Today is a the day all procrastinators dread, the one day a year it would be nice to skip, it is our national final exams, yearly physical and dental cleaning rolled into one, that's right - it's tax day! Dum-dum-dum... As per my usual method, I did mine on-line at nearly the last minute, but I still remember doing them by hand (at the last minute) in the days of mailed out 1099's, 1040's and whatevers - now that was a pain in the ass. I have evolved a bit, and now I use one of the many services which offer a way for me to mindlessly plot the numbers from here or there, crank the virtual handle and out comes my return. The hardest parts were figuring out the cost basis on a stock sale, and also locating the depressingly paltry interest I accrued last year, since my bank no longer sends me 1099's. There is an hour of my life I will never get back.
Now I am not opposed to paying taxes, but the way they are extracted is what bothers me. I did get a refund for my efforts, but really, we are using a system from decades ago to do something relatively simple by today's standards. So that got me thinking about how much it would cost if every American who files taxes were paid to do their own taxes. Last year there were 143,607,800 tax forms filed with the IRS. Lets say that on average it costs $25 to e-file (and lets also say that everyone does), and then we give ourselves a fee of maybe $10/hour as a "DIY Tax Professional". Well putting all that into the magic abacus reveals a cost of $5,026,273,000 for Americans to do taxes - and that is probably on the low end considering how many businesses exist to serve the tax illiterate such as myself (it also does not include the 2.3 million corporate tax filings last year).
I love pissing money and time away as much as the next guy, but it would seem that we can do better than that. Last year 65% of individual taxpayers took the standard deduction, and if they are like me, they just want to get the taxes done and move on with their lives. Hell, we sent a man to the moon, and until recently were the only ones who could get the cream filling into a twinky. Maybe it is time to think about ways to streamline the tax code so more taxes are collected automatically, so fewer people need to actually worry about filing a tax form. Hopefully there will be some reasonable tax reform on the horizon, but that is about as unlikely as magically skipping April 15th next year.
Now I am not opposed to paying taxes, but the way they are extracted is what bothers me. I did get a refund for my efforts, but really, we are using a system from decades ago to do something relatively simple by today's standards. So that got me thinking about how much it would cost if every American who files taxes were paid to do their own taxes. Last year there were 143,607,800 tax forms filed with the IRS. Lets say that on average it costs $25 to e-file (and lets also say that everyone does), and then we give ourselves a fee of maybe $10/hour as a "DIY Tax Professional". Well putting all that into the magic abacus reveals a cost of $5,026,273,000 for Americans to do taxes - and that is probably on the low end considering how many businesses exist to serve the tax illiterate such as myself (it also does not include the 2.3 million corporate tax filings last year).
I love pissing money and time away as much as the next guy, but it would seem that we can do better than that. Last year 65% of individual taxpayers took the standard deduction, and if they are like me, they just want to get the taxes done and move on with their lives. Hell, we sent a man to the moon, and until recently were the only ones who could get the cream filling into a twinky. Maybe it is time to think about ways to streamline the tax code so more taxes are collected automatically, so fewer people need to actually worry about filing a tax form. Hopefully there will be some reasonable tax reform on the horizon, but that is about as unlikely as magically skipping April 15th next year.
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