re: #321 lawhawk

In the zeal to create a postcard sized document, they’ve basically made it even more complex because they shifted a bunch of lines to separate worksheets that have to be completed. There’s also the double sided nature of the filing, which means that paper returns will need additional scanning (or have double-sided scanners in place for the 2019 tax season). Right now, tax returns are all single sided.

This doesn’t simplify anything. Taxpayers who currently itemize may still need to run the numbers as if they are itemizing to see if they benefit from the standard deduction or not. Some taxpayers will find out that they’re getting hit with higher costs because of the tax plan’s fallout in high tax states.

Oh, and every single state that bases their tax on the federal returns (line 28, line 32, etc.) will have to update their tax returns to address the changes.

If the IRS and Congress wanted true simplification, they would have ordered the IRS to send out a pre-filled return to everyone showing the information that the IRS already gets from everyone - the W2, 1099, etc., as they do now to verify your prepared return. We should then be able to amend/modify with the additional deductions/credits, which the IRS doesn’t have.

That would simplify things to the point of making it all signing the returns and accepting the tax statement (pay underpaying tax/credit for overpayment). It would essentially kill off tax prep companies, but they’re the ones who profit from all these changes if you’re not using turbotax or similar product to do your own taxes.

“Yeah but Postcard sized!!!!!!”

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