Taxes - Takes Too Much Time - 25 Hours So Far!

[bpp]

Almost finished with mine. Won't owe a thing as usual, but have lost many precious hours of my life to this stupidity. At least I got rid of the last of my PFICs last year, so no more Forms 8621 for me from next year. Yay! Also reduced the number of open accounts, so Form TD F 9022.1 will become a lot shorter. What a ridiculous requirement, to have to report the existence of foreign accounts -- what fricking business is it of theirs anyway where I have my money, as long as I report the income from it?

For that matter, why should I have to file tax returns to some country I don't even live in? Grrrrrrrr. It is almost tolerable now because if I dot the i's, cross the t's, and look both ways before crossing the street, I at least don't end up actually owing anything. If that ever changes though...

Just thank goodness it will all be over soon for another year.

 

[Gillette]

Also reduced the number of open accounts, so Form TD F 9022.1 will become a lot shorter. What a ridiculous requirement, to have to report the existence of foreign accounts -- what fricking business is it of theirs anyway where I have my money, as long as I report the income from it?

You need to start keeping less than $10k overseas and you wouldn't have to report. Haven't been able to keep it under that mark myself, but at least the 9022.1 isn't due until June.

For that matter, why should I have to file tax returns to some country I don't even live in?

I feel your pain. This year we'll file to 3 countries. US - okay we're citizens. UK - fine we pay tax on what we earned there. But Russia! is 13% of worldwide income. WTH - why are they entitled to 13% of what we make in the UK, UK or wherever. This really, really chaps my hide. This is where that tax equalization comes in handy.

 

[bpp]

You need to start keeping less than $10k overseas and you wouldn't have to report.

That would be impractical, or at least a much bigger hassle than filing the form. I'd have to be constantly shifting money to and from the US as paychecks came in, while keeping enough on hand to pay the mortgage, utilities, other expenses and for occasional emergencies. Also be kind of hard to buy a car without going over the limit. I also wouldn't feel comfortable having all my retirement savings stuck over in the US -- prefer to keep most of it close to hand.

I feel your pain. This year we'll file to 3 countries.

Ouch!

And let me take a wild guess as to which one has the most convoluted, opaque tax code...

US - okay we're citizens.

Here I disagree that it is ok. If the US were maintaining the infrastructure where I live, providing protection (besides that which I already pay for through my Japanese taxes -- speaking of the US military bases here), or providing any other government services, I could see why they would have the right to tax me. I think non-resident citizens should be taxed the same as non-resident aliens, as is done by every other developed nation on the planet. But no, they demand tribute to the Old Country, like some kind of banana republic.

UK - fine we pay tax on what we earned there. But Russia! is 13% of worldwide income. WTH - why are they entitled to 13% of what we make in the UK, UK or wherever. This really, really chaps my hide.

I guess the way I figure it, Japan is providing all of the government services and general quality of life for me, so I don't think it is unreasonable to pay taxes to them as a resident (which implies being taxed on worldwide income in many countries, including Japan and, apparently, Russia). If I don't like what I am getting for my money, I can always leave -- after which they would leave me alone, even if I were a citizen. Not so the US.

This is where that tax equalization comes in handy.

That must be nice to have.

 

[Sandy]

Fortunately for me, as my taxes have gotten more complex, I have a CPA brother who does it for free and I know it is done correctly. But based on what he's told me, I don't think I could afford his rates.

 

[grumpy]

I finished ours last week. That included DD's (she's on the road touring with "Hairspray") which required returns to two different states and our own fed and state returns. I probably spent less than 8 hours in total. I have been using TurboTax for many years. I install it in early January and transfer all of the standard info from the prior year return - time required 15 mins. As each w-2, 1099, etc. arrives in the mail I open TT and go directly to the section of the software for that item and plug in the #'s. At most, 15 mins. per form. The most time is spent on itemized deductions and schedule D but brokerage statement covers most of that. This takes only a couple of hours. Also, I spend about an hours reviewing the results before printing and mailing all the forms (my philosophy is to make the IRS's job as hard as possible by continuing to send in paper returns).

Overall, this does not seem burdensome to me.

Grumpy

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Took me about 2 hours total, and half of that was what-if'ing.

Dont forget to take your long distance credit...seems many of the "pros" are forgetting to take it...

 

[TromboneAl]

This is the last year that I had an accountant do it.

Here's the system I've used that has saved me from having to think much. In Quicken I saved all the reports related to taxes in a Taxes folder. I'd then just go through the reports, print them to PDF and send them to the accountant.

 

[SecondCor521]

Hmm.....$1.56+c$2.46c+ " a little bit" =$4.00
Did you use the same rounding method on the tax forms?

Oops...math error. Should be more like $4.10, then.

For my federal tax forms, I do all my math to the penny, use a calculator, and do all the calculations at least twice. For my state tax forms, I have to round to the nearest dollar, but I still use a calculator and do all those calculations twice as well.

2Cor521