Subject: Too many forms & computations! Comment: My comment is in the form of the column I wrote for our local newspaper in San Angelo, Texas. It was published April 1, 2005, but was no April Fool's joke! It follows: Must filing taxes be so difficult? Judy Niemann It’s that dreaded time of year again — time to force myself to sit down and figure out our income taxes. This is not something I relish doing, as you can probably tell by the fact that the deadline is less than two weeks away and I still haven’t put the first figures on those forms. That’s part of the problem — too many forms. Actually, we’re fortunate that for the past 50 years we’ve had an extra month to muddle through all the paperwork and necessary mathematics or, as is my case, to put it off that much longer. From 1918 until 1955 the “Ides of March” — March 15 — lived up to its reputation as an ominous date, as it was the deadline for Americans to file their taxes. Before 1918 the date was another two weeks earlier. Although income taxes date back to the Civil War, taxes of one kind or another came and went both before and after that period. Then in 1913 Congress ratified the 16th Amendment giving us the beginnings of our modern-day income tax system and our first Form 1040. In looking through my stash of tax records that date back nearly 50 years, I discovered a Form 1040A, a simple card that measured just a bit more than 3 inches by 7 inches and could be completed in a matter of minutes by most filers earning less than $10,000 and not itemizing deductions. Even if you did itemize, you could do it all on the Form 1040 by listing your qualifying expenses on the reverse side. I had been wondering what happened to that card until I came upon a reference to 1040A while doing some research on the Internal Revenue Service site on the Internet. The form does still exist, but it’s now a two-sided sheet of paper that looks much like its relative, the 1040. Of course, today some lucky folks can still file a relatively short, one-sided form known as 1040EZ, provided they are younger than 65, have no dependents and have a taxable income of less than $100,000. That lets my husband and me out. We have no dependents and we make far less than $100,000, but we definitely are both over the age limit. What I really want to know is why there is no reference to either of these two simpler forms in the 1040 instruction book other than a vague listing among all the forms and publications that can be ordered. Wouldn’t it be common courtesy for the IRS to inform people of the optional forms they might be eligible to use? If you itemize deductions, you have a new one this year — general sales tax — but did you know they were previously deductible until 1986? Even gasoline taxes were deductible from 1964 to 1979, according to my records. It would make the cost of today’s gasoline a little less overwhelming if we could at least deduct the tax at filing time. Those records of mine — well ours, as my husband and I have always filed a joint return — make for interesting reading if you like learning firsthand about some of the changes in federal income taxes and a few of the requisite forms that have come about over the years. When my husband and I first married and our finances were less complex, he filled out whatever forms were needed. In 1964, he delegated the job to me. While moving from base to base during his military career, filing became more complicated as we dealt with travel expenses and rental costs on the home we still owned in Colorado. Being residents of the Rocky Mountain State for many years with its state income tax meant additional computations to make and additional forms to complete. It now takes me hours, even days, to accomplish all the necessary calculations on the worksheets that are included in the instruction booklet, so I can determine how much of our Social Security and pension income to list before completing the required forms. I haven’t itemized deductions in years, but now that we can reduce our income by our sales tax, I will have to see if we would come out ahead by itemizing. Probably not, but that’s just as well as it would mean adding yet another form to my stack. I’m convinced that if all the members of Congress had to compute their own taxes, they would come up with a simpler method of taking our money. Then perhaps I would no longer have to put off this demanding duty until it’s almost too late. Judy Niemann is a free-lance writer and a member of the Standard-Times editorial board. Her e-mail address is klest@cox.net. |