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" In 1998, the Internal Revenue Service estimated that taxpayers spent six billion hours per year on “tax compliance activities.” That’s serious shadow work, th
by nagrom 15y ago
" In 1998, the Internal Revenue Service estimated that taxpayers spent six billion hours per year on “tax compliance activities.” That’s serious shadow work, the equivalent of three million full-time jobs."
Does that mean that the U.S spends about 1% of its productive time as a population merely to comply with the tax code? If so, that's really an indication that the tax code is ridiculously over-complicated.
- TruthElixirX 15y agoI make <20k a year (student). I spend about 1 hour doing my taxes, and I don't have any investments or anything. I cannot imagine how long it takes someone with property, 401ks, etc.
- patio11 15y agoAnecdata: I have a very complicated return due to self employment while overseas, and it takes 3 solid days. Of course, most of the compliance burden is on tax professionals working for business.
- econ101 15y agoI think we're probably losing 3 to 6 new software features every year due to the administrative burden on you alone. We all lose out when the labor of any of us is destroyed needlessly.
- muzz 15y ago401k takes no time on your taxes. The amount you've contributed is already reflected in your (lower) taxable income on your W-2.
- abalashov 15y agoI'm self-employed, but in a relatively simple situation as such things go (single-member LLC), and, aside from my mortgage, no non-trivial assets or investments. It still takes me a solid day and a half to put together my return, and a few additional hours over the next 1-2 days sorting out fine points/details.
- recoiledsnake 15y agoMuch of that time is spent on trying to maximize returns by ekeing out every deduction and exploiting every possible loophole or even finding them.
- protomyth 15y agoIt says something about our tax system in the US that people need to spend that much time finding, documenting, and calculating deductions that by right are theirs. I do wish we went to a simpler base deduction then flat rate past that (something like $20,000 deduction per taxpayer then 20%).