I'm one of those weird kids who liked doing those puzzles where you had to walk through a list of tricky instructions and end up with the right answers, so I'm pretty good at that sort of thing. I also have fairly simple finances: a regular W-2 job and a little side income that doesn't have taxes withdrawn. But last year the IRS sent me a $450 check and a note that said I'd made a mistake on my taxes and paid too much. Sadly, they didn't tell me what the mistake was, so I couldn't be sure to correct it this year.
Technically, all you have to do is follow the written instructions. But there are a surprising number of maybes in those instructions. You hit a checkbox that asks whether you qualify for such-and-such deduction, and find yourself downloading yet another document full of conditions for qualification, which aren't always as clear-cut as you'd like. You can end up reading page after page to figure out whether you should check a single box, and that single box may require another series of forms.
My small side income takes me from a one-page return to several pages, and next year I'm probably going to have to pay estimated taxes in advance because that non-taxed income leaves me owing at the end of the year more than some acceptable threshold that could result in fines. All because I make an extra 10% doing some evening freelancing.
Most people's taxes shouldn't be complex, but in practice they're more complex than they should be.
I don't think it makes you weird, and taxes really aren't that much of a puzzle to put together, outside of the many deduction-related edge cases (which you can skip if you just take the standard deduction). My federal and state returns last year added up to 36 pages, not counting the attachments listing investment sales. Still, they're pretty straightforward. I now at least use online software to do them, but that's only to save time filling out forms, not for the software's "expertise." I have no doubt I could do them by hand if I wanted to give myself more writing to do.
If I can do this, most people can do a simple 2-page 1040EZ.
Technically, all you have to do is follow the written instructions. But there are a surprising number of maybes in those instructions. You hit a checkbox that asks whether you qualify for such-and-such deduction, and find yourself downloading yet another document full of conditions for qualification, which aren't always as clear-cut as you'd like. You can end up reading page after page to figure out whether you should check a single box, and that single box may require another series of forms.
My small side income takes me from a one-page return to several pages, and next year I'm probably going to have to pay estimated taxes in advance because that non-taxed income leaves me owing at the end of the year more than some acceptable threshold that could result in fines. All because I make an extra 10% doing some evening freelancing.
Most people's taxes shouldn't be complex, but in practice they're more complex than they should be.