Tax Time Again

Once again, Americans are burdened with tax preparation. Each year's tax law changes seem to bring new complications. Read "Keeping Track of Your Basis" in IRS Pub 564, the instructions for the tax treatment of mutual funds. It should be more straightforward than this.

Or consider this year that the market turmoil caused your mutual fund to generate capital gains distributions. This means that you have an additional tax liability. But say that the economic downturn required that you sell an assett like a car. Of course you lost money on it. But you cannot use that loss to offset your other gains because you cannot claim losses on consumer goods. However, in the unlikely event that you made money selling a car or some other consumer item, you are supposed to include the income on your tax return. How's that for a fair system?

So, once again, I invite any interested citizen to consider the proposals of Americans for Fair Taxation (known as the Fair Tax). If nothing else, it would eliminate the complications that we can all do without.