IRS forms and games
Apr. 14th, 2011 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoUS federal tax forms and instructions are probably the worst crap ever written/designed by anyone. Worse, every time they start out to "simplify" them, they make it worse rather than better.
Today's weather called for possible rain late, but we got none. What we did get were cold, gusty winds all day, and lots of overcast. Feels like... November. Still predicting rain for tomorrow and the weekend. Boo.
Tess went out to the pasture with me, and came back, like a perfect lady. I can't believe this. Every spring we go through about two weeks of relearning the proper manners for leading and following. Has she finally learned them so that she remembers even after a four or five month hiatus? I'm not putting away my leather gloves for a while, but I hope she has. It makes everything so much more pleasant for both of us. She's 17 years old this year, so it's really time she was grown up. Still a surprise though.
We were discussing board games this week, after Diplomacy came up and I hunted down my set. In particular the 3M (later Avalon Hill) bookshelf game series that included Oh-Wah-Ree, Twixt, Acquire, Jumpin, Feudal, Quinto, and others, was what came to mind. Some of those were particularly good, others didn't amount to much. I think Acquire might be the only one still being marketed (in a different physical format) today. Twixt was one I particularly enjoyed, though I think it's rather like tic tac toe in the end. If you play it perfectly, whoever gets the first move must win. My family had most of the games in the series, but none of them ended up in my possession. I'm not sure what happened to them. Too bad. Apparently collectors are paying big prices for several of them. I see prices in excess of $250 for Twixt, for instance.
Checking the box of games that were out in the barn, and have been there since we moved here in 1998 (very dusty, believe me,) I find two Scrabble sets, a chess set I've had since my 14th birthday, a go set (a game I was never any good at,) Diplomacy (ditto,) National Geographic's geography trivia game (at which I was pretty good,) Dirty Words (if you don't remember this, you missed something funny,) Regatta (sail boat racing strategy,) The Adventures of Robin Hood (Avalon Hill, intriguing but horrendously complicated,) and a board game based on The Lord of the Rings (also unacceptably complex.) In the back of my closet, because it was shockingly expensive at the time it was purchased in the 1960s for $26, is a real Chinese style Mah Jongg set. That saw lots of play at one time but hasn't seen the light of day in decades. Played by Chinese rules it very much resembles rummy or pinochle. American tournament play rules, alas, are quite degenerate and have lost the whole concept of the original game.
Generally speaking, combat games and games that rely largely on chance have little appeal to me. Puzzles and strategy-based games are more appealing, though often in table top or board editions the rules are so complex as to become daunting. This is where I do actually find some advantage in computerized versions. Railroad Tycoon is a very well developed simulation, as is 1830, the board game on which it was based. The board game is so complex as to be unplayable by any but the most dedicated of geeks. It would be nice to see a combination of the two in which a tangible board setup is used to map and comprehend the action, but a computer program provides rule arbitration and enforcement. I've never seen this done in practice, though.
Back to the IRS and its horrible rules and forms. Gary insists on doing our taxes with TurboTax. He tries various scenarios for dividing up deductible expenses between us to try to find the best savings. As bad as the IRS rules and instruction booklets may be, Turbo Tax is worse. I hate it because I can't tell what it is doing "behind the scenes" and it doesn't show me the actual form as it progresses. Instead you have to answer dozens of irrelevant questions, and it finslly presents you with the completed forms at the end. I would much prefer to just fill in the forms on the screen, and have the program "audit" them for inconsistencies or errors at the end. It would be much quicker, and much less stressful. Years ago I used a product called "AmTax" that did work that way, but it is long extinct. Fortunately, this year's deadline is April 18 (Paul Revere is probably spinning in his grave) for some arbitrary and arcane reason, so I guess we'll manage to get it done in time.
Today's weather called for possible rain late, but we got none. What we did get were cold, gusty winds all day, and lots of overcast. Feels like... November. Still predicting rain for tomorrow and the weekend. Boo.
Tess went out to the pasture with me, and came back, like a perfect lady. I can't believe this. Every spring we go through about two weeks of relearning the proper manners for leading and following. Has she finally learned them so that she remembers even after a four or five month hiatus? I'm not putting away my leather gloves for a while, but I hope she has. It makes everything so much more pleasant for both of us. She's 17 years old this year, so it's really time she was grown up. Still a surprise though.
We were discussing board games this week, after Diplomacy came up and I hunted down my set. In particular the 3M (later Avalon Hill) bookshelf game series that included Oh-Wah-Ree, Twixt, Acquire, Jumpin, Feudal, Quinto, and others, was what came to mind. Some of those were particularly good, others didn't amount to much. I think Acquire might be the only one still being marketed (in a different physical format) today. Twixt was one I particularly enjoyed, though I think it's rather like tic tac toe in the end. If you play it perfectly, whoever gets the first move must win. My family had most of the games in the series, but none of them ended up in my possession. I'm not sure what happened to them. Too bad. Apparently collectors are paying big prices for several of them. I see prices in excess of $250 for Twixt, for instance.
