Posted on 04/18/2017 3:44:24 AM PDT by IBD editorial writer
Tax Reform: If President Trump wants to drain the swamp, the best place to start is with the tax code, which is so complicated that Americans spend billions of hours and hundreds of billions of dollars just trying to figure out how much they owe.
The IRS instructions for filing out the 1040 form include a box near the back that estimates how much time it takes to fill that one form out. This year, it's 15 hours. That's a 67% increase from 1988. This year, the instruction booklet runs 241 pages. In 1988 it was fewer than 80.
The tax code has become so complicated that even the IRS complains about it. In its annual report to Congress, the IRS' national taxpayer advocate, Nina E. Olson, writes that the tax code imposes a "significant, even unconscionable, burden on taxpayers."
This is the hidden tax.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Gross income x 0.08
That's you tax you owe. Everyone pays and has skin in the game.
Takes about five minutes tops to complete and submit with your W2 statement.
Can you imagine the shock for millions when they discover that no income = no tax ‘credits.’
Direct welfare payments get all the attention but people getting goodies via the tax system is scandalous, wrong, etc.
You realize that this would kill every small business with less than 8% net profit margin?
Its part of the scam. The system is designed to make you think you can get something back, a refund. Then you are happy. Hah ha I got 400 dollars back! No you fool the Government had $400 of your money and used it for a year and then just returns it to you without paying you any interest for using your money!
Consumption taxes are the best and fairest. A NRST and a 20% import tariff and no income taxes would be the best.
This country would enter a Golden Age with that tax system. It would be a rebirth.
Consumption based taxes make it possible to forgo spending and pay off debt. You can never really get out of debt paying taxes on INCOME!
It costs a bureaucrat nothing to demand just one more number from me. But when he does I have to spend 15 minutes digging through my records and double checking the math because a different bureaucrat will be checking my compliance and will just automatically add a penalty plus interest if it is found it three years later that the number was wrong.
The tax accountant is more than happy to fill out the form from my working papers, but of course it only adds to the cost of preparing a return. These are people who view a new two page form that has ten pages of instructions as a professional challenge that they get paid to perform well enough that it does not trigger an audit.
My return last year was over 50 pages in size. What an abomination.
Compare to the 30% or so they’re paying now?
wrong- the 8% is ON THE INCOME
Not gross receipts
I had to hire a CPA to do my taxes for the first time in 36 years.
Don’t know who I loath more, the IRS or UBS.
UBS astonishingly inept.
Abomination is the right word.
Because it’s not a low, automatic, universal flat tax - zero deductions, exemptions, exclusions or credits - that has already been collected with any income payment to you.
Our neighbors just spent a bunch of money because they got a “refund.” Like it’s free money.....Sigh
He's talking about "Form 1040" -- personal income tax. Even for Subchapter S corporations, where profits are taxed on the owner's personal income tax, tax would only be levied on the net profit, not gross receipts.
How do you define income? Not everyone gets a W-2. If I run a small business, what expenses can I deduct for my sales to determine profit? Does investment income count if I’m living off of my stock portfolio. What about rental income? Not saying that taxes can’t be simpler, but this is partly why the tax forms are bigger than a 3×5 card.
A fifty page return requires well over a hundred pages of data, way more than that if you include receipts, and the book you have to maintain on your vehicles. Documents generated by outside companies can be difficult to get if you have edelivery of tax documents. Because of just that issue, I went total mail delivery, but the solution won’t be in place till next year.
It is to the point now, I don’t care what is costs to have someone do my taxes, it is worth every penny. Not only that but I find companies not sending w-2’s and 1099’s. Makes tax prep a bit more difficult, and don’t you worry, if you didn’t get your tax documents, you can guarandamntee the IRS got them, and will screen your return with exceptional scrutiny to make sure you cough up every dime owed.
The FAIR TAX would end ALL that BS...AND THE IRS!!
Before you dump on it, LEARN ABOUT IT. FAIRTAX.ORG!
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