The New Tax Form Is Postcard-Size, but More Complicated Than Ever

[brooklynite]

Source: The New York Times

The Trump administration’s new “postcard” tax form still must be mailed in an envelope, unless you want your neighbors to see your Social Security number. It will save a little bit of time for some taxpayers but could add pages more paperwork for millions of others.

A draft copy of the new version of the standard 1040 income tax form, obtained by The New York Times, shows the administration has succeeded in its goal of shrinking the form that most Americans send to the Internal Revenue Service every year. The new form eliminates more than half of the 78 line items from the previous form, reducing it from two full pages of text to one double-sided half page.

Check out the old form and the draft new form:




Smaller is not necessarily simpler. The new form omits a variety of popular deductions, including those for student loan interest and teaching supplies, forcing taxpayers to search for them — and tally them up — on one of six accompanying worksheets.



Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/your-money/1040-income-tax-postcard.html

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

1. So...

Postcard PLUS*****(plenty more postcards/forms)
Who really believed this was possible?

[lagomorph777]

2. Unfortunately, most voters won't discover until April, that the Billionaire Tax Cut is a tax hike

for average people.

However the Trade War will probably destroy a lot of Trump Country jobs this summer, so there's that.

[Sneederbunk]

3. Good enough for the 1%

[7962]

4. None of the 1% would use a standard form; too many deductions!

do away with all the deductions and just go with a flat tax with a healthy exemption. Raise a lot more money and cost nothing for the public to do their tax. the rich would end up paying a lot more even with a lower rate.

[marybourg]

8. Magical thinking

[7962]

12. It works in other countries. And they dont use magic.

Most also have a VAT. Which gets a piece of unstated income. Of which the US has 100s of billions if not trillions. Income that never gets taxed because its never reported.
What we have now wont pay for what we need. And no one proposes anything that will.

Even russia, of all places, saw a 20+% increase in revenue when they went to a flat system. But it has to tax all income to work. None of this "carried interest" BS

[SWBTATTReg]

19. Switzerland uses a 1% on all assets (ALL, worldwide) for their

yearly income tax/yearly assessment. This gets the 'unstated' income and everything else. I like your idea but I guarantee you that the powers that be will never allow us to do this to them (the 1%ers). It's time we took back our country!

[exboyfil]

29. I got to think Switzerland is pretty good

about tracking down all the assets. I would love to see something like this. It makes a lot more sense than our current system. I don't know much about it, but it matches my thoughts for sometime. It is shocking how little the wealthy actually pay in federal taxes (we confuse the wealthy with the high earners - those are not necessarily the same groups).

[7962]

37. Yes they love their lobbyist money flowing freely!!

Although I dont think I agree with an asset tax. Many older people have good assets but they dont make a lot of money. Its like property taxes; not far from where I live is an area that was populated by mostly older people. Somewhere around the late 80s, high priced homes started popping up. The resulting increase in property values made some of these people have to sell their debt free property because they didnt have the incomes to pay the much higher property taxes.
I have a retired relative whose total assets are around 1 million. But her yearly income is only around 40k. She has no debt, so its enough for her. But if she had to pay tax on that million, she'd also have to start getting rid of it to pay the taxes. And if she lived long enough, end up with little.

[SWBTATTReg]

44. Good point...I think that the SWISS had a rather low amount to begin w/, or

at least you had like from 0 to 1/2 million, no tax,
from 1/2 million +1 thru 1 million, 1%,
etc. The point was that they did have threshold limits which had to be met, and then tax would apply.

I'll need to revisit the article I read (it's been some time), but I do recall limits (and the %s I'm mentioned I'm not sure of what they were either).

It's the concept that really interested me here, being so different from other tax plans I've seen.

And you're absolutely right, that older folks tend to have lots of assets and relatively little income (like in today's environment w/ low interest rates being paid on CDs etc., but lots of assets). Thanks for pointing out!

Take care...

[7962]

45. Thanks! You as well

[LanternWaste]

31. Economies, existing nowhere but our imaginations are indeed, magic

We place our faith in imaginary constructs, and from that false predilection, predicate not merely our daily decisions, but many of our biggest personal and national decisions on something which simply does not exist.

The petulantly-called 'sky-daddy's' have nothing when it comes to strict adherence, faith and protocols of the consumer/worshiper.

Though I get it... we have to pretend it's real or some such child-like nonsense to exist in the lap of microwave pizzas and gameboys.

