Posted on 04/13/2018 8:40:21 AM PDT by Red Badger
Perhaps you are one of the many Americans who are afraid of preparing their own income-tax returns. If so, let me offer these words of encouragement: You stupid idiot. I say this because doing your own taxes has never been easier, thanks to modern technology such as the telephone, the personal computer and the canned frozen margarita.
Take me. I am not a so-called "Certified Public Accountant, " but I have been handling my own taxes for years, using a simple, three-step system:
STEP ONE: One week before the April 15 tax deadline, I gather together all my financial records. This is easy, because I keep all my records in one convenient place, which is the kitchen drawer where I also keep my butane lighters with no butane in them and my package of "AAA" batteries, which I bought in 1987 because I thought they were "AA" batteries, and which I plan to return to the drug store for a refund as soon as I locate the receipt. So all my records are compressed into one convenient, dense wad.
STEP TWO: Using a Sears Craftsman chisel, I separate my records and sort them according to size and color. This takes a while, but it "paves the way" for the heart of my tax-return preparation system, which is:
STEP THREE: Using the telephone, I call Evan, who is my accountant, and urgently ask if I can file for an extension, and he tells me that he already did. Then he hangs up and goes back to sleep because at this point it is 3:30 a.m. on April 18.
The advantage of using this system, which is called the "Extension System, " is that you can postpone filing your tax return for several months, and even longer if, the good Lord willing, the earth is destroyed by an asteroid.
You know what makes me want to puke, aside from Geraldo Rivera? I'll tell you what: so-called "tax-preparation software." When I go to the computer superstore and see these clueless taxpayers paying good money for software that is allegedly going to make their tax preparation "fast and easy, " I laugh so hard that sometimes it takes four store employees to wrestle me to the floor and inject my special medicine into my neck.
I react this way because I know that this "tax-preparation software" is NOT going to prepare these clueless people's returns for them; it is going to ask them 14 skillion technical questions about things such as their name, Social Security number, income, expenses and the exact number - right down to the decimal point! - of their children.
Listen, software geeks: If we KNEW all these details, WE WOULDN'T NEED THE COMPUTER TO HELP US! Why don't you make USEFUL tax software? I'm talking about software that, when you put it into your computer, says to you: "You've done ENOUGH already! Go enjoy a canned margarita while I use my modem to wake Evan up and get you an extension!"
If Al Capone had possessed such software, he would be a free man today. Dead, but free.
For those of you who wish, for whatever insane reason, to actually prepare your tax returns, there are some changes this year that you need to know about. The main one is that the Internal Revenue Service now has a positive, taxpayer-friendly image, expressed by the upbeat new IRS motto: "We Acknowledge That There Is A Possibility, However Remote, That You Are Not Criminal Scum." Instead of hassling taxpayers, the new IRS wants to serve them. What does this mean to you, the individual taxpayer? According to IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti, it means you are now expected to tip.
"If you're a married taxpayer filing jointly, " states Rossotti in his official Letter to Taxpayers, "tucking a fifty-dollar bill inside your tax return will definitely cause the IRS employee serving you to feel appreciated and be less likely to select you for the auditing procedure we call 'The Closet Full Of Snakes'."
Rossotti also points out that when we sign our tax returns, we are in effect taking a legal oath. "This means, " he sternly reminds us, "that the information you provide must meet the same standard of truth and accuracy that President Clinton met when he testified under oath about alleged acts of internship with Monica Lewinsky." For example, if you have three dependents, when you fill in the box that says "Number of Dependents, " the following answers would meet the Clinton Accuracy Standard:
* "Three."
* "Four."
* "Around 27."
* "I don't recall."
* "It depends what you mean by 'dependent'."
Remember that, as always, if you have questions about filling out your tax forms, you can call up your congressperson or senators at any hour of the day or night and ask them what brand of glue they were sniffing when they thought up our tax laws. But let us not become bitter and negative. Let us remember that, in a democratic society, if we do not pay our "fair share" of taxes for vital government services, we will be able to buy ourselves a boat. So let's sharpen our pencils and start accurately writing down our income. I don't recall having any.
© Dave Barry
I LOVE Dave Barry’s humor.
I started using tax software 25 years ago when I went to all of the local libraries and couldn’t find the tax forms that I needed. I keep using it because the number of tax forms has increased and it costs me too much to send all of those forms in the mail. So, I kill three birds with one tax software package; I efile and don’t mail my returns anymore, I don’t need to locate the forms that I need to file and it identifies the forms that I need, and it does a better job anticipating next year’s tax debt than my spreadsheet. All and all, income tax is still theft.
I despise doing taxes every year.
In this day and age, we should not have to do this.
If we have employers and accountants for self employed, they taxes we pay should be automatic and that is the end of it.
But of course, the purpose of the tax code is not just to raise revenue, which it does, but to control behavior of the people.
Which it does.
Remember, this country was founded by a revolution against ‘taxes’..................
I do, too.
Before him it was Lewis Grizzard...................
LOL!.........................
Similar story here. Early '90s. My wife was doing daycare in our apartment for someone that happened to be a tax accountant. We were trying to claim business use of home, and one of the schedules for that required us to attach form ####. This claim was going to save us hundreds of dollars.
The library, which had every form imaginable, didn't have this one. Our friend the tax accountant couldn't find it either. We ended up having to write the IRS to get a copy of the form.
And the killer? On this form was a list of questions that determined certain qualifications for the deduction. Things like "do you use alternative fuels in a farm vehicle?" Or "Is your home included in the such-and-such act from the Louisiana purchase?" We ended up answering no to the 20-odd questions on the form, which carried over a zero to the "business use of home" schedule.
Intuit sold a tax package (I think it was them) that we started using from that point on.
My taxes are complex enough, that I use a CPA for this task. I assume he uses tax prep software. He efiles the returns.
I wonder if we will ever see major tax simplification. Perhaps politically, the incentive is too strong, for the politicians who write the tax laws, to encourage and subsidize certain behaviors with tax benefits, and discourage/penalize others, based on tax treatment of various financial activity.
Dave Barry always cracks me up.
One of my favorite is his column on fifty shades of grey...
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