Comment: Filing Status - There should be only 2 filing statuses, single and joint. A person who formerly filed as married filing separately, head of household, and qualifying widower would file as single. A person who is married could choose to file as single or joint. This would eliminate countless verbiage and complexity from the code. No more, but if Married Filing Separately, enter this amount. Every provision that has amounts based on filing status would be greatly simplified. There would be only an amount for single and an amount for joint. This would eliminate separate tax tables and rates for Head of Household. It would eliminate all the complex rules and requirements for filing as a Head of Household. These people would file as single and still claim and get the benefit of their dependency exemptions. The dependency exemption amount could be increased to compensate for this change. This would eliminate all the complex rules and requirements for qualifying widower for the two years following the death of the spouse. These people would file as single and still claim and get the benefit of their dependency exemptions. The dependency exemption amount could be increased to compensate for this change. This would eliminate countless hours of an auditor trying to determine the appropriate filing status. If the tax return has one social security number - it's a single return. If it has two social security numbers, it's a joint return. A person who is married but chooses to file as single would report as income all the items recorded under their social security number. For example, take a joint bank account, reported under the husband's social security number: If the husband chooses to file as single, he would report the full amount and the wife would report nothing. If he chooses to file as joint, they would report the full amount on their joint return. This would greatly ease the tracking of the amounts reported to the IRS by employers, banks, brokerages, etc. The income amounts would be checked against the return filed with that social security number. Taxpayers would continue to receive a personal exemption. On a joint return, there would be two personal exemptions. If the taxpayer or spouse were claimed as a dependent on another return, they would lose their personal exemption on this return but get a dependency exemption on the other return. Submitted by, Howard Gordon Certified Public Accountant with 30 years of preparing income tax returns |