[7962]

36. Ignorance is best left hidden than outwardly displayed for all to see. But its a free country.

If you think Russia & several of the Baltic states economies, among others, are non existent than you've got major problems that the rest of us arent aware of.

[mwooldri]

15. I would still go with a progressive Income Tax. But yep too many deductions.

When I lived in the UK, I was on Pay As You Earn. I never did a tax return. Employer withheld the right amount of tax, Inland Revenue made sure it was correct.

[7962]

16. wouldn't that be nice!! NO worries come April. nt

[brooklynite]

9. Our tax filing runs to 25 pages...

My wife's firm is multi-national, so we have to file for tax credits from 15 foreign countries. The postcard form will never cover us.

[karynnj]

42. Worse than not covering you - as I assume you have the knowledge and skill to find the

way to file your return correctly, I suspect it will not cover many young people who get money from companies that treat them as contractors. This means that their forms were already not the simple forms I filled out in my first years working at a Dairy Queen as a 16 year old.

It is bad enough that this means they pay both parts of the FICA tax, I don't see any way that they can even report that income here. My husband and I have continued to do the returns of our daughters, two of whom are graduate students with stipends and college paid tuition. On the old forms, you needed to carefully reconcile the scholarship with the tuition payment. Clearly that too will have to be done on the attached sheets. My guess is that we will need to start earlier than usual to figure out how to accurately handle their forms.

[IronLionZion]

10. They hire accountants and tax attorneys to handle that

to make sure they pay as little as possible

[Freethinker65]

5. I use a free file link to do my taxes.

Personally, I detest the worksheets. The math manipulations are often tedious to find out that yes, because you are not making over X amount, you can claim the entire deduction on line Y. (And yes, I understand this is necessary for those with greater incomes and progressive tiered deductions.) I must print the worksheets out, complete them for my records, and keep copies or scan them.

[forgotmylogin]

17. I don't understand the push to downsize the physical page the form is on.

I think the EZ form is already one page, front and back. Where it gets voluminous is when taxes are complicated and you're having to file other forms and schedules with it, which defeats the purpose of a postage-stamp tax form.

$30 for TurboTax online annually is well worth it. It's all filed electronically, federal and state, and is an easy to complete "interview" interface. They will store your personal info securely so you don't have to type everything in again the next year, and even can in many cases pull your W2 forms from the employer online (no typing, and you don't even need to send in a W2 since they have it on file) I've gotten my direct-deposit refund as quickly as the last week of February, and doing my taxes (which admittedly are pretty simple) is like a 30 minute process.

My father, who doesn't use the internet, is in the worst shape since they don't mail out blank tax forms anymore (which is good, less wasted paper) and they don't stock them at the post office or the library anymore (they expect you to use the free internet to print them out, I assume.)

He was having me print ~100 pages of instructions and forms for him because he didn't want to sit on hold on the toll free number to order tax forms.

I found out you can order paper copies of tax forms and instructions online from the IRS for free, which is probably the best solution if you don't have a printer or need to use the library, or have a Luddite relative like I do -- I had them delivered directly, although last year they weren't sent out until sometime in March despite being requested months early -- they probably do one major mass mailing for the tax season so they are the most up-to-date.

https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/order-products

[jmowreader]

20. The EZ form is on one side of a letter-size sheet

The "postcard form" is kind of a GOP wet dream - "you can do your taxes in five minutes!" Problem is, when you can "do your taxes in five minutes" you can't take the medical expense, mortgage interest, church contribution, local taxes and unreimbursed employee expense deductions that make their quiverfull lifestyles sustainable, and you can't expense away the income from your side business selling framed Bible passages. Schedules A and C will NEVER be on postcards!

[Freethinker65]

26. It is a gimmick.

[ProfessorGAC]

34. This

That's all it is. Is this day when you can actually use the IRS site to efile taxes for no extra charge, and everyone having a tablet or computer (well, almost everyone), taxes are not very complicated and the computer makes the math-phobic types comfortable.

Nobody needs a postcard size tax form. The only real way they will accomplish their silly goal is to make it 4 point font, and 100 million americans won't be able to read it.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

28. Is there any chance that your Dad was my Mom? NT

[watoos]

6. So does that mean

that the 1040A was printed on a Post It?

I live in Alabama, half way between Pittsburgh and Philly and I'm amazed how many Trumpers take their 1040 EZ taxes to a preparer. Tax preparers here in Alabama should have little fear of losing business.

[7962]

14. My tax guy said he's had EZ forms brought to him since inception.

He tries to tell the people they can do it themselves. But they still think the IRS is going to come after them. for something.

