For something like 20 years the 1040 tax form in the US was pretty much exactly the same. Maybe even longer, and then, about 6 years ago, someone decided it needed updating. And EVERY YEAR since then, that someone has kept on updating it. It’s different now EVERY YEAR. So you have to read the incredibly confusing instructions every year and try to make heads or tails of it again. Is it simpler? No. Is it easy to understand? NO. Is it better? NO. It’s just different. GAH.
It’s that time of year again when my obligations as a US citizen make me seriously consider renouncing my citizenship. Not voting time (though that has had the same effect a few times). Tax time. Even with the automatic filing extension given to expats, I still have to file tax returns for a country I haven’t worked in for nearly 30 years, don’t pay taxes in, and have no intention of returning to. Tax returns that are confusing and complicated, and a waste of time given that I don’t owe anything to the US, and am not going to pay anything to the US, and I’m not going to get any kind of refund either.
And don’t get me started on the annual FBAR obligation (no extension possible), where I (and my children, because they are also US citizens, though they rarely meet the limit obligation yet) have to report on the amount of money in each and every one of my “foreign” bank accounts if, together, they are over an arbitrary amount, which for anyone who has been working for as long as I have, and has any kind of savings or pension accounts, they will be. Money that is in joint accounts that holds my husband’s money as well, but which I have to report on, nonetheless, because god forbid, someone who lives and works abroad should be fine with sharing how much money they have during the course of the year to another government, just to apparently prove that I am not hiding cash “off-shore”. Which, if I WERE doing, do they really think I would be factually reporting on it? I don’t make enough money to hire lawyers to hide any illicit financial shenanigans, because I’M NOT DOING ANYTHING BUT LIVING AND WORKING ABROAD.
Why do they have to make filing taxes in the US so damn difficult? It’s a piece of cake in Sweden. The government pretty much does all the figuring for you and you just have to check it, sign it, and return it. Sigh.
GAH. *commences annual swearfest*
*Chris Rock
Mood: cranky
Music: Lou Reed—No Money Down