Confused by taxes? You’re not alone
Like it or not, you’ll soon have to start gathering your receipts to get ready to file taxes.
But if you were planning to do them on your own this year, it might be time to enlist the help of an accountant or an online tax preparer, like TurboTax. Because according to Allan Sloan, senior editor-at-large at Fortune, this year’s taxes are more complicated than ever.
During the fiscal cliff debate and even the debt-ceiling debate in 2011, there was talk about simplifying the tax code and closing loop holes, which would simplify everyone’s taxes. That didn’t happen.
“This time they actually did the opposite,” says Sloan. “They made it more complicated.”
So is the idea of taxes simple enough that anyone can do them themselves, dead in America?
“Supposedly they didn’t increase taxes for anybody or any household with incomes of less than either $400,000 or 450,000.” But that isn’t really true, explains Sloan, “because of they stuck in all sorts of complex things. And the reason they do that, is that way they can increase tax revenues but not be increasing tax rates.”
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