[forgotmylogin]

18. I'd rather pay $30 for TurboTax Online if I was gonna do the EZ form.

As dumb as that is, just to have it done electronically without someone else involved.

I used to work in a different state than I filed in, so I started using the software because it was a bear to complete both state forms and then the credit for tax paid to another state since there's the loop of "finish the other state before completing this state!" confusion.

I may be on an EZ form now, but it's well worth it to have the software do my taxes and get them done and filed all at once.

But yes, without tax software, it seems ridiculous to go to a physical Tax Preparer if you just have one employer W2 and nothing else tricky involved.

[Achilleaze]

7. republicans pissing on American taxpayers

as always

[jayschool2013]

11. Where's the line for ...

Where's the line for rubles and kopecks?

[jmowreader]

21. You have to convert them into dollars at the closing exchange rate on the day you file

All kidding aside, Americans who have overseas investments must report non-US dollar income...and they have to convert the value of that money to its dollar equivalent for tax purposes.

Seriously though, do you think Trump admits to the IRS all the foreign money he makes?

[jayschool2013]

30. He apparently admits nothing

But we can hope that he admitted a whole bunch of stuff to Michael Cohen and that Robert Mueller is in possession of those admissions.

[bucolic_frolic]

13. Hours spent learning Trump tax form will ding productivity 2.3%

Funny too. Trump wants us to focus on income taxes.

"Other taxes" Attached Schedule 4

I guess that's Schedules A,B,C,D,2281 ... etc. This is no improvement

[Liberalagogo]

22. You know...

everyone could just NOT pay taxes in protest of Shithole. What the fuck would they do if a majority of the populace didn't pay taxes to protest the Shithole Admin?

I know it won't happen as getting the left all on the same page is like herding cats.

[brooklynite]

23. That and the fact that it's illegal to not pay your taxes.....

...and that fines, penalties and jail time await those who don't.

The Sovereign Citizens might join you though...

[Liberalagogo]

43. Don't you think that maybe, just maybe

we're going to have to do something not exactly kosher since we've let this go on far too long? A lot of what many historical resistance movements had to do was "illegal". If that frightens you, then maybe we should just all shut our mouths and do what Dictator Shithole says.

[dflprincess]

24. So what's the deal with born before January 2, 1953 (line 39A)

Having been born in 1953 (June 27, to be exact), but after January 2 I just have to ask.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

25. You'll be 65 in 2018. NT

[dflprincess]

27. Yes, I know. Tomorrow actually

I haven't quite recovered from receiving the Medicare card last week ("A" only, still working so I still have private insurance.)

Just wondering what this January 2 cut off is about.

[lunasun]

32. Have a Happy Birthday ...I know I did not answer your question ...

[dflprincess]

39. Thank you.

I finally did some Googling I was not aware that a person gets a slightly larger standard deduction once they turn 65 (I won't qualify for this year). Who knew? Between that and all the senior discounts I'll now qualify for maybe it will all make up for the jump my car insurance took for turning this age (seems just like yesterday they dropped for turning 25).

Now I'm going back to my corner and try and figure out just how this has happened to me.

[Yonnie3]

33. They give you a day if you were a New Years baby.

If you turned 65 on the first day of this year they count it as last year. Don't ask me why it wasn't a a half year not a day. Let's not get into time zones and how they affect dates either.

[Bengus81]

40. Happy Birthday and your lucky.....

Anyone who thinks that Medicare is "free" is in for sticker shock if you don't have lifetime coverage from your employer or former employer. I'm starting Aug 1 and I wish I could stay on the ACA. Part "b" is now $134.00 per month--right out of your SS payment. Supplemental will cost another $90-100+ per month depending on your situation and Part "d" for drug coverage might run another $30 per month.


Then you can go shop around for dental..........

[dflprincess]

41. I don't even want to think about what dental will cost me when I do retire

(hopefully not until 70).

I don't understand why, given that the connection between your oral health and your overall health (especially heart) has been figured out, medical doesn't at least cover cleanings.

[jpak]

35. Where is the Standard Deduction?

I thought it got raised to $12K.

All I see an individual exemption of $4K.

[Bengus81]

38. Total BS for the Trump GULLIBLE.....

Hell,most anymore NEVER fill our a tax return laying in front of them on a desk. It's done on-line or like me the same tax person I've had for 20+ years which just changes a few numbers each year or my tax return on her computer,then it's sent electronically to the IRS.

This "postcard" HS is just to appease Trump and will be used by very few.