Tax Troubles, Tax Triumphs

WAMU 88.5

Published April 16, 2019 at 10:05 AM EDT

A copy of a IRS 1040 tax form is seen at an H&R Block office on the day President Donald Trump signed the Republican tax cut bill in Washington, DC on December 22, 2017 in Miami.

Ah, April 15. The day most Americans come together as a nation and file their taxes. Maybe this year you used TurboTax? Or hired a tax preparer or some other service? Or you did them entirely by yourself the old-fashioned way?

One thing’s for sure – if Congress passes the so-called Taxpayer First Act, you won’t be able to file using free software via the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The bipartisan bill would prevent the IRS from creating its own tax filing service.

Here’s why critics of the bill are upset, according to ProPublica:

Experts have long argued that the IRS has failed to make filing taxes as easy and cheap as it could be. In addition to a free system of online tax preparation and filing, the agency could provide people with pre-filled tax forms containing the salary data the agency already has, as ProPublica first reported on in 2013.

And tax policy is one of the main ways in which Americans directly interact with President Donald Trump’s policies.

That’s because one of President Trump’s signature pieces of legislation was the tax bill, passed on December 22, 2017.

While The Washington Post notes that this bill did not live up to the often-promised claim that your taxes would fit on a postcard, “the vast majority” of Americans did get a tax cut as a result of the law.

We also get into the nitty-gritty of filing. If you’re a person who needs to know about withholding or standard deductions or the six-month extension – fear not. We have experts on hand.

Produced by Morgan Givens.

GUESTS

Richard Rubin, U.S. tax policy reporter, The Wall Street Journal; @RichardRubinDC

Keila Hill-Trawick, Certified Public Accountant; owner, Little Fish Accounting

For more, visit https://the1a.org.