2018 Taxes

[IcSyU]

We all own smart phones too, but we can't repair them. I'm not sure I get your point.

Don't you believe given how much of our lives are spent earning wages and how critical they are to our ability to successfully function in society, that ideally the amount we are forced to turn over to the gov't should be straightforward enough that the average American can understand?

Be design in order for them to function, cars (and phones) are complicated.

To make your "fairness point" work , please successfully make the link to why taxes by design must also complicated in order to work. That just doesn't make sense to me.

The reason taxes are complicated is because they have to be. We want to encourage people to do certain behaviors so we offer tax incentives. We want to discourage people from doing certain behaviors so we penalize via taxes.

You kind of made my point for me. There are all kinds of things we interact with daily that we don't have the first clue of how to deal with them. Why should taxes be any different? We have an HVAC guy who fixes the furnace or AC when it goes out. The plumber fixes the leaky faucet. The financial advisor deals with retirement. We have CPAs who deal with taxes.

They could attempt teaching this stuff in schools and it wouldn't make a lick of difference. I know a lot of people who were required to take financial literacy courses and they don't know the first thing about being smart financially.

 

[SEIOWA CLONE]

The reason taxes are complicated is because they have to be. We want to encourage people to do certain behaviors so we offer tax incentives. We want to discourage people from doing certain behaviors so we penalize via taxes.

You kind of made my point for me. There are all kinds of things we interact with daily that we don't have the first clue of how to deal with them. Why should taxes be any different? We have an HVAC guy who fixes the furnace or AC when it goes out. The plumber fixes the leaky faucet. The financial advisor deals with retirement. We have CPAs who deal with taxes.

They could attempt teaching this stuff in schools and it wouldn't make a lick of difference. I know a lot of people who were required to take financial literacy courses and they don't know the first thing about being smart financially.

********, taxes are set up the way they are so congress can help their friends. That is why we will never have a flat tax or a simplified tax code, that would stop congress from throwing a bone to groups they want to help, buried in the tax code. The groups they want to help, are those that continue to make large donations to the candidate. Both sides are in on it, they just get those contributions from different groups.

 

[SpokaneCY]

Since there are no "dependent" exemptions anymore (on federal) I'm going to say it doesn't matter.

You went snowflake on me...

 

[SpokaneCY]

The reason taxes are complicated is because they have to be. We want to encourage people to do certain behaviors so we offer tax incentives. We want to discourage people from doing certain behaviors so we penalize via taxes.

You kind of made my point for me. There are all kinds of things we interact with daily that we don't have the first clue of how to deal with them. Why should taxes be any different? We have an HVAC guy who fixes the furnace or AC when it goes out. The plumber fixes the leaky faucet. The financial advisor deals with retirement. We have CPAs who deal with taxes.

They could attempt teaching this stuff in schools and it wouldn't make a lick of difference. I know a lot of people who were required to take financial literacy courses and they don't know the first thing about being smart financially.

I'd say there's also a distinction between knowing how to do your taxes and understanding WHY there are so many incentives/disincentives. The first part is easy (used to be a CPA) but the last part takes training and deeper thought.

 

[capitalcityguy]

The reason taxes are complicated is because they have to be. We want to encourage people to do certain behaviors so we offer tax incentives. We want to discourage people from doing certain behaviors so we penalize via taxes.

You kind of made my point for me. There are all kinds of things we interact with daily that we don't have the first clue of how to deal with them. Why should taxes be any different? We have an HVAC guy who fixes the furnace or AC when it goes out. The plumber fixes the leaky faucet. The financial advisor deals with retirement. We have CPAs who deal with taxes.

They could attempt teaching this stuff in schools and it wouldn't make a lick of difference. I know a lot of people who were required to take financial literacy courses and they don't know the first thing about being smart financially.

Yes, the Tax Code is set up to try and promote desired behaviors. I get that….e.g….

Buy a house

Create future workforce (i.e….have kids)

Buy an electric vehicle

Give to charity

Etc. etc.


That is how it is currently set up, but it doesn’t HAVE to be as you claim….unless you can point out the section found on the Constitution requiring this.

I think we’ve found with time that this only causes special interests to acquire too much influence.

Give me the “Fair Tax” or a Flat tax instead and the complications disappear from our lives and IMO is a much more moral Tax Code as people should be able to understand the taxes that their hard earned money is subject to.

 

[Cystheman]

I got my taxes filed 3/9 and just saw that my refund is currently being processed and could take 14 days. So it took 40 days for my status to change.

 

[BCClone]

Probably waiting for taxpayments to pay out refunds

 

[Jmarsh13]

Yes, the Tax Code is set up to try and promote desired behaviors. I get that….e.g….

Buy a house

Create future workforce (i.e….have kids)

Buy an electric vehicle

Give to charity

Etc. etc.


That is how it is currently set up, but it doesn’t HAVE to be as you claim….unless you can point out the section found on the Constitution requiring this.

I think we’ve found with time that this only causes special interests to acquire too much influence.

Give me the “Fair Tax” or a Flat tax instead and the complications disappear from our lives and IMO is a much more moral Tax Code as people should be able to understand the taxes that their hard earned money is subject to.

