Taxes - who does em?

Who does your taxes?

  • Me

    Votes: 50 53.2%

  • Family member

    Votes: 4 4.3%

  • Accountant/Tax guy I pay

    Votes: 33 35.1%

  • Taxes are for little people

    Votes: 7 7.4%
  • Total voters
    94
I do - for myself and my mother. But when I say "I do", what I really mean is that I use turbotax to fill out the forms. The laws are way too complex to keep up with.
 
bflynn said:
The laws are way too complex to keep up with.
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And this is what grinds my gears.

I try to be a decent law abiding citizen, but having to pay someone (TurboTax, HR Block, CPA, whatever) because of the complexity of our tax laws, while all I'm trying to do is pay what I owe...sucks.
 
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I prepare them using TurboTax simply because I've been using them for 7 or 8 years and it imports everything for me. Since I won't likely be able to get under the increased federal standard deduction next year, I'll probably do them by hand since I'm only dealing with normal in-state W-2's and mortgage interest. It'd be nice to save the $60 each year. I always owe the State about what the refund is from Federal, so it's a wash anyway (good thing). The downside is that not having the electronic submission for Federal through TurboTax means it takes longer to get me refund, but it's not a deal-breaker. I got my refund in a few days after submission back in February, I'm sending out my state payment via snail mail today, lol.
 
I like not getting a refund and not paying anything due. All a refund means is the government had a free loan from you during the year.
 
When TurboTax first came out I tried it and it was so complex and so slow it wasn't worth my time. So I used an accountant until she retired. She was around $250, and well worth it.

When she retired I went to H&R Block. I sat there for 2 1/2 hours answering questions she'd read to me from her computer, and wait while she typed them in. $550. Frustrated, I tried TurboTax again last year (and also on the advice from people here who said it had improved exponentially).

It was GREAT!!! Very easy and only $120.

You big lugs are awesome.
 
I do my own taxes with the help of TurboTax. For me, the work is in gathering the information. I don't need to pay someone to enter it. In fact, TurboTax imports most of my 1099s from my bank and brokerage accounts. I thought this year would be complicated since I sold my primary residence and moved to another state. The house sale was easier than expected, but I had to divide up my income based on the dates I received it. Still not too bad.
 
I don't give money to the government, I give it to the church instead. I feel they can make better use of my money.

A friend of mine when some organization that he does not support their beliefs asks for a donation, he makes a donation to the NRA in their name.
 
Zeldman said:
I don't give money to the government, I give it to the church instead. I feel they can make better use of my money.

A friend of mine when some organization that he does not support their beliefs asks for a donation, he makes a donation to the NRA in their name.
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Charitable donations are an excellent tool for that and the increase in AGI and upping this to 60% in 2018 is great. Only downside is it’ll increase money laundering to politicians. Big time.

The removal of unreimbursed business expenses was a mistake in the new tax code if you ask me.
 
denverpilot said:
Charitable donations are an excellent tool for that and the increase in AGI and upping this to 60% in 2018 is great. Only downside is it’ll increase money laundering to politicians. Big time.

The removal of unreimbursed business expenses was a mistake in the new tax code if you ask me.
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There shouldn't be any deductions/itemization in the tax code anyway. There's no logical reason that I should be able to deduct mortgage interest. If you want a house, you pay the money. If that money is borrowed, you pay interest. Case closed. Same goes with child care expenses and the like. It's the reason our tax code is so ridiculous. Government trying to provide economic incentive for consumer behavior.
 
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SoonerAviator said:
Yup, it's nice when it works out like that. Mine federal is typically less than $1K


There shouldn't be any deductions/itemization in the tax code anyway. There's no logical reason that I should be able to deduct mortgage interest. If you want a house, you pay the money. If that money is borrowed, you pay interest. Case closed. Same goes with child care expenses and the like. It's the reason our tax code is so ridiculous. Government trying to provide economic incentive for consumer behavior.
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I’m glad to have those, but I’d have to agree with you.

Plus, I would have bought a house and had kids regardless of tax treatment.
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
I’m glad to have those, but I’d have to agree with you.

Plus, I would have bought a house and had kids regardless of tax treatment.
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Exactly my point. I certainly use all deductions available to pay as little tax as possible, but it wouldn't change my personal behavior if it were otherwise. The FairTax or some similar variant would be a welcome substitution.
 
SoonerAviator said:
There shouldn't be any deductions/itemization in the tax code anyway. There's no logical reason that I should be able to deduct mortgage interest. If you want a house, you pay the money. If that money is borrowed, you pay interest. Case closed. Same goes with child care expenses and the like. It's the reason our tax code is so ridiculous. Government trying to provide economic incentive for consumer behavior.
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"Social Engineering."
 
