$0.2505 of my tax dollars down the drain
Last weekend, I did my federal taxes. Although I do tend to procratinate in virtually everything else in my life, I never wait until the last minute for the filing of my income taxes. In fact only once, have I even waited until April to do them. As it turns out, this year, it is a very good thing that I did not wait.
The federal portion went rather smoothly. The only annoying thing was that I had to compute it twice, once using my education expenses as a deduction in 1040A line 19 or as the Lifetime Learning Credit on line 31, attaching Form 8863. Taking the credit ended up saving me $118.62 over taking the deduction, and so it was well worth my time and effort.
However, this weekend, I decided to do my North Carolina state income tax return. I start to fill it out and then notice that the booklet sent to me is missing a few pages. I can fill out the first few lines, but then line 14 directs me to the Tax Table beginning on Page 15. Well, I do have Page 15 and also Page 16, but the information that I need is on Page 17. In fact, I have Pages 1, 2, 23, 24, and then two copies of Pages 9-16, but no Pages 3-8 or 17-22.
At the bottom of Page 24, it says "635,000 copies of this booklet were printed at a cost of $159,068 or approximately $0.2505 each."
It seems to me that simply printing a T(I) tax function that allows you to compute your tax instead of relying on a table look-up would require a lot less paper and smaller printing costs. For example, the federal 1040A Forms and Instruction booklet is 72 pages long, including the cover. Of this, 12 pages (16.7%) are devoted to a list of taxes due based on filing status and which of the 1862 income intervals less than $100,000 ($100,000 or over use Form 1040) you fall into. Due to varying marginal tax rates, this would of course be a piece-wise linear function, but if red stop signs and arrows were used like they are in the 5 pages that it takes to determine whether or not you are elligible for the Earned Income Credit (EIC), they should be able to step even the strongest algebraophobe through it. (How the IRS thinks someone elligible for the EIC will make it through the rest of the form without the arrows, I don't know.) In addition, the 6 page table devoted to determining the value of the EIC also seems to be a needless waste, especially since for 4 pages, they actually bother to print that if you are not filing married jointly and have no children, your credit is $0.
The federal portion went rather smoothly. The only annoying thing was that I had to compute it twice, once using my education expenses as a deduction in 1040A line 19 or as the Lifetime Learning Credit on line 31, attaching Form 8863. Taking the credit ended up saving me $118.62 over taking the deduction, and so it was well worth my time and effort.
However, this weekend, I decided to do my North Carolina state income tax return. I start to fill it out and then notice that the booklet sent to me is missing a few pages. I can fill out the first few lines, but then line 14 directs me to the Tax Table beginning on Page 15. Well, I do have Page 15 and also Page 16, but the information that I need is on Page 17. In fact, I have Pages 1, 2, 23, 24, and then two copies of Pages 9-16, but no Pages 3-8 or 17-22.
At the bottom of Page 24, it says "635,000 copies of this booklet were printed at a cost of $159,068 or approximately $0.2505 each."
It seems to me that simply printing a T(I) tax function that allows you to compute your tax instead of relying on a table look-up would require a lot less paper and smaller printing costs. For example, the federal 1040A Forms and Instruction booklet is 72 pages long, including the cover. Of this, 12 pages (16.7%) are devoted to a list of taxes due based on filing status and which of the 1862 income intervals less than $100,000 ($100,000 or over use Form 1040) you fall into. Due to varying marginal tax rates, this would of course be a piece-wise linear function, but if red stop signs and arrows were used like they are in the 5 pages that it takes to determine whether or not you are elligible for the Earned Income Credit (EIC), they should be able to step even the strongest algebraophobe through it. (How the IRS thinks someone elligible for the EIC will make it through the rest of the form without the arrows, I don't know.) In addition, the 6 page table devoted to determining the value of the EIC also seems to be a needless waste, especially since for 4 pages, they actually bother to print that if you are not filing married jointly and have no children, your credit is $0.
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