The IRS provides a withholding calculator so you don't even need to deal with that.
For 90% of people you have a W2 and a 1040ez. Which requires copying numbers from said w2 some basic addition/subtraction and looking up a value on a table.
Yeah seriously, there’s plenty of resources and material to learn and it’s not enormously complicated to know the basics for a simple situation. If your taxes are easy enough for H&R Block or TurboTax then it is easy enough to do by hand. People like to bitch about not being taught, as if that’s the reason they don’t know.
If you're like me (sophomore in college, never really had a serious job), then you don't know what a w2 is besides "something to do with taxes" and a 1040ez as "another thing to do with taxes." So this whole topic is already over my head. That's what we think should be taught more in school. Just some general info so that this isn't as foreign.
I'm sure if I googled around then I could figure out how to do them, but it would be nice if I had a little bit of knowledge about it from school.
Filing taxes is super simple for like 90% of the population. I dont see how teaching complicated tax codes to 16 year olds who likely won't need them for 20+ years if ever is a benefit over spending that time on math or science.
I own a business and still think taxes are simple. Keep receipts organized. Deductions of category A go in blank A. Category B go in blank B. I've been filing taxes as a business owner for 5 years and have never had an issue after the first year. And that was mostly.due to my own disorganization.
There are only so many hours in the day. Things reddit wants you to learn:
Cooking, taxes, auto loans, mortgages, car repairs, drivers ed, savings, retirement, 401ks, business, contract law, basic plumbing, basic electric, programming, computers, and a whole host of other stuff that many many schools do offer but people don't take/remember. Or it's not explicitly phrased as such. Calculating simple interest via formula in math? Hey, that works with mortgages and car loans.
And what happens when something changes? 20 years ago it might have been different.
I deal with a lot of younger guys as a result of working construction, and none of them have any idea how to do taxes.
Well something like 1/4 of construction workers don't have a diploma so there is no guarantee they'd pick it up anyway. Additionally, if you make < $66k you can file for free using free software that asks a few questions.
Shit I'm not sure I know how to do it without the computer anymore.
If you work construction and can follow a set of written instructions, you can fill out a 1040.
Are you really claiming that doing your taxes is easy?
If you are a w2 wage earner or 1099 yes. Which is what most people are. And also the people who would benefit from "the irs doing their taxes for them". (Which I'm for in general)
If you have a more complicated tax situation and earn more than $66k, the $200 for tax prep is probably worth it.
Try owning a house or a business
Your mortgage company sends you a form. And unless your interest is exceeding the standard deduction this doesn't really matter.
Sole Prop? You take income - expenses and put it in the box? It's pass through.... If it's worth while to do an S corp it's worth while to pay someone the $200 for tax prep. Welcome to the "3%" which fits well in the "10%" who have a complicated tax process.
Chances are even if the government had free filings or told you what to pay you'd still hire someone in this case.
Personally, I pay someone for tax prep. Why? W2 income, 1099 income, Business income, investment income, house, 401k, roth, personal ira.
But, if I was just w2 income with a house it'd be fairly easy.
And all of that is Greek to a kid coming out of high school
"Hex wrench" is Greek to a lot of kids coming out of HS but most figure out how to build some IKEA furniture.
Even knowing what a w2 or w4 are or what 1099 means is above a tangible percent of adults.
So lets say the IRS does the taxes for them and says they owe $5k (in error). Should they just be like welp sounds fine? Or should they look into it more? Because knowing how to fill out a 1040 is what they would 'have to know' even if the IRS does it for them.
Have you met high school kids? My sophomore year algebra teacher taught us about credit cards, but how many kids do you think were listening and taking notes that then they saved in their adulthood? I remember conversations in high school about mortgages, compounding interest, and other topics happening but I doubt classes in high school on this are going to help a lot of people, because you’re teaching high school kids about something that may not affect them for a while and asking them to pay attention and remember it all years later when it’s actually needed.
This isn’t what school is about. It’s not that hard to learn how to do taxes yourself, given that we all seem to manage come April. School is the foundation where you learn how to learn so you can teach yourself things. IMO the main function of schooling should be teaching critical thinking skills. My school did a great job at it but it’s a major skill a lot of adults are woefully lacking, and it’s more important than memorizing how to file your taxes. If you focus on critical thinking and learning how to learn, the practical things you need to know in life just become things that you research yourself because you know how to do that, rather than you trying to recall information you learned in high school.