SoonerAviator said:
Exactly my point. I certainly use all deductions available to pay as little tax as possible, but it wouldn't change my personal behavior if it were otherwise. The FairTax or some similar variant would be a welcome substitution.
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The 1913 1040.
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/1913.pdf

Note that the amounts are in 1913 dollars and didn't apply to too many people. Filling jointly the tax didn't hit until the income was the 2018 equivalent of $100K. Oh, and the tax rate was a whopping ONE percent. The "super tax rate" of an additional 1% didn't hit until a AGI of a half million in today's dollars.

The top marginal rate was 6%.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Exactly my point. I certainly use all deductions available to pay as little tax as possible, but it wouldn't change my personal behavior if it were otherwise. The FairTax or some similar variant would be a welcome substitution.
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It would be a very unwelcome substitution for the hundreds of thousands of tax professionals from the lowly data entry folks all the way to Tax Court.

Not to mention the number of voters who work for government who can be easily swayed by threat of job loss to vote any way a politician wants.

Or the power provided by manipulation of a Tax Code by politicians.

Taxation is simply legalized theft on a grand scale driven by a myriad of views of what a “society” should do.

Killing the thieves when they get too greedy and starting over on a new set of “fair” rules, is repetitive throughout human history, but so far, seems rather ineffective as a control measure for their natural human nature. It just repeats.

Statism is just a special kind of cult. And we all participate in our own roles in it. Republics with representative voting, and at least the hint of Democracy, seem to be the best humans can figure out so far. Other systems usually lead to mass genocide.

All systems for Statism tend toward mass deaths whenever they’re “more pure” as in closer to idealism than pragmatism.

FairTax/FlatTax proposals are highly pragmatic until one realizes a significant percentage of the population has specialized into tax matters and would find themselves without a means to support themselves in a modern monetary society that seeks specialization and pays a currency for those specialized skills the society created a need for.
 
just finished mine up using turbo tax. eman's got some drinkin' money comin to him.
 
denverpilot said:
It would be a very unwelcome substitution for the hundreds of thousands of tax professionals from the lowly data entry folks all the way to Tax Court.

Not to mention the number of voters who work for government who can be easily swayed by threat of job loss to vote any way a politician wants.

Or the power provided by manipulation of a Tax Code by politicians.

Taxation is simply legalized theft on a grand scale driven by a myriad of views of what a “society” should do.

Killing the thieves when they get too greedy and starting over on a new set of “fair” rules, is repetitive throughout human history, but so far, seems rather ineffective as a control measure for their natural human nature. It just repeats.

Statism is just a special kind of cult. And we all participate in our own roles in it. Republics with representative voting, and at least the hint of Democracy, seem to be the best humans can figure out so far. Other systems usually lead to mass genocide.

All systems for Statism tend toward mass deaths whenever they’re “more pure” as in closer to idealism than pragmatism.

FairTax/FlatTax proposals are highly pragmatic until one realizes a significant percentage of the population has specialized into tax matters and would find themselves without a means to support themselves in a modern monetary society that seeks specialization and pays a currency for those specialized skills the society created a need for.
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Phase in the flat tax over 10 years so the tax accountants and lawyers can find something more productive to do.
 
paflyer said:
Phase in the flat tax over 10 years so the tax accountants and lawyers can find something more productive to do.
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Like, getting the tax code back to where it started. Remember, whatever gets passed this week can get repealed after the next election cycle.
 
paflyer said:
Phase in the flat tax over 10 years so the tax accountants and lawyers can find something more productive to do.
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Agreed. Eliminating the IRS should save a pretty penny in and of itself. It'd be even better if they moved to the FairTax instead of FlatTax, so that income isn't taxed at all. Everything becomes a consumption tax. Don't want to pay as much in taxes? Cool, buy less stuff. (Probably not so great for American consumerism, but I doubt it'd slow people down too much).
 
SoonerAviator said:
Agreed. Eliminating the IRS should save a pretty penny in and of itself. It'd be even better if they moved to the FairTax instead of FlatTax, so that income isn't taxed at all. Everything becomes a consumption tax. Don't want to pay as much in taxes? Cool, buy less stuff. (Probably not so great for American consumerism, but I doubt it'd slow people down too much).
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I like the fairtax, but the Flat Tax is less complicated. My employer has a business in China. To the best of my knowledge, the employees are paid monthly and the government takes X% (25, IIRC) of all wages every month. End of story. Me likee.

Wanna make is less regressive? Exempt the first 2x the poverty level income for each individual or family.

