I'm trying to decide whether to be frustrated with the IRS for constantly changing tax laws and tax forms or grateful to them for always providing new material to blog about. Just last year I did a whole post on the new 1040 Form with its attendant schedules. That didn't seem too unreasonable given that there were a ton of new tax reforms to deal with.
However, that's not really the case for the 2019 tax year and here we are with yet another 1040 Form. The idea last year was to put the 1040 “on a postcard”, so they pushed all they could from the 1040 onto 6 different schedules. In retrospect, they realized that was just dumb, so they've consolidated those 6 schedules into 3 schedules and moved some of the material back onto the 1040 itself.
It's no longer postcard size, but the truth is that it really isn't the form that makes things confusing, it's the tax laws. The forms just reflect the laws. If you can't remember what the forms looked like before, check out last year's post on the 2018 1040 Form.
The New 1040 Form
Let's start with the front page of the 2019 1040 Form.
The big difference between this year and last year is that last year's page 1 didn't have any of lines 1-11 on it. Those were on page 2. So they've been moved to page 1. Line 7 and 8 are a clarification of how the form read the prior year, a worthy change in my opinion. But all that stuff is pretty standard and has been on the 1040 for a long time. Let's go to Page 2.
This should all look pretty familiar too. Lines 13b and 14 are new and 15 is modified, but that's just where the new Schedule 3 and the new Schedule 2 plug in. Same with line 18d. See that line up there about a “third-party designee?” That's the entire old Schedule 6. Let's look at the three schedules one by one.
Schedule 1 Additional Income
The only real change here is they got rid of the “reserved lines” (1-9, 20, 34-35) and renumbered everything. Otherwise, pretty much the same as last year. It plugs into lines 7a and 8a on the 1040.
Schedule 2 Additional Taxes
This is MUCH longer than Schedule 2 used to be, but in reality, they just combined Schedules 2 and 4 from last year. They plug into the 1040 on lines 12b and 15 respectively. A nice simplification.
Schedule 3 Credits and Payments
Just like they added Schedule 4 to Schedule 2, they've added Schedule 5 to Schedule 3.
Overall, I was just fine having it all on one form, the 1040, so I'm a fan of going from six schedules to one. The 1040 is no longer postcard size (it was a big postcard anyway) but what does it matter if most of us had to send in 3 or 4 other post cards too? I mean, my tax return is measured in pounds or inches, not pages. I really don't care if one of the pages is a little shorter. We're never going to have a short tax return until we have a short tax code.
What do you think? Do you like the changes to the 1040 for tax year 2019? What changes would you like to see? Comment below!
I know most of us will have complicated tax forms, but personally I was hoping this change would reduce the number of forms I have. Yet still B, D, 8949, E, 8606, sometimes F and A! at least no 4 or 5 anymore. Happily in Alabama for some reason we no longer have to mail in a copy of our US tax form and can just report it online (and do our state taxes all on line). Maybe their postman complained after getting thousands of 3 ouncers like mine.
A three weeks about I was going through last year’s return and using that as a guide to download the forms I’d need to do 2019. I found out they hadn’t posted schedules 4 and 6 yet and so I waited. Then last week I was mystified they still hadn’t come out with these, and then had to dig a bit to see that the lines on those schedules had been moved/consolidated to other schedules. I guess they simplified? Anyway, you pointed out exactly what happened. Glad I have two fewer forms to download this year but it’ll be just as complex as last year
As you pointed out, there is no simplification w/o actually simplifying the tax code.
All these changes accomplish is to make taxes more difficult because things move around from year to year and everyone needs to relearn where stuff goes.
IMHO they should just leave it alone unless the code is simplified. Changes also make it harder to compare one years taxes with the next years.
I would like to be able to claim my gambling losses without having to itemize my tax return I don’t have enough to itemize now I have to claim it and nothing was taken out tax wise so it only brings up my income and believe me I lost more than I won and there’s nothing I can do about it.š”š”š”
There is a solution…. š
A technical correction in your first sentence above — “Iām trying to decide whether to be frustrated with the IRS for constantly changing tax laws and tax forms or grateful to them for always providing new material to blog about. ”
It is Congress, not the IRS, that is the cause of your frustration with constantly changing tax laws. Vent your frustration on those that we collectively elect, not the agency that administers what Congress, with the President’s acceptance, enacts as tax and all other laws. As there are changes in tax forms, I think the IRS is trying its best to keep them, regulations and explanations and instructions as direct as possible while still conforming to the law the Legislative branch of our government passed and the President accepted.
And, the post card size tax return is political party and individual elected Congressional person blather that our naive populace seems to swallow without thinking, reading or understanding how the process works, why and for whom.
I believe our country would be better off and the Congress and Administration would perform better if more was directed at the root source and more was clearly more explained by direct, verifiable fact-based evidence. Even with that, of course, you need more of the populace to actually ready and understand matters than be driven by emotion, frustrations, hopes and dreams. Not likely to change, in my opinion, as this hyper political election cycle progress this year.
So what law did Congress change between my 2018 taxes and 2019 taxes?:) The tax form change was all IRS this year. You can blame last year’s change on Congress though.
But I agree with your sentiment that there are good people working for the IRS who have been handed a tough job.
Admittedly, I do not know of any tax laws Congress changed between 2018 and 2019. I’m not blaming Congress for the changes in the form, only trying to point out that until we are clear and precise about where authority and responsibility lie, we fail to look to the source of much of what we may not like — a favorite emotional distraction technique, in my opinion, of many politicians of any stripe, e.g., the source of the simple post card objective, and so many more “solutions” to what the populace complains about without understanding the who, what, why, etc. of issues, or the “opinions” before “facts and knowledge” approach.
From my perspective, I suspect the IRS form changes are probably to address complaints about the forms and their first use in 2018 and to make what and where to provide data more clear in an environment where the IRS is battered from all sides about the complexity of the U.S. tax code — the creation of Congress and the result of the many who seek some type of political favoritism rather than foe actions based on sound, evidence-based, unbiased economic purposes.
Just my opinion with the state and motives of our so-called “representatives” and those who “govern”, and the emotional and often irrational “opinions” of so much of the U.S. populace.
Thanks for reading and commenting on my original. I did not mean it as a criticism of your article or you. I appreciate all you do to inform objectively to help us make better decisions.