Happy Tax Day

While many of you have already filed your tax return, today marks the real deadline for 2017 unless you're filing an extension. Tax returns are typically due on April 15th, which has been true since 1955. Prior to that it was March 15th and before that, March 1st. When the 15th falls on a weekend, "Tax Day" is the following business day. This is usually a Monday except that this year Monday was a D.C. holiday, Emancipation Day, celebrating Lincoln's freeing of local slaves in 1862 which ultimately led to his Emancipation Proclamation.

Next year the due date will be the 17th and then we get back to the 15th in 2019. Simple, right? Why does the tax code and filing a return have to be so complicated...?

Since so much energy is focused on Tax Day each year, it's hard not to take time to review some of the interesting factoids pertaining to filing a tax return.

I skimmed the following from a variety of online resources, including www.irs.gov.

The IRS sends out roughly 8 billion pages of forms and instructions each year. Laid end to end, they would stretch 28 times around the earth. The IRS projects to receive (online and paper, but mostly online) almost 2.2 billion forms in 2017. This number is expected to continue rising each year. With about 80,000 employees at the IRS, that's about 27,500 forms per staff person this year alone.

Nearly 300,000 trees are cut down yearly to produce the paper for all the IRS forms and instructions.

The IRS says is takes the average taxpayer 13 hours to prepare their return. 60% of taxpayers hire a professional to get through their own return. Roughly a third contact the IRS directly.

American taxpayers spend over $200 billion and 5.4 billion hours working to comply with federal taxes each year, more than it takes to produce every car, truck, and van in the United States.

The Gettysburg address contains 272 words, the Declaration of Independence has 1,337 words, and the Bible has about 800,000. Our tax code judiciously contains nearly 4 million. This, even following The Plain Writing Act of 2010, a federal regulation requiring government agencies to write in a "clear, concise, well-organized manner". Does that describe our tax code?

The U.S. government is expecting to bring in about $3.2 trillion from tax revenues in 2017, with individual filers contributing about half of that total.

Interesting tax factoids from history and around the world...

In 1705, Russian Emperor Peter the Great thought it wise to tax beards. The idea was to promote a cleaner-shaven look common in Europe.

In the late-1600's the British taxed fireplaces and windows. The per-window tax was on the books for over 150 years until, apparently, health problems forced its repeal.

England taxes televisions. Color TVs are taxed more than black and white and if you happen to be blind your TV tax is cut in half. Apparently, the proceeds are used to help fund BBC programming.

Dairy farmers in EU countries pay a per-cow "flatulence tax" to help defray costs associated with global warming. Irish famers pay $18 while Danes pay $110.

The Canadians apparently offer corporate filers a tax exemption if they produce breakfast cereal that comes with a toy in the box, so long as the toy isn't alcoholic. What are they eating for breakfast up there?

So, maybe we can at least take some comfort in how strange taxes in other countries can be.

Happy Tax Day!

Have questions? Ask me. I can help.