Checking the box of games that were out in the barn, and have been there since we moved here in 1998 (very dusty, believe me,) I find two Scrabble sets, a chess set I've had since my 14th birthday, a go set (a game I was never any good at,) Diplomacy (ditto,) National Geographic's geography trivia game (at which I was pretty good,) Dirty Words (if you don't remember this, you missed something funny,) Regatta (sail boat racing strategy,) The Adventures of Robin Hood (Avalon Hill, intriguing but horrendously complicated,) and a board game based on The Lord of the Rings (also unacceptably complex.) In the back of my closet, because it was shockingly expensive at the time it was purchased in the 1960s for $26, is a real Chinese style Mah Jongg set. That saw lots of play at one time but hasn't seen the light of day in decades. Played by Chinese rules it very much resembles rummy or pinochle. American tournament play rules, alas, are quite degenerate and have lost the whole concept of the original game.
Generally speaking, combat games and games that rely largely on chance have little appeal to me. Puzzles and strategy-based games are more appealing, though often in table top or board editions the rules are so complex as to become daunting. This is where I do actually find some advantage in computerized versions. Railroad Tycoon is a very well developed simulation, as is 1830, the board game on which it was based. The board game is so complex as to be unplayable by any but the most dedicated of geeks. It would be nice to see a combination of the two in which a tangible board setup is used to map and comprehend the action, but a computer program provides rule arbitration and enforcement. I've never seen this done in practice, though.
Back to the IRS and its horrible rules and forms. Gary insists on doing our taxes with TurboTax. He tries various scenarios for dividing up deductible expenses between us to try to find the best savings. As bad as the IRS rules and instruction booklets may be, Turbo Tax is worse. I hate it because I can't tell what it is doing "behind the scenes" and it doesn't show me the actual form as it progresses. Instead you have to answer dozens of irrelevant questions, and it finslly presents you with the completed forms at the end. I would much prefer to just fill in the forms on the screen, and have the program "audit" them for inconsistencies or errors at the end. It would be much quicker, and much less stressful. Years ago I used a product called "AmTax" that did work that way, but it is long extinct. Fortunately, this year's deadline is April 18 (Paul Revere is probably spinning in his grave) for some arbitrary and arcane reason, so I guess we'll manage to get it done in time.
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 09:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 10:58 am (UTC)I've an old Mah-Jong set somewhere which used to belong to my grandparents (who lived in Japan before WWII). As kids we played a simplified version quite a bit.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 01:23 pm (UTC)I've been very resistant to TurboTax because I just don't want to pay anything to get my taxes done. But what really burns me is that, if you want to e-file state taxes, you just can't avoid paying to do it, and I'll be damned if I will pay for the "privilege" of fulfilling an obligation like this, especially if I have to pay a private corporation to file a tax form. (Sorry, just gets me a little ranty.)
no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 02:07 pm (UTC)Other features I like are the MaxBack analyzer, a fancy name for automatically optimizing deductions and claims across the entire family (you can enter multiple people's returns into the same account). But they tell you what they did and why. :) Also, it can automatically defer some claims such as student tuition credits and RRSP deductions, and then remembers that amount when you sign in for next year's return. That's handier than me trying to remember all that.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 03:18 pm (UTC)The real problem is the incredible complexity of the US Tax Code, largely because it has so many deliberate loopholes built in for the wealthy supporters of congressvermin. The unholy terror most people have about tax filing, the hideous reputation the IRS has for abusing people, and now, the general decline in reading skills and math abilities which only increase the terror. In the end, I suspect this is one significant reason for the stupid tea party thing. Not so much having to pay tax as the fear of the tax man.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 03:25 pm (UTC)Gary's is always painful not because of the amount of tax he pays, which is less than mine, but because of the amount of paperwork they demand of him. He converted his retirement funds to a fixed annuity under regulations that have since been repealed. He is grandfathered, but current forms make no allowance for that, so almost every year his return is challenged and he has to provide an explanation yet another time to get them to leave him alone.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 03:30 pm (UTC)Obama's latest tax cut was more than eaten up by the increase in Blue Cross premiums, which is what has happened every year in the last five or so. I'll get some kind of raise next month, but the state has just increased its income tax by more than what my increase will amount to. My pay has been shrinking for years now. Meanwhile, the obscene bonuses carried home by financial bank bloodsuckers just keep rising. I swear this is ultimately going to lead to a violent revolution in our country.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 03:36 pm (UTC)Remember too that if the IRS is providing any online services of that sort, they would be done in the same cumbersome manner as the forms themselves, and probably (like the State of Illinois) designed in some stupid manner so that you could only use Internet Explorer 6 to get at them. (Yes, Illinois has actually done that with its websites.)
