I filed my tax returns over the weekend. Including worksheets, interest, dividends, AMT and regular forms, it was over 80 pages. There must be a better way to do this…
It’s messed up. My KR taxes took 1 minute. Now I need to file my US taxes…it will be hell…procrastinating.
Yeah that’s crazy. I did mine a couple of weeks ago and federal wasn’t too bad but then I had to do 2 state returns.
It wouldn’t be too bad if it were like: dividends, take $1000 * 15%. Done. But nooo…you need the special div and cap gain worksheet, and then qualified vs. regular divs. Capital gains have 3 separate classifications (basis reported, basis not reported, and “other”). Its just a mess trying to keep everything straight.
My taxes are going to get more complex this year with the addition of owning a house, so now I get to add tracking itemized deductions to my list of things to do.
Can’t you guys just hire an accountant to take the pain out of the whole process? Just dump them with all the required docs and let them do it for you. My taxes aren’t rocket science but I always just hire someone to do them for me. Their fee (usually $100 or so) is tax deductible and with a good accountant they always end up saving me a bit of money here and there with deductions I hadn’t thought about which more than makes up for what they charge.
I guess it’s lazy of me but I dread tax time so much and the stress of always procrastinating. Accountants just take out the misery out the whole thing.
I used tax software (and I paid money), so it was not as hard as it could have been. However, when taxes are so complicated that professional help is normal, that should tell you that there is a problem. It’s not just a problem for tax filers - imagine how much government overhead we could save by simplifying the tax code. If each return is 80 pages long, imagine how difficult it must be for the IRS to screen for tax evaders. Or imagine how many people must be making mistakes and incorrectly reporting their income. I’m not sure how it came to be this complicated, but I am beginning to think that Herman Cain-esque tax overhaul might be a good idea.
I wish they allowed everybody to e-file for free. It would save a lot of time and effort, but the way it is you can only e-file for free if your AGI is under $57k. Or you can use Turbotax or the like. So I fill out all the PDFs, print them all, and mail them in. Then the IRS can scan it in or pay somebody to key in the information
I don’t use software since my taxes are really simple. I’m single, don’t have kids, and make too much money to qualify for any credits. All good problems to have I guess.
Romney promosed that if elected you could mail your tax return in a simple little envelope.
ohai obviously you were the outlier in the salary survey making 350k plus. What do you do? And quit the attention whoring, you can afford it.
I used to do that but my accountant charged $700US last year because my “international-guy” taxes were so hard, and my situation wasn’t even that complex. The US just makes it hell if you have any sort of special situation.
Also capital gains taxes are bullshit, I need to move to Singapore asap.
Form 8949 killed me this year. Hate that thing
What would we do with all the tax attorneys and tax accountants?
80 pages? I log into to my discount broker from turbo tax and all of this is uploaded instantaneously. Took me about 30 minutes to finish.
Did you know? American corporations (in aggregate) spend more money on tax compliance than they actually pay in taxes.
Sounds like their attorneys and accountants are doing a good job then. I also assume you mean US income taxes, as companies like GE pay nothing, or almost nothing, in the US but pay billions overseas.
On the other hand though, Delaware LLCs for non-US citizens are a bless.
Could you imagine if we had a national sales tax of 25%… the liberals/broke peeps would b!tch so much even though they’d be paying nothing in dollar terms.
I think everyone needs to pay at least 15% or else half of the country will just continue to vote for increases in spending, everyone needs to have some skin in the game and pay for a portion of their own entiitlements/benefits.
Economist, professor, and professed libertarian Walter Williams has suggested that everybody in the US gets one vote for public office. Then, for every $10,000 that you pay in income tax, you get an additional vote. This way, those who finance the government get more input as to how the government is run. He says that those who pay no taxes have no skin in the game, so they tend to be less concerned with financial mismanagement (a la W and the Obama-nation).
If you ever wondered what excatly fascism is…see above.
But is there not some truth to what he’s saying? Yeah, you’d have some people who would love to “buy” a government, but you also have people who are dependent on the public coffers and continue to vote for whomever will give them the most free benefits. Which is worse–the people who finance the government get to decide how it’s run? Or people continuing to vote themselves money out of other people’s pockets?
This last election would have been a 200-1 landslide (awesome!). They only question would have been which republican would be in office.
The issue is that there’s zero symmerty or risk/reward in the decision making process of the lower or even middle class when your options are:
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BK the country giving yourself programs that we cant afford
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Just contune being poor
You have no downside, only up when you spend other people’s money and none of your own. On top of that, if your decisions fail there’s no accountability, you just get more money to spend.