IRS Tax Code: ~2.8 million words Bible: ~780 thousand words

[911paramedic]

Is it really any wonder people hate doing these friggin things???

Saw that on a news report last night, unbelievable.

 

[b0mbrman]

Heh heh...I had my tv on Headline news last night while I did my homework and I must have heard that stat repeated a dozen times

 

[ElFenix]

thats horrible. they need to completely trash the system we have and get a new one. get rid of lots of deductions and tons of other stuff and make it an easily calculated progressive income tax with a mild amount of slope.

 

[cipher00]

Well, the tax code keeps getting changed, but after the guys who wrote the Bible died off nobody thought to change anything. Any guesses as to what the Bible would look like today if some old cranks kept adding to it?

 

[Russ]

That news report plagiarized Steve Forbes.

Russ, NCNE

 

[MajesticMoose]

Oh man, i love that louis black special about taxes. It's great

 

[Danman]

<< Heh heh...I had my tv on Headline news last night while I did my homework and I must have heard that stat repeated a dozen times >>



Same here.

 

[BlueApple]

<< Oh man, i love that louis black special about taxes. It's great >>


Farm income return? When did I but a farm? I know I did a lot of drugs back in the days, but I think I would have remembered the purchase of a farm!

If you are single with no kids, taxes really aren't that hard. Even f you do have kids and are married, they still aren't terrible. Once you start to own a business or have multiple jobs and everything, it gets hairy. But it amazes me that the friends I have who are single that don't even try to do their taxes and take it to a CPA.

 

[StageLeft]

My GOD. That's gross and ridiculous.



<< Even f you do have kids and are married, they still aren't terrible. Once you start to own a business or have multiple jobs and everything, it gets hairy. But it amazes me that the friends I have who are single that don't even try to do their taxes and take it to a CPA. >>

true

 

[dullard]

Hmm simple math time.

The average 1040 EZ filer takes about 250 minutes to complete the tax form. Lets assume that the average person spent 100% of his/her tax time reading (and spent 0% on math, filling out the form, or mailing). Thus that person must have read 2.8 million words / 250 minutes = 11,200 words per minute. What a fast reader.

The average full 1040 filer takes about 750 minutes to complete the tax form. Again assuming that 100% of the time was spent reading: then the average person read 2.8 million words / 750 minutes = 3733 words per minute. Still that is a stunning 12 pages per minute!











Or maybe, 99% of the material doesn't apply to the typical filer - making that statistic meaningless. Who cares if the tax code is 2.8 trillion words if it only takes 4-12 hours to fill out?

Edit: Anyone care to count the words in a full encyclopedia. It must be 10 million or more. But if I only read two articles, it doesn't matter if there are 10 million words...

 

[JetBlack69]

<< Or maybe, 99% of the material doesn't apply to the typical filer - making that statistic meaningless. Who cares if the tax code is 2.8 trillion words if it only takes 4-12 hours to fill out?

Edit: Anyone care to count the words in a full encyclopedia. It must be 10 million or more. But if I only read two articles, it doesn't matter if there are 10 million words... >>



I was thinking the same thing, who cares if it is a billion words long when most of it doesn't apply to the typical filer.
Interesting, none of the less.

 

[GermyBoy]

4-12 hours to fill out? When that happens, I'll never pay again. Never never never!!!

I can do mine in less than a half hour now, as long as I have everything in front of me.

 

[wyvrn]

<< Hmm simple math time.

The average 1040 EZ filer takes about 250 minutes to complete the tax form. Lets assume that the average person spent 100% of his/her tax time reading (and spent 0% on math, filling out the form, or mailing). Thus that person must have read 2.8 million words / 250 minutes = 11,200 words per minute. What a fast reader.

The average full 1040 filer takes about 750 minutes to complete the tax form. Again assuming that 100% of the time was spent reading: then the average person read 2.8 million words / 750 minutes = 3733 words per minute. Still that is a stunning 12 pages per minute!











Or maybe, 99% of the material doesn't apply to the typical filer - making that statistic meaningless. Who cares if the tax code is 2.8 trillion words if it only takes 4-12 hours to fill out?

Edit: Anyone care to count the words in a full encyclopedia. It must be 10 million or more. But if I only read two articles, it doesn't matter if there are 10 million words... >>

 

[GoodRevrnd]

<--- Two jobs + independent contractor + investments. Thank god I'm not married w/ kids.

Thanks CPA!

 

[SuperCyrix]

It's so much easier to pay somebody else to do it. I mean, how long would it take you to do your taxes? Is your time worth that much?

 

[Kelvrick]

<< Hmm simple math time.

The average 1040 EZ filer takes about 250 minutes to complete the tax form. Lets assume that the average person spent 100% of his/her tax time reading (and spent 0% on math, filling out the form, or mailing). Thus that person must have read 2.8 million words / 250 minutes = 11,200 words per minute. What a fast reader.

The average full 1040 filer takes about 750 minutes to complete the tax form. Again assuming that 100% of the time was spent reading: then the average person read 2.8 million words / 750 minutes = 3733 words per minute. Still that is a stunning 12 pages per minute! >>



Bah! I spent maybe 20 minutes doing my taxes. I got confused when it started asking about like grants and sh!t, so I held off for like a month. Then, since I only made like 2k last year, I went on turbotax.com and used that program. I spent maybe 10 minutes putting in info, printed, and mailed the damn thing off.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

I did my taxes over the weekend, the fed sheet was a breeze, the state form (NC) was horribly confusing. I've done my own taxes for the past few years and never before have I had to use negative numbers on a return.