Why all the goofy eligibility rules? Just get rid of the rule where exercising stock options counts as income under the AMT(1). It's line 14 in Part 1 of Form 6251. Just get rid of it!
When people talk about our tax system being too complicated bills like this are why.
1. For that matter we should get rid of the AMT entirely. The fact that we have 2 separate tax systems for individuals is insane. That's a bigger story though.
I can imagine it happening. The US tax code is so complicated that most tax payers don't really understand it. Heck, most tax payers don't understand how marginal tax rates work or why having a large refund isn't actually a good thing. I can absolutely believe that a majority of people would accept a negative change to the tax code due to an inability to understand it, choosing to just accept whatever they're being told to make it all go away until next year.
I totally agree. Not only does it make the tax code much more complicated than it needs to be, but it also discredits the "fairness" of taxes, damaging the very legitimacy of it.
They're lobbying for the government to stay out of the auto filing business, not to keep the tax code over complex. I think the government should auto file but simplifying the tax code would be a huge improvement without that.
I Agree. My father is an accountant and hate doing taxes. He would much prefer a more simple method like this where it would be harder for errors to occur and avoid lengthy audits. He makes much less from those government audits than from other type work.
The complexity of the Tax code is also stupid. A lot of it could be simplified but that would eliminate government jobs quickly. Accountants won't care, there's a lot of lucrative work that still needs be done. In fact, most tax returns aren't done by CPA (or CA in Canada) anyway. H&R Block and others might be pissed and try to block this but they charge too much anyway.
I am wondering if there will be additional complexity added to the rule making phase of this if it becomes law.
While this amendment is short in length, it seems to add additional complexity to an already complex tax code. I would have liked to have seen an even simpler proposal.
There are too many additions to the tax code beyond that. Really, if they cut away 95% of the cruft then it could be dramatically simplified. Everybody has their thing they hold onto for dear life in a tax code.
For me, it's not that these taxes, in particular, are ridiculous, but that the tax code is so freaking complicated, that I sometimes need a CPA to double-check my records (AMT, odd-ball deductions, etc). And this is for my personal income taxes - it's even worse for business owners.
While it's hard to argue against simplifying the current tax system somewhat, I think proposals like this are missing something, intentionally or not. An extremely simplified system may not be the most effective.
One purpose the tax code serves is to incentivize behavior. If that tool is taken away from the government, what will the unforeseen costs be? Do they outweigh the benefits?
IMO the problem is the tax code itself rather than who is filing the paperwork. Unless that is simplified, there is zero chance the average citizen can work through their taxes themselves and pay the correct amount.
Your comment made me wish the tax code was small enough to be diagrammed on a napkin. Instead if feels like it is designed to inhibit innovation and new business.
I don't want the tax code simplified, I want them to send me a tax bill and for that to be the end of the story for those of us not running a business.
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