Did You Fill Out Your Tax Return Correctly?
The results for the EITC are not pretty. The Internal Revenue Services estimates that 21 to 25 percent of EITC payments were issued incorrectly during the fiscal year 2012, totaling from $11.6 to $13.6 billion in too much money being paid out to taxpayers. As a result, the Office of Management and Budget has labeled the EITC a “high-error” government program. Projections by the government show that the rate of error is expected to remain stubbornly high.
…[T]he IRS estimates that 21 percent of those who are eligible do not claim the credit at all. And so the EITC cuts both ways: both too much being handed out to taxpayers and too little.
“The Internal Revenue Services estimates that 21 to 25 percent of EITC payments were issued incorrectly during the fiscal year 2012, totaling from $11.6 to $13.6 billion in too much money being paid out to taxpayers.”
So does that mean H&R Block was incorrect in saying taxpayers are leaving 1 billion dollars on the table?
This means that if anyone is to blame that too much money is getting back to taxpayers, blame tax preparation companies.
So Americans are getting too much of their hard earned money back to them during tax season? What a shame!
I think it differs based which side you listen to.
“And so the EITC cuts both ways: both too much being handed out to taxpayers and too little.”
So everything doesn’t even out in the end?
Well, due to conflicting sides, we are both overpaying and underpaying…
The numbers don’t surprise me. It is very complicated to file taxes, because our politicians what it to be like that. It is in their interest to incite people to make mistakes because they don’t want to give all the refunds citizens are entitled to. The problem is that their plan backed fired. The EITC makes lots of mistakes due to the complicated nature of the tax fillings. One way or another, they are balancing errors.
Politicians actually tried to simplify it, but tax prep places fought against it. Then again, if the government did our taxes, we would all get ripped off.
If taxes were easy to calculate there would be lots of unemployed accountants, reason why they lobbied against simplification. They basically are ripping off the American people and splitting the loot among themselves.
So regardless if either private accountants or government accountants do our taxes, we are going to get ripped off.
It is a no win situation for all of us.
To try to balance all of the tax filings of millions of Americans, mistakes will be made. Their best course of action should just be to minimize errors.
“There is potential relief in the form of “return-free” filing, in which the IRS would give taxpayers a pre-filled return that would take minutes to verify.”
Yeah but of course places like Turbo Tax and H&R Block are against this. If taxes became easy to do, they would be out of business.
“High-error government program” how bad has a program need to be to fall under this category? If you ask me most of the government programs are high errors.
ObamaCare was certainly “high-error”