But collecting all of these documents, deciphering the oddball items, interpreting the tax code, and having to pay for software or a professional to carry out the task only to be subject to audit by a government bureaucracy? Insanity.

Going to a flat tax would eliminate a substantial non-value-added cost from each of our lives...
 
kyleb said:
I like the fairtax, but the Flat Tax is less complicated. My employer has a business in China. To the best of my knowledge, the employees are paid monthly and the government takes X% (25, IIRC) of all wages every month. End of story. Me likee.

Wanna make is less regressive? Exempt the first 2x the poverty level income for each individual or family.

But collecting all of these documents, deciphering the oddball items, interpreting the tax code, and having to pay for software or a professional to carry out the task only to be subject to audit by a government bureaucracy? Insanity.

Going to a flat tax would eliminate a substantial non-value-added cost from each of our lives...
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Right, but the FairTax does essentially the same thing that the flat tax w/anti-regressive components would do. Everything's a sales tax, those at the bottom of earnings get a small stipend to help with basic needs. The difficulty with the flat tax is that it's still based on "income", which can vary wildly depending on who you talk to. Warren Buffet doesn't worry too much about the taxes on his income, he makes most of his money other ways. The FairTax essentially makes sure no one is exempt from paying taxes, and the highest burden is likely to fall on those who consume the most . . . the middle and upper class who tend to have more disposal income and who spend it on more lavish items. However, I'd be happy to deal with either plan versus what we have now. Either one would simplify tax code immensely and reduce the IRS by 80% easily.
 
I once visited a friend in Canada, which has a VAT. My impression was that schemes for avoiding that tax was widespread - almost a national sport. Most of it was via an underground barter economy, seeking to keep purchases and sales off the books to avoid the tax.

I predict we’d see the same thing here in spades - tax consumption and ways will be quickly found to hide or recategorize “consumption”. It would not surprise me if a bureaucracy at least the size of the current IRS was needed to avoid tax evasion.

Not to say it’s a bad idea, just to be aware of unintended consequences.
 
Go back to the 1913 tax rates and low level of complexity.

It’s an outrage that anyone has to pay more than 10% to the feds. That should be more than enough to fund the national government for its Constitutional purposes.
 
FastEddieB said:
I once visited a friend in Canada, which has a VAT. My impression was that schemes for avoiding that tax was widespread - almost a national sport. Most of it was via an underground barter economy, seeking to keep purchases and sales off the books to avoid the tax.

I predict we’d see the same thing here in spades - tax consumption and ways will be quickly found to hide or recategorize “consumption”. It would not surprise me if a bureaucracy at least the size of the current IRS was needed to avoid tax evasion.

Not to say it’s a bad idea, just to be aware of unintended consequences.
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No doubt that there will be those who try to evade the taxes. Always has been the case in every taxed society. I just think taxing income is much more difficult than consumption. Unless people start bartering for everything, anytime you purchase a product taxes get collected. The system for collecting sales tax is already in place for every merchant in the US, so it's not too disruptive, either.
 
paflyer said:
Go back to the 1913 tax rates and low level of complexity.

It’s an outrage that anyone has to pay more than 10% to the feds. That should be more than enough to fund the national government for its Constitutional purposes.
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Agreed 100%. However, if we reduced government spending to fit with everyone paying 10% or less, we wouldn't get to buy any more F-22's. ;)
 
SoonerAviator said:
Agreed 100%. However, if we reduced government spending to fit with everyone paying 10% or less, we wouldn't get to buy any more F-22's. ;)
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Funding the military is a Constitutional provision. Giving people free phones is not.
 
FastEddieB said:
I predict we’d see the same thing here in spades - tax consumption and ways will be quickly found to hide or recategorize “consumption”. It would not surprise me if a bureaucracy at least the size of the current IRS was needed to avoid tax evasion.
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Been bartering and trading my services for years. The .gov can take a hike if they think they can tax me on that. :mad:
 
paflyer said:
Funding the military is a Constitutional provision. Giving people free phones is not.
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azblackbird said:
Been bartering and trading my services for years. The .gov can take a hike if they think they can tax me on that. :mad:
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It would be pretty difficult to tax bartering, especially if no invoice is generated. Same goes for private sales (garage sales, etc.), I doubt there would be a push for that. The majority of the revenue would come from sales of durable goods (equipment/appliances/autos/furniture) and consumer items like clothing, etc.
 
denverpilot said:
Technically for defense, not offense. Or global cop.

Just sayin’. I wouldn’t call what we’re doing today, “Constitutional”.
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Was entering the European Theater in what became known as WW2 defense or offense ?
 
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