It's been a Loooong Day!

[sundaymorningstaple]

I started after brekkie around 0930 yesterday morning and I just finished about 0130 getting my 2016 1040, Schedules, Forms, Stmt of Foreign Financial Assets & FBAR and transmitted (FBAR). Will mail the rest on Monday! I is tired and is going to bed!

[earthfriendly]

Do you think this will work in the US, pre-filled tax forms?


https://www.propublica.org/article/fili ... against-it

[Barnsley]

I started after brekkie around 0930 yesterday morning and I just finished about 0130 getting my 2016 1040, Schedules, Forms, Stmt of Foreign Financial Assets & FBAR and transmitted (FBAR). Will mail the rest on Monday! I is tired and is going to bed!

Thought this was gonna be a PM reference

[sundaymorningstaple]

Do you think this will work in the US, pre-filled tax forms?


https://www.propublica.org/article/fili ... against-it

This doesn't surprise me at all. I used to be the District Director for H & R Block in Washington DC way, way back 3 lifetimes ago in the 1970's (1972~1977). I worked for them from 1969 to 1977 when I resigned to do what I wanted to do. (which ultimately led me to end up here in Singapore).

[sundaymorningstaple]

The only way it could ever work is if there were some drastic changes to the Internal Revenue Code as it is completely grey instead of black & white. Back in the 1970's it used to cost me some $3K/year just for my Prentise-Hall & CCH subscriptions to the code and all the cases updated weekly. No idea what it costs today.

CCH Standard Federal Tax Reporter

Following the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment and passage of the Revenue Act of 1913, the Income Tax Service was published by a forerunner of CCH. The original loose-leaf volume contained the text of the Sixteenth Amendment and Revenue Act of 1913, as well as related regulations, rulings, official opinions, judicial decisions and forms. In its first year, this service grew to 400 pages. And it’s never stopped growing!

Over the years, the service became known as the CCH Standard Federal Tax Reporter, which in print is now a 25-volume set of binders filled with 73,608 loose leaf pages.

“CCH’s Standard Federal Tax Reporter is much more than just the Tax Code,” noted Luscombe. “It’s a cumulative, comprehensive, running record of all changes and additions to federal tax laws that CCH updates and publishes each year.”

https://www.cch.com/wbot2012/020TaxCode.asp

[earthfriendly]

That was one of Trump's proposal. Simplifying the tax code to reduce headaches for taxpayers when preparing their taxes. Can you imagine all the time that could be diverted to more productive use e.g. perusing this site ?

[Strong Eagle]

That was one of Trump's proposal. Simplifying the tax code to reduce headaches for taxpayers when preparing their taxes. Can you imagine all the time that could be diverted to more productive use e.g. perusing this site ?

Except when Trump says "simplify" what he really means is billions in tax breaks for the very wealthy, tax breaks for corporations, a 20 percent import tax that falls directly on the middle class, and increases in taxes for the majority of middle Americans.

Let's hope that Trump's attempts at tax "reform" are as successful as his "reform" of healthcare.

[earthfriendly]

I was reading this.

https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/trump-tax-reform.pdf

I understand that we now have a mentally unstable president running the country. And there is even the possibility of impeachment depending on how wild his actions get. But there is a silver lining in every cloud. And if that could come in the form of meaningful tax reforms, it would be the greatest gift to the nation. I find the idea of simplifying the tax code to be touchingly beautiful. I don't mind paying the same amount of tax. The lowered tax rates being offset by eliminations of deductions, loopholes and special interests provisions. So the net effect will be somewhat neutral.

So nope, I do not wish for him to fail in this aspect. I do not see the point of adding stress for the ordinary citizens by making them spend countless hours preparing their annual returns. Time that could have diverted for other purpose e.g. time with family/ hobby / work. Modern lifestyles are stretching them to the limit already and mental stress / illnessses are on the rise (Trump is not the only victim here ). Every little bit helps.

And it is not always the case where people are trying to evade the taxes but rather the dread of undergoing the onerous task of tax compliance. Businesses, small and large, have to allocate huge amount of resources for this purpose. And Trump, being a businessman himself, would experience this first hand. My ex-CPA who used to work in the tax dept of a multi-national energy company, they would set up a permanent office space to accommodate IRS agents frequent audit visits. Is that really a good use of our taxpayers’ money and allocation of the country's human resource? On admin and red tapes. Rather than on jobs with real productivity e.g building and creating real goods and services and infrastructure.

And it has been said that most of us end up either overpaying or underpaying our taxes. Simply due to the difficulty of compliance. How meaningful can the tax law be if it is that onerous to comply with? Has it lost its mandate?

During Trump’s meeting with the CEOs in Silicon Valley, they were receptive towards his tax simplification reforms and warm towards the idea of repatriation of cash overseas. Which other politician has gone this far?

[earthfriendly]

Employees don’t even have enough time each week to do personal activities, especially when 64% of managers expect employees to be reachable during that time! When they become overworked, they are naturally more stressed and it negatively impacts their health.

And guess what? When healthcare cost goes up, we all end up picking up the tab. Cause we are all in this together. It is all inter-connected. Whatever we can do to ease the burden of the ordinary citizens.

https://qz.com/932813/employee-burnout- ... urce=atlfb

[missyqiqi]

That was one of Trump's proposal. Simplifying the tax code to reduce headaches for taxpayers when preparing their taxes. Can you imagine all the time that could be diverted to more productive use e.g. perusing this site ?

Except when Trump says "simplify" what he really means is billions in tax breaks for the very wealthy, tax breaks for corporations, a 20 percent import tax that falls directly on the middle class, and increases in taxes for the majority of middle Americans.

Let's hope that Trump's attempts at tax "reform" are as successful as his "reform" of healthcare.

sigh. tell me about it. I forseen a worse tax burden in the long run for our children.
more goodies for the ultra wealthy, and more for the middleclass to pay.