Filing your taxes on a post card

[Ohiogal]

Next year, Americans will be able to file their individual tax returns on a postcard.

The GOP's long-promised change is an offshoot of a tax overhaul last year that cut corporate rates and winnowed down the number of individual tax brackets. On Friday, the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service unveiled the new postcard, which will replace the current forms 1040, 1040A and 1040 EZ.

Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said in a statement, "The new, postcard-size Form1040 is designed to simplify and expedite filing tax returns, providing much-needed relief to hardworking taxpayers.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/29/treasury-irs-announce-postcard-size-form-1040-for-next-year.html

******** Gee, I hope you get a return envelope with that! LOL

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Am I the only person to think this is

simply a bizarre joke or urban legend?

I realize this is apparently true, but still . . . .

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

2. Post card plus

several extra sheets of supplimentals.
Big fricken lie.

[unblock]

3. This has been a rhetorical goal for ages and makes as much sense as a wall on the southern border

It may be post card size but you'd want an envelope anyway for privacy and your payment.

Moreover, unless your taxes really are that simple, you'd likely be paying too much if you even qualify for using this form.


Republican have always lied about tax complexity. They whine about the lengthy forms and detailed instruction and especially the progressive brackets when these are easily handled by tax software or licensed tax preparers.

The real complexity lies in complex rules for what counts as income, what counts as what type of income, and what deductions are allowed. All complicated rules designed to give a benefit to rich donors at the expense of the rest of us.

[irisblue]

4. And in an envelope so your SSN # stays private

What a 1950s stunt.

[HipChick]

6. I've been subject of IRS scams...

I shudder to think if an old, elderly person had got the calls, or even scary communications I was getting..

[Doreen]

5. I think I will ask my brother what this could possibly do to us.

He is a tax lawyer...well, actually now a tax judge. He might be able to answer what this may have in store for us.

[progree]

7. It's pure stunt -- American Association of Individual Investors

Last edited Sat Jun 30, 2018, 01:12 AM - Edit history (2)

The New 1040 Is Shorter, But Not Simpler AAII Investor Update, 6/28/18
http://www.aaii.com/files/investorupdate/20180628.html?a=update20180628

The revised Form 1040 will force many taxpayers to complete more forms. Capital gains, penalties on early withdrawals of retirement savings, IRA deductions and student loan deductions go on a different form. If you’re subject to the alternative minimum tax (AMT), that’s another form. Qualify for the retirement savings credit? Yup, fill out another form. The six new forms are in addition to Schedule D (capital gains and losses), Form 6251 (AMT), Form 8880 (credit for qualified retirement savings) and other forms you may already be filling out.

The extent to which you will notice the complexity depends on how you are completing your taxes. Those of you who file by hand will definitely notice the difference. Users of TurboTax and similar software-based programs may not notice the change as long as they stay within the programs’ primary interface.

The change will be very noticeable by those of you who, like me, go through their tax return by hand to ensure there aren’t any mistakes or unintended errors, or need to use the view forms’ functionality in tax software or web-based platforms.

As for the physical size issue -

Form 1040 will now be one page instead of two pages. There is also a blank space in the middle, which I presume exists so that you could fold the form in half to mail it. Doing so would make Form 1040 close enough for Mnuchin to claim his postcard description is true, even though a folded 8” x 11” sheet of paper is still bigger (???? -Progree) than a postcard. As a reference point, the U.S. Postal Service says that in order to qualify for the postcard price, a mailpiece must be “no more than 4-1/4 inches high x 6 inches long x 0.016 inches thick.”

Lots of folded 8 1/2" X 11" papers, err postcards. Lots of them.

I e-file, but I check over the final tax return, that all of the input numbers got in correctly. I also study the tax forms for understanding some things about them for tax planning purposes. So yes, I'm impacted very much by adding additional forms without, apparently, getting rid of any.

[NightWatcher]

8. Yet 92% of people efile. Nice waste of time there fellas

In other news, have you seen the new accessories for the 1976 Pinto they just came out with?