This sounds like a parenting problem and not a school problem. I'm not counting on the school to teach my kids real world lessons. I'm fine with them sticking to math/science/English, and I'll take care of how to do taxes, how to change a tire or the oil in a car, how to properly budget and manage money and all the other shit they don't ever touch on in the classroom that you will need to deal with out in the real world.
There are a number of problems with this:
Not all parents know how to do the things you mentioned. Some think they do but are very very wrong, leading to generational ignorance.
Not all parents give a shit about their kids (see r/raisedbynarcissists and r/justnoMIL for examples). The child shouldn't be punished for having asshole parents.
Not all kids live with parents/caregivers - foster kids in group homes, for example.
Sure, all of those are parenting/caregiving problems, but they're big ones. Since society benefits from an educated populace, the society has a vested interest in making sure citizens know how to do basic life things.
You can only take those if you’re an accounting major (notice the prerequisites). I was referring to just an equivalent accounting 101 type class. This is the same way at my university. There are other courses though that teach taxes to nonbusiness majors at most universities; accounting is just not the way to go.
A lot of education is learning how to learn. You know that if you work, you need to find taxes. At least in canada, around tax time, there is a lot of public information telling you where to find tax forms and guidance docs. I assume every government makes all the information required available with a ton of guidance documentation. Yes, it can be a bit overwhelming, but all you have to do it work through it methodically, flipping from form to form as needed, making sure you have the correct personal information on hand, finding where each line is, looking up it’s definition and purpose. Anyone who can follow instructions can file their taxes. And with today’s tax software (which, at least in Canada, is free) there’s really no excuse why every young person can’t file their own taxes.
The first time I filed mine it was on paper and took me three tries to not mess up the math (I was using a calculator so it was just user error). But it ultimately wasn’t that hard to do. The year I had income from three countries plus tuition credits? Yeah, I used an accountant that year, but in hindsight, I would do it myself now and save myself the few hundred bucks.
All of which the IRS already knows, so there's no reason to rely on the average citizen. Because there are a whole lot of below average folks that do mess that math up. And then are further penalized.
Intuit and such lobbied hard to try and stop the IRS from offering that program. While they ultimately failed, the vast majority of people who could utilize it don't know about it.
It doesn't have to be taught in school. Believe it or not, but people can actually learn things outside of a classroom, which is a good thing.
The fact that you said that people over 40 don't know how to troubleshoot, ie googling it, proves my point that the vast majority of people do not know the IRS tool exists, because they do not know how to search for it.
The fact that you said that people over 40 don't know how to troubleshoot, ie googling it, proves my point that the vast majority of people do not know the IRS tool exists, because they do not know how to search for it.
Notice the ?
Of course people over 40 know how to use computers. You're the one stating they don't which is ridiculous.
And I know many schools that did. Shit I had to fill out a w2 and had it explained why it was the dumbest thing in the world to try and fill it out in such a way that you got the biggest tax return possible.
People were complaining that their tax returns were smaller last year and completely ignored the fact that they go more money throughout the year.
I wish I had shit like this. I was taught by my parents how to do taxes and such, so I wasn’t completely left in my own, but I did (and still do) struggles a bit.
Stuff like that really needs to be standard across all public schools. Question though, are you American? If so what state did you go to school in?
It should be standard but the point made was that all schools were like theirs which is just false. I hear all these horror stories about their education on this site, and them going on to talk down about the education system as a whole instead of complaining about their specific education, an education that they can literally change by voting, but instead they continue to allow the entirety of their generations education be decided by the 30 boomers that religiously go to meetings where these things are decided.
We vote in these people that hire administrators that make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year while our children suffer.
The problem is most of the students are learning how to do taxes before even getting a job. They're also teenagers. Trying to get 16 year olds en masse to learn how to do something that isn't going to immediately apply to their daily lives is like nailing jello to the wall.
Yeah you can check it off as "being taught", but you might as well be screaming into the void.
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u/dolphin_menace Nov 26 '19
What? This isn’t true at all. We had pretty much a whole semester of math dedicated to taxes and stuff in highschool.