I hate doing taxes. I spent more than five hours yesterday afternoon transferring numbers from one form to another, and it would have taken a lot longer if not for TaxACT. I really resent the complexity of determining how much money I've got to hand over to the government, and I'm always left with the nagging feeling that I did something wrong that's going to land me in jail.
Let me just say to any potential future auditor: I did my best. I try very hard to be as accurate as possible, and I err on the side of the Treasury. I attested at the end of the filing process that all the numbers were true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, and that's right. The fact of the matter is that after five hours of crunching numbers everything was a haze and I don't fully understand all the fields the software wanted me to fill in. I took line 934 from form 1040-WTF and put it in field XJ-09 like the software told me to, so I hope it's right.
There's got to be a better way to fund the government, no?
Update:
Nope, we're going to have to file an amended return for federal and both states. Yay. I filled out our moving expenses form wrong, thinking that lines 1 - 3 were for our moving expenses above what my employer reimbursed, not including. So most of the reimbursed moving expenses were wrongly counted as income. At least we'll get some additional money back. Good grief, could this be more complicated?
As far as I can tell, either you keep track of the actions that affect how much you pay, and then enter those actions into the forms, or the government somehow sets up some system where it keeps track of those actions for you (and maybe sends you emails like "We have noticed that you just got married/moved/had a child. Congratulations! Next year, don't forget to enter this as a "2" in field 15K of your W-4. Combined with our direct-deposit-tracking system, we know that (as of now) you will owe us US$14,875.39 by next April. Expect another email every 2 weeks with updates!"). Most people would not like this kind of monitoring, although monitoring at this level would not give the government any more data than everyone already willingly supplies ever year.
Or, yes, the government could simplify the system that determines how much you have to pay (i.e. what factors affect how much you have to pay, and how they affect it). But then taxes would not be as fair, since all the complications are there to make sure that people with certain worthwhile hardships (like paying for education or caring for a family) pay a little less, and people who did taxable things (like buy things online from another state, or earn interest/dividends on their savings) pay a little more. Each of those complicated extra lines was added deliberately for a reason, no doubt after hours and hours of meetings and maybe even public votes. You'd have to argue against each one, one at a time, in order to make taxes simpler.
That having been said... yes, it's a pain in the butt. I have been trying to do my own taxes for 3 years now, and every year I send the almost-completed forms to an accountant I know who then points out all the mistakes I made - mistakes which usually involve not claiming certain credits that reduce how much I have to pay (which is why I send my forms to my accountant friend =])
BM: I think you should have put quotes around the word "fair". What you think of as "fair" is really just social engineering, most of which you happen to agree with. I, personally, don't think the government should be using the threat of violence to coerce our private decisions, such as what we buy, when, etc.
"What you think of as "fair" is really just social engineering, most of which you happen to agree with."
I guess that's true.
But how exactly is the government "using the threat of violence to coerce our private decisions, such as what we buy, when, etc"?
Bernardo is right on this one. And the fairness part isn't just social engineering. Much of the complication is inherent in the concept of a fair tax. The federal income tax must produce a correct answer for every type of economic transaction that Americans engage in---and Americans think of new types of transactions every year. The tax law is huge for the same reason that most programs are huge: The first 90% is easy, but it takes a mountain of code to catch all the little bugs and exceptions.
Having said that, most of the complication in the tax code is for businesses and wealthy people, as they're the ones entering into complex transactions. On your personal tax return, probably most of the complication was social engineering, like the home mortgage interest deduction. But some of the complications were probably tests designed to see if you're one of those wealthy people or businessmen trying to sneak through a loophole.
Seriously, hire a professional to do your taxes. Many accountants buy big software programs that can spit out tax returns very quickly, so it isn't too expensive. You can try to slog through all the worksheets on your own, but only someone who prepares tax returns full time is likely to spot the gimmes and gotchas that will apply to you.
And don't ever do a refund anticipation loan. Those give the preparer an incentive to push for a larger refund than you may be entitled to. I get calls all the time from people who receive the loan, then the IRS won't the refund. H&R Block or Jackson Hewitt has already been paid its fees, so what do they care whether you actually receive the refund?