Tax Time

Another tax season has come, and as I write this, is mostly gone. 

We stay busy this time of year helping clients run down tax documents, explaining tax documents and soliciting opinions from assorted CPAs about what should be done with these documents. Iowa Wealth Management is not a tax preparation business, and we are not qualified to answer many questions related to tax preparation.

Not that we don’t feel your pain. The U.S. tax code is complicated, and the documents needed to file are often confusing and occasionally infuriate our mild-mannered clients.

What could be done to make things better? Well, the IRS and Congress are implementing a solution. It’s going to cost a few billion dollars and take a few years, but improved computers, customer service representative training and a few thousand extra auditors are coming to help us out.

That might work…though I doubt it.

Now don’t get me wrong. I think people should pay their taxes and, when possible, do so on time. I don’t even mind the extra auditors. Every decent city has a police force, and “Tax City USA” is going to need enough to “encourage” compliance. After all, compliance with our laws ought to leave an individual feeling like a decent citizen, not a chump. Besides, I don’t care what anyone else says, it’s a great country.

The reason I suspect the changes won’t make this system better for you or me is that the tax code is simply too complex. Way too complex. So, people get confused, then upset and then, some of them, give up. They give up by cutting corners or just not paying at all. Not that complexity is an excuse for cheating on your tax return. It’s wrong - dead wrong - not to pay your taxes. Did I mention that it’s a great country?

Plainly put, it deserves – we deserve - a simpler, better tax code.