Annual Tax Time – My Take

I have been working this weekend (not enough of it, granted) on organizing and preparing our household 2009 taxes for filing. There is plenty of time before April 15th deadline in United States, but I like to have breathing room as this process always takes way longer than one expects (and hopes). I have been self-filing via software for many years now, and this year again opted for H&R Block software for Home and Business, which is newly renamed TaxCut software from prior years.

First, I am not convinced that going through this annual ritual is good for US Residents nor US Government. Accounting is getting more complex every year, and way too many “grey” areas still exist in the code. On top of this, creative return preparers often taking on “risk” in your name, because ultimately each of us is fully responsible for their Tax return.

Solution: Fairtax.org – which sounds like a great idea to me! In fact, I say bump it up to 25 or even 30% ! It simplifies accounting for all, and should provide boost to our overall GDP, IMHO.

As an alternative, I say we should introduce government mandated accounting cloud. In fact, the two solutions aren’t mutually exclusive! Such cloud will have strict requirements for reporting directly from Point-of-sale systems, inventory systems, and other software systems companies already use in-house to track their own accounting! Only this time all these systems will be unified by single standard and have specific requirements for “calling home” to the cloud within 48 hours of transaction, for example. I know everyone is afraid of “big brother” effect, but accounting anyhow ends up being reported one way or the other, and providing country-wide standard should only help keep it all fair!

I am still blogging less in a futile effort to minimize “ramblings”. But I am out there on the Web, on Twitter and now on all encompassing Google Buzz, which you should be able to subscribe to via my Google Profile page.