it. Understand that the AGI of the bottom 50% totals only $1.4 x 10^12 versus $10.5 x 10^12 for the top 50%. Even if you assume and add another $1.4 x 10^12 for the people who aren't paying taxes, you're not going to get much taxes from those people to make a flat 10% tax rate work.

Go to the Table 1 Summary.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:

quote:

Originally posted by oldbill123:
10 percent ? For ease of use, they will charge at least 20%

The problem with 10% like the presidential candidate slogan of 10/10/10 is that 10% from everybody isn't going to equal the current tax revenue.

57% of Americans pay no federal taxes. Include them in the 10% and we'd have more revenue than we do now.

Or switch to a sales tax only system as it'd encourage people to:

buy quality products that are built to last rather than throwaway ChiCom junk

earn a living

save & invest money

This Fox News article articulates the merits better than me.

The problem isn't a matter of tax revenue; the problem is a matter of tax spending.