@#$%^tax rant#$&&^%
 

Just did my 2010 taxes and for the umpeenth year, they did it again

You need to know the foreign tax paid which is sitting clearly in 1099-DIV box 6, great!!

but you also need to know the $ value of the foreign investments on which the foreign tax is paid. That # is nowhere to be found in the tax forms that you receive. I had to go to the web site of 8 different investment companies and root through arcane files where lo and behold you eventually find on a pdf somewhere the % of you investment which is in foreign country's. That is the hard part. then you have to grab a calculator and push the buttons to find the actual dollar amount to put into your federal tax documents.

They have this info, why isn't there a box on the 1099 for it, why make tax preparers spend hours looking for it!!

My accountant's answer is, "The IRS does not exist for your convenience."

Hey, thats what you get for having foreign stuff! ;)

:D

Taxes are great, arent they?!?

Make sure you get it right - millions on welfare are depending on you!

Dude, maybe you just need a little help with the math?
LOL j/k

I agree with you, Bill. Remember that. I happen to agree with you.

That being said, as you know there is currently a vigorous war on gubmit spending. America appears to be nearly unanimous in calling for......indeed demanding, that gubmit agencies slash their budgets down to the bone marrow. Okay. Government agencies provide services other than police and fire (whose budgets are also being eviscerated, BTW). How 'bout those one-hour waits for service at licensing offices? Perhaps we will be happier when they are three hours. Building and electrical permits......get them in weeks or months ahead of time. Building delays will save us a LOT of money.

What a load of BS!
If a budget was supposed to go up by 10% and instead it only goes up by 5%, the unions scream theat their funds are getting slashed. Here's a clue for you, we know better. the general public is much smarter than that. Evidently the only ones who are actually gullible enough to actually but that crap like that are the union minions. The teacher's unions are pro's at playing that stupid game, you'd think the teachers were smarter than that! (Or at least more honest).

If the gubmint budgets had not gotten completely out of control they wouldn't have to be adjusted and in most cases those budgets are still growing, just by not as much as the unions want.
BTW the reason the gubmints are having to watch the dollars? UNION PENSION PROGRAMS are bankrupting them.
Maybe if those departments you speak of were a little more EFFICIENT they might be able to do their jobs without demanding budgets of $millions upon millions to carry out simple tasks.
Privatize it all and we'll start seeing competent people actually DO WORK!
Or just get rid of unions for all public employees and we'll start to see the light at the end of a tunnel and this time it won't be a train heading towards us!

The HHS budget is 30/70 - 30% of every dollar goes into an actual check and is received by a deadbeat errrrrrrrrrrrr, needy person, 70% goes to the beuracracy that runs that scam.

If it was a charity, you wouldn't donate to it and the feds would be investigating it.

It's only indirectly the IRS fault, in that they don't mandate that info on the 1099s. I pay hefty fees to the brokerages and they are supposed to provide the tax information as part of their service. They do, but they sure don't make it easy for their paying customers. One house I couldn't find it any where so I called a rep. It took the rep 35min to find the info.

All the info is in their computers and they print it up and send it to you every Jan. It would take me 5 min to program them to print 1 more # somewhere on their form and label it $ amount on which foreign taxes were paid. Everyone knows that this info is needed. sheesh:rolleyes:

Yeah......I can see you're one of those folks who love to blame and criticize, but who also don't seem to understand the fairly simple concept that if you withdraw your support for a program (or a business for that matter) and insist that your legislature and/or Congress slash their budget mercilessly, that this could, just may, perhaps might impact the service you get from that organization. Could happen, Sammy. :rolleyes:

But you go ahead and insist on those massive budget cuts while you expect improved service.

I agree, Bill. Including this information on the 1099 would cause a computer programmer somewhere to do some work, but would save taxpayers TONS of work. It makes sense. But be sure to expect business lobbyists to VIGOROUSLY oppose this proposal. Just sayin'. Our Legislature is in session right now, and business reliably opposes any and all bills that might make more information available and/or cause them some cost/effort.

The entire tax code of the USA is junk. No on on the planet understands it all. It is absurdly complex, on purpose. The tax code could be reduced to one simple page that would have everyone paying a fair share, but the special interests will never let it happen.

There's free service to get this done for you. It's called an audit.

I hope there's a 10 plane in Dante's hell for IRS. They spend eternity getting 1099s crammed up their asses with sharp sticks.

I've cut overhead and expenses to the bone in my business as a result of the economy, but offer the same good service. The secret? We're working harder for less money. We couldn't possibly ask public employees to venture out of their protective bubbles and skip a coffee break or 2, could we? :D:rolleyes:

why do you have "8 different investment companies"???

BTW, Fidelity & Vanguard send out a form for this. (Yes, I am crazy for having two different investment companies)...

I am mildly ticked at having to type in the #'s -- it should be electronic...

or you could just not take the foreign tax deduction.

or just est. high, attach a note and let the IRS figure it out...

Yup, sometimes working harder or smarter can improve efficiency. Avoid service reduction. And yeah, government agencies are among the organizations that can, and do, find these efficiencies. The advantage you have is that you can change your budget. Government agencies sometimes have Sophie's Choice decisions. We're releasing hundreds of prisoners, for instance, that should not be among the public.

But you know.....I apologize to Bill. Didn't mean to hijack. Or couldn't resist. Again, I agree that it would be VERY much more efficient to have, or require, this information on the 1099. And it would be more gubmit regulation. That I support.

some CPA's who deal with big private money taxes and outside auditors take a NY attitude when they deal with the IRS and their regulations. The key is they can argue their point even if the IRS doesn't comprehend at first what they did. Looking at it from a mechanic's technical view is often a waste of time in layered regs.

when a normal joe schmoe guy does his taxes he's often dealing with an IRS computer program's envelope and it's sometimes a good idea to have a tax pro available if needed. He knows that if it gets to an IRS worker that was any good he'd be working somewhere else and what you can get away with

True, except the war has just begun and spending hasn't been slashed yet (on a federal level). You're right, it's only going to get worse, but that doesn't explain why it's so bad now.

Fidelity & Vanguard have lots of great investment choices I do have a Fidelity brokerage and they are great, afaik their info was downloaded into the Tax software w/o a glitch(I do need to go back and check on that though), they just don't offer everything that I need ntf(I'm cheap)