Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by blackguardx 3380 days ago
Have you ever actually done your taxes by hand? The 1040EZ is supposed to take 7 hours. Back when I did paper taxes and couldn't do the 1040EZ, the 1040 long form took me about 20 hours to do, slightly beating the IRS estimate of 22 hours.

The government has all the information about me. Why do I have to gather it all up and tell them again?

A friend in Finland tells me it takes him 10 minutes to approve the tax documents prepared for him on a Finnish government website. Why can't we do the same here?
3 comments
sp332 3380 days ago
The 1040EZ is a single page and has only 2 pages of instructions. How does it take 7 hours? http://datechguyblog.com/2011/04/15/7-hours-for-form-1040ez-... (Link from 2011 but I don't remember it being much different lately.)

Edit: the IRS now says it takes 3 hours to fill out and submit the form, and 2 hours to collect the relevant paperwork, for 5 total. https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1040gi/ar03.html

link
sly010 3380 days ago
"1040EZ" is an eaaasssy version of 1040. He is specifially talking about filling "1040".
link
sp332 3380 days ago
The part I'm responding to: "The 1040EZ is supposed to take 7 hours."
link
jandrese 3380 days ago
How the hell can it take 7 hours to fill out the 1040EZ. The only people who can use that form are the ones with super-simple tax situations. Literally a W2 and maybe a 1099 from your bank. You fill in a couple dozen fields or so and punch some numbers into your calculator and you're done.

I can believe 7 hours for a 1040, because leafing through the 200 page instruction book is hugely time consuming and there is a lot of confusing stuff in there.

link
blackguardx 3380 days ago
The IRS has to provide time estimates for every form they have. They even have to give you a notice that the paperwork complies with the "paperwork reduction act."

7 hours was the IRS estimate for the 1040EZ as of 2012. I understand it is down to 5 hours now. The 1040 long form is down to 18 hours. I don't do my taxes by hand anymore, though.

link
senior_james 3380 days ago
"The 1040EZ is supposed to take 7 hours"

Huh?

I've had my business for a few years, but I did my 1040EZ by hand many times. It took at most, 3 hours. Most people have one job and you basically just copy all of the info you have from your W2 (which is provided by your employer).

"The government has all the information about me. Why do I have to gather it all up and tell them again?"

So does the government also have all of the info about the gas you write off or anything else specific about your life? If so, the surveillance state is getting pretty bad.

If not, then I will have to fill out the longer forms anyway.

If they don't and you just fill out a form and send it in, you are giving them more money than you should. The end result will be that poor and uneducated people will give more money to the government and the people that actually pay attention will be giving less.

I'm only looking out for the best interest of everyone. You seem to be fighting for the right to be lazy because you don't want to have to think about it, which never leads to anything good.

link
jandrese 3380 days ago
If you have writeoffs you can't use the 1040EZ anyway.

Besides, it should be a fairly simple matter for the government to prefill the W2 and 1099/1098 sections and let you fill in the miscellaneous deductions yourself.

link
blackguardx 3380 days ago
That was the IRS estimate in 2012.

Your arguments aren't compelling. Even 3 hours is too much. Most people take the standard deduction and don't itemize.

link