Sunday, February 15, 2009

The IRS Can Learn A Thing Or Two From Leora

I spent the day doing my taxes.
Considering how simple my financial situation is, this shouldn't be too difficult. I make X number of dollars and I have X number of dependents. That's it. I don't own any businesses or real estate or IRAs or stock. I don't itemize deductions. I don't live in New York City for part of the year and in Yonkers for part of the year (for some reason this is a frequently mentioned scenario in the NY State tax instructions booklet.) Filling out my tax returns should, theoretically, take an hour or so.
Yeah, right.
It took me most of the day to decipher the insane instructions, figure out what applies to me and what doesn't, find and complete all the schedules, forms, and attachments, and make photocopies of everything. To make matters worse, NY State decided not to send out tax booklets this year (thus saving the state a whopping $1 million. Big deal.) NY State taxpayers have to go online to find and download the forms that they need, and to read the pages and pages of instructions.
Now, why can't the tax bozos do things the way Leora does them? You should see her edition of Haveil Havalim. It's well organized, easy to read, and self-explanatory. It's really so pretty. It even has pictures. There's an element of clarity and simplicity that is a joy to behold.
What a pleasure.
If only the IRS could do their job as well as Leora has done hers.

8 comments:

Phyllis Sommer said...

now that was a great endorsement!:-)

i'm so grateful for my accountant and for my dear husband who does the prep.

mother in israel said...

Leora for NYS official website desiger!

Leora said...

There are those that say we should have a flat tax. I don't understand the details, but the point is there wouldn't be any details. It would be so much easier and you could spend the months before Pesach cleaning instead of doing taxes (and cleaning).

Thanks for the fun endorsement.

G6 said...

Great Post!
Amen to that!

Shtetl Fabulous said...

Totally procrastinating on doing mine, but I use software from Turbo Tax which makes it a little easier. Plus the federal edition is free this year!

On an unrelated topic, I am working on the Magyar-Mex recipes and plan to post something in the next few weeks.

RivkA with a capital A said...

Thanks for the perspective.

(maybe I will stop pestering my husband that he ditch the accountant and do it himself....)

Baila said...

I get palpitations just thinking about taxes.

Do I need to even think about that here in Israel? Better go find out...

ProfK said...

Might be too late for you Raizy but all the public library branches have boxes of the tax filing forms available here.