Warning: Don’t get caught in the IRS rabbit hole while doing taxes
Mar 4, 2019, 6:12 AM
I decided to tackle my taxes over the weekend, and as I was going through the tax software Q&A on my computer, I noticed that every time I answered a question, the tax would go up.
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I’m thinking, “this doesn’t feel right.” So I clicked the button you should never click. It’s the one that says “go to tax form,” which explained nothing. So I clicked on the other button you should never click. It went to the actual IRS instructions. By curiosity around my taxes continued.
Then I got way too curious and did the thing that even the Bible warns against. I Googled the weekly IRS bulletin, which is like plucking an apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Last Monday’s weekly IRS bulletin was 185 pages — I repeat, it’s a weekly bulletin. It’s the one that comes out every week — and yet there are 814 pages of breaking IRS news since the beginning of the year.
This is when you realize that simplifying the tax code is like trying to control greenhouse gases. It’s too late. We are past the tipping point for runaway tax code warming.
My choices were clear: I could spend the rest of my working life trying to save $100 bucks, try to retain Michael Cohen before he goes to prison, or just trust the tax software.
This is, my fellow Americans, why the tax code will never be simplified. No tax system can take the risk of letting ordinary people figure out the loopholes.
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