With the changes to the standard deductions in this last tax reform it really reduced the need to itemize and be able to claim things like Mortgage Interest, Charitable Donations, and a $10k cap on SALT. It will be interesting to see if there is any changes in behavior towards housing and charities going forward if people aren't seeing a direct reduction in their tax liability.

If my wife wasn't self-employed our taxes would have been a breeze and could have been done by myself by filling in a couple of lines, taking standard deduction and child credits to get our taxable income and finding a tax amount in a table and compare vs. what we had withheld / paid.

 

[kcdc4isu]

The new code IMO will/is hurting Charitable Donations. I am giving less than in the past.

 

[capitalcityguy]

The new code IMO will/is hurting Charitable Donations. I am giving less than in the past.

Other than maybe the wealthy trying to find numerous way to shelter income from taxes, I would guess that most will give to charity at the same level regardless of the tax advantages.

That isn't a judgement on your comment, but how I believe that plays out with the majority.

 

[Cyched]

Other than maybe the wealthy trying to find numerous way to shelter income from taxes, I would guess that most will give to charity at the same level regardless of the tax advantages.

That isn't a judgement on your comment, but how I believe that plays out with the majority.

I know it happens, unfortunately, but I would hope people would donate to charities for more than just a tax incentive.

(and ISU athletics )

 

[Sparkplug]

Filed state return March 4 (it was the earliest it could be filed because the state had a problem with one of the forms that we needed)

Looked today and it had that the refund was paid April 17th and should appear in account in 5 days

 

[Cyched]

Website finally says my refund is being processed.

Also finally crunched some numbers - effective federal rate went from 12.8% to 11.6%. Switched jobs last fall, which included a bump in salary. So not quite an apple to apples comparison, but not bad.

 

[burn587]

Other than maybe the wealthy trying to find numerous way to shelter income from taxes, I would guess that most will give to charity at the same level regardless of the tax advantages.

That isn't a judgement on your comment, but how I believe that plays out with the majority.

I disagree, I know a good number of people who donated with the thought of “better for a charity to have it than the government.” Now that the government gets the same regardless of charitable contributions I can see donations dropping a significant amount.

I am unable to determine how much I was helped/hurt by the tax laws this year. I had been paying in 5-8k the previous few years, but that been due to my wife and I having outdated W-4’s that didn’t reflect our current situation. Once I fixed that I compared our percentage of withholding to what our tax bracket required and it was still low, so I withheld extra from both of our checks. Ended up with a pretty sizable refund but withheld probably close to 18k more this year. I figure I’ll leave the withholding the same, I usually file in February and I usually have my home owners insurance and property tax hit right around then so it’s like an added bonus.

With all that being said, the number of deductions we’ve lost in the past few years kind of sucks:

Student loan interest (income is too high to deduct, not a bad problem to have but still)
Mortgage interest: I have a private loan that isn’t secured by the property so no deduction for me anymore.
Charitable contributions: I’ll keep making them but it’s unfortunate they are no longer deductible.

 

[flycy]

If you're curious ...

My effective tax rate, (federal, went down almost in half. (I mean tax owed divided into adjusted gross income). Our income changed by less than $1,000.

2018 = 2.13% - child tax credit doubling from 1K to 2 K e. was most of this.

2017 = 4.00%

So year, for us -- typical middle-class family with two kids -- the tax changes were a net positive.

Holy cow! You had an effective tax rate of only 2.13%???

 

[Doc]

Holy cow! You had an effective tax rate of only 2.13%???

Yeah, and those kids could end up being total fuckups. It’s stupid we give tax benefits for procreating. Even the dumbest of animals can do it.

 

[flycy]

The reason taxes are complicated is because they have to be. We want to encourage people to do certain behaviors so we offer tax incentives. We want to discourage people from doing certain behaviors so we penalize via taxes.

Ironically, this is exactly the opposite of government spending which generally rewards bad behavior with money.

 

[SpokaneCY]

The new code IMO will/is hurting Charitable Donations. I am giving less than in the past.

I'm eagerly anticipating the truth to this. It has made zero difference in our giving and in fact, has increased our household goods donation many-fold since I don't have to write every damn thing down. Our money contributions have gone up for no reason than to try and give back something regardless of tax policy.

 

[Doc]

I'm eagerly anticipating the truth to this. It has made zero difference in our giving and in fact, has increased our household goods donation many-fold since I don't have to write every damn thing down. Our money contributions have gone up for no reason than to try and give back something regardless of tax policy.

Isn’t the whole reduced donations thing just Econ 101. Not everybody is in your situation

 

[burn587]

I'm eagerly anticipating the truth to this. It has made zero difference in our giving and in fact, has increased our household goods donation many-fold since I don't have to write every damn thing down. Our money contributions have gone up for no reason than to try and give back something regardless of tax policy.

I’m willing to bet it will take a little while, but people will slide into what is easier/more selfish in general. It’s like when a Walmart moves into a small town and everyone pledges to still support the local businesses, but ends up shopping at Walmart most of the time anyway.