Online filing through third parties who offer "free tax service" is a scam. You are handing all your personal financial data to a company you don't know, to be processed by people you can't trust, and stored, distributed, and used in ways you can't imagine. Yet many US taxpayers have been falling for these scams because they are so "easy."
no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 03:36 pm (UTC)(It's often claimed, at least by German media/politicians, that the German tax system is the most complex in the world, and that 80% of all literature – scholarly and popular – relating to tax law published worldwide is about German tax law. I don't know if that's true, but as far as I can tell, it certainly is a complex system.)
no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 03:56 pm (UTC)There's an online system here too, and you don't have to pay extra to use it, but I'm a firm believer in paper and ink when it comes to things like tax returns.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 04:00 pm (UTC)Glad to hear Canada made the system relatively easy and painless. Someone gets it....
no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 04:25 pm (UTC)AES-256 encryption is not adequate? Authenticating directly to the agency responsible for accepting your return is not adequate? I mean, while computers are not infallable, I'm more comfortable with the uniqueness of a three-factor numeric identification (total of 21 numbers, at least 9 of which are guaranteed unique--which, since computers deal exclusively in numbers, I trust it to identify correctly) than I am with a human squinting at another one of a kazillion forms, which they are then supposed to file correctly and mark down in all the right areas.
I can't comment on how the IRS would do things. I don't live there; I don't use the "services" of the IRS. Certainly our tax agency doesn't require IE only (of any version). Why would they? It's a basic HTML form.
And why would you file online through a third party? That's not the idea. You put in your data to your online tax program, sure. Which is heavily encrypted and does not require any specific browser version. Also, there's no way to reset or retrieve your password--if you don't remember it, nobody can get at your information, even those who control the system. That's basic security.
You get to see the data. They show you the forms that have been processed. Once you pay a nominal fee (only once per tax year) or enter your promo code (for students), you can download your tax files. Either as a PDF of the official forms which you can print out and mail in, or as a .tax file for upload to the government. Which you have to submit yourself, using the three-factor authentication I mentioned earlier.
Since it's just a file to be uploaded to the government, which you have to do yourself, or alternatively just print out the forms they provided for you and mail them in yourself, how is this "a scam"? How would the forms be so complex and multi-facted, that printing the forms out and mailing them in wouldn't be practical?
I will say it yet again--I don't know how the IRS does things. I don't know all the ins and outs of US taxes. But I'm not convinced you have logical reason to be so dead-set against ALL online or electronic filing.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 09:59 pm (UTC)My filing was only three pages this year, but all the supporting forms that had to be attached more than doubled the weight of it. Of course it doesn't help that employers are confused too and issue two or three "corrected" reports of your income and taxes withheld every year.
Gary's filings run to twelve or more pages and he's terrified about it. As if they'd put him in prison for 20 years over a ten dollar error, but there's no reasoning with him about it.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 10:10 pm (UTC)I worked for the Federal Reserve Bank for a while. They were good at putting up a front of "security" to reassure folks, but internally they were anything but. This did not leave me with any confidence in federal institutions.
I agree about the IE6 business, but it's still true. Both state AND federal web sites here are in some cases written in obsolete code that either fails to work properly with anything but IE6 (not 8 or 9, not Firefox, not anything else) or that outright refuses to talk to you if you are using anything but IE6. Incredibly stupid, but typical of bureaucrats who have outsourced the website setup to someone eight years ago and now won't or can't spend the money to update it. Illinois Employment Security and the federal student aid programs are both guilty of this.
People use third party agencies to file for them (such as H&R Block or TurboTax Online) because the forms are so confusing and hard to understand and they are afraid to do it on their own. The official IRS site gives you little help, just presents blank forms to fill in.
I don't trust electronic filing for all these reasons, plus the fact that I end up with no tangible proof that I did fill the forms out and file them. I don't bank online either, and I'm very conservative about using electronic payment methods. This grows out of the Federal Reserve experience and also some very ugly experiences I had in the past with electronic transfers and payments that were mishandled. People 30 or 40 years younger than I am grew up with this junk and take it for granted without questioning the mechanics of it. I question because I've actually seen the mechanics up close and didn't approve of them, and I've actually seen them go astray repeatedly.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 10:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-17 10:49 am (UTC)The program is buggy, and insists that I've applied for some Federal depreciation allowance when I finally get to the RI taxes. I can pull up the form itself as I go along and have figured how to override these annoyances.
Massachusetts, once known as Taxachusetts, has a fairly straight-forward 'non-resident' form, and I fill that out by hand. Damn their penny-pinching, though, there were no duplicate copies in the booklet so I had to go online and download forms anyway to submit (I used the ones in the book as rough drafts prior to realizing there was only one copy).
RI didn't supply any paper forms to us this year, including, or excluding, forms to the library. It was hopping Friday, with folks looking for information and forms, and so many still have no clue how to work computers and find these forms. One poor guy told me he got frustrated at home because he was on the IRS site forever and couldn't find the RI forms :o(
congressvermin
*snicker* greatest word ever!
We owe on the 18th due to the ever-popular Proclamation Day being celebrated on the 15th this year in DC. Can I ask WTF?
no subject
Date: 2011-04-18 04:19 pm (UTC)I have stronger words for some of the congressvermin who were elected last year, but they aren't fit to print on a G-rated web page.