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I mean, if the IRS was wrong about your income and you got audited, you would probably still be on the hook for penalties and back taxes. You're still going to

I mean, if the IRS was wrong about your income and you got audited, you would probably still be on the hook for penalties and back taxes. You're still going to want to spend some time checking that tax form pretty thoroughly.

JohnFen 3y ago
True, but the same is also true if a tax preparer makes a mistake. Also, the IRS almost always waives penalties (and often interest) unless they think it wasn't an honest mistake. I'm not bothered by this risk. If a mistake is made and I owe additional taxes, then I'll just pay what I owe. No biggie.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  I mean, that is a hell of a life choice, but I guess if you assume that the government is always honest (see the Iraq war and many other things) and the IRS always interprets the documents they receive correctly (which they don't today - I have gotten letters from them which are blatantly wrong), that sounds good. I understand that an hour is valuable, but that hour you spend checking your tax documents may be the highest-leverage hour of work you do that year.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > that is a hell of a life choice This implies that I'm taking some huge risk or would be absurdly overpaying my taxes or something. I don't think either of those things are true. In the larger picture, this isn't really that big of a deal. > I guess if you assume I assume none of those things. > that hour you spend checking your tax documents may be the highest-leverage hour of work you do that year. It would be more than an hour, but the time isn't even the biggest issue. The biggest issue is the stress, worry, and hassle. It's just a basic cost/benefit calculation here, no different than other cases where I accept a level of increased expense or some risk because it costs more than I'm willing to pay to mitigate it. I have bigger fish to fry than this. Micromanaging this would reduce my overall happiness by adding an additional thing to worry about. Everyone's cost/benefit calculation is different, of course, and if yours indicates that you'd be better off being more diligent about this stuff, that's entirely fair as well.

JohnFen 3y ago

True, but the same is also true if a tax preparer makes a mistake. Also, the IRS almost always waives penalties (and often interest) unless they think it wasn't an honest mistake. I'm not bothered by this risk. If a mistake is made and I owe additional taxes, then I'll just pay what I owe. No biggie.

pclmulqdq 3y ago
I mean, that is a hell of a life choice, but I guess if you assume that the government is always honest (see the Iraq war and many other things) and the IRS always interprets the documents they receive correctly (which they don't today - I have gotten letters from them which are blatantly wrong), that sounds good. I understand that an hour is valuable, but that hour you spend checking your tax documents may be the highest-leverage hour of work you do that year.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > that is a hell of a life choice This implies that I'm taking some huge risk or would be absurdly overpaying my taxes or something. I don't think either of those things are true. In the larger picture, this isn't really that big of a deal. > I guess if you assume I assume none of those things. > that hour you spend checking your tax documents may be the highest-leverage hour of work you do that year. It would be more than an hour, but the time isn't even the biggest issue. The biggest issue is the stress, worry, and hassle. It's just a basic cost/benefit calculation here, no different than other cases where I accept a level of increased expense or some risk because it costs more than I'm willing to pay to mitigate it. I have bigger fish to fry than this. Micromanaging this would reduce my overall happiness by adding an additional thing to worry about. Everyone's cost/benefit calculation is different, of course, and if yours indicates that you'd be better off being more diligent about this stuff, that's entirely fair as well.