“If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain” is a quote most often attributed to Winston Churchill.
It sounds very Churchillian, but it was actually first uttered by French premier and historian Francois Guizot. It hardly matters. The point is that every young person is a liberal — until they have to fill out their own taxes for the first time.
Long-time Reason.com writer J.D. Tuccille tells the story of giving his son the vital life lesson of filling out his own tax return. To say that reality hit the kid upside the head would be an understatement.
“The whole system is based on the premise that the government already knows how much you owe, but won’t tell you. You have to guess,” the elder Tuccille said to his son.
“What happens if you guess wrong?” the son asked.
“Well, there’s no actual right answer in terms of how much you’re supposed to pay. If you can even reach them, IRS employees contradict each other all the time because nobody really understands the rules. But if you come up with something they don’t like, they just might destroy your life.”
“Oh, s**t,” he said.
At the IRS website, we clicked on the “File Your Taxes for Free” link which touted “a public-private partnership between the IRS and many tax preparation and filing software industry companies who provide their online tax preparation and filing for free.” The first option was for “guided tax preparation” involving “simple questions” and letting “software do the work.” That sounded like a great way to undergo an expensive and potentially perilous process without understanding what the hell is happening. We opted for “free fillable forms” instead, which walked Anthony through a 1040.
“What the f**k does that even mean?” the son asked multiple times as he worked his way through the usual questions about wages, capital gains, deductions, withholding, and the like.
“Pull up the instructions,” Tuccille told his son as if they offered much in the way of help.
In fact, they didn’t help at all, as the poor kid found out a couple of days later.
Two days later he received an email rejecting his tax return. For reasons unknown, rejections consist of gibberish such as “XML data has failed schema validation. cvc-complex-type.2.4.b.” You copy the email into the IRS’s Error Search Tool to get a (sort of) clear explanation that could have been included in the rejection to begin with. In Anthony’s case, we narrowed it to a missing zip code for his employer on the W-2 form. I could have sworn he filled that in, but who knows? He entered the zip and resubmitted.
If you’re guessing the amended return was rejected too, you’d be right. Finally, father and son went to the public library where they found 1040 forms with unhelpful taxpayer booklets that are supposed to give you all the information you need to fulfill your obligation as a citizen and pay your taxes.
“Filing electronically with direct deposit and avoiding a paper tax return is more important than ever this year to avoid refund delays,” the IRS urged in January. “If you need a tax refund quickly, do not file on paper — use software, a trusted tax professional or Free File on IRS.gov.”
Yes, but think of the life lessons the younger Mr. Tuccille would have missed if he had done his taxes that way.
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