The Simple Tax Return

[sweeps]

Seems like a pretty good idea overall. Commenter #1 on the site gets a lot of criticism for his comment.

The Simple Tax Return

[jIM_Ohio]

Not a bad idea. but I think additional data is missing. Of the 2/3 of people which use the simple filing method, how many people have their tax situation change from year to year?

add a kid
subtract a kid
owe the government
get a refund from the government

because the once a year thing isn't a bad thing if most of those people end up owing the government money.

[jodi]

I've never itemized, but I think of all the variables that change from year to year...I don't think DH and I could use it. Does student loan interest get reported to the government? If it didn't come on the form, then that would eliminate a large portion of the 20 and 30 something crowd. What about small things, like the $250 deduction teachers can take for buying classroom supplies? The government won't know if they are going to claim it, or how much. Or the retirement savings credit - I don't think the government will know how much I contributed to my Roth until I tell them.

Good theory, but I don't see it working for 40% of the people - seems like the number would be much lower, maybe 10-20%. Just my $.02 though!