On 8/29/2017 10:12 AM, James Wilkinson Sword wrote:
On Tue, 29 Aug 2017 17:58:09 +0100, Taxed and Spent wrote:

On 8/29/2017 9:47 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 29 Aug 2017 07:26:52 -0700, Taxed and Spent
wrote:

On 8/29/2017 7:23 AM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article , says...

Tax saves me a of of time just importing information from the Fed
forms.

I'm waiting for the day that accountants and tax lawyers get together
and demand a simplified tax code that anyone can file themselves and
won't need us. Think it will be coming soon?


They are probably lobbying to keep the tax codes so complicated that the
average person has to use their services. Just think how much money is
involved if they can get even $ 25 to $ 50 out of each tax payer.



Their lobbying has succeeded in keeping the IRS from allowing its fill
in forms to do math.

It is not just the math. Some of those work sheets are unnecessarily
complicated, just to be sure they take into account every esoteric
rule.
The SS tax form is a good example. They have a whole page of "take
line one, subtract it from line 5 add in the julian date of your
mother's birthday and divide by the speed of light".
The reality is they should just say "do you get food stamps"?
If not add 85% of your SS to taxable income.

I recall one instance where instead of saying "multiply line 10 by .75"
it said " "multiply line 10 by .25", "subtract line 11 from line 10".
Actually, I think it was even more steps when just one step would do it.

Those things don't give the same answer.

I guess that is why you get forms that do the calculating for you.


Anyway, why would you be doing multiplying? Please tell me you don't do it on paper? Ours are done online. Any calculated figures appear instantaneously by javascript.


I don't do my taxes on line, I think they are too complicated for that.
I do use the federal and state fill-in PDF forms, but they don't do any
calculations.