Question

The 2018 TCJA redesigned the Long Form 1040 and eliminated 1040EZ and 1040A.

The New Form 1040 has two pages and depending on each taxpayer's tax situation additional schedules 1-6 may be required. The original Schedules A-F, SE, EIC, etc. are still in use.

1. Compare the 2017 and 2018 Form 1040. The new form 1040 is intended to simplified the tax filing process. Do you think it serves the intended purpose or has a reverse effect?

Answer 1

Solution. TCJA stands for Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It introduced new tax regulations and new Form 1040.The Internal Revenue Service introduced Form 1040 and schedules in place of Form 1040-A or Form 1040-EZ from 1st January,2018 for filing income tax return.

Schedules are the attachments along with Form 1040 which needs to be filled while filing tax return. It was made more comprehensible by separating some schedules according to tax amendments while the original schedules A-F,SE,EIC,etcetera are still in use because they still hold tax policies prevalent. There are new six schedules along with the form due to changes in tax laws. The totals from these schedules are transferred to the new form 1040

Now, we will enlist the difference in 2017 and 2018 Form 1040:

a.Form 1040 collects individual's information or filing status.Earlier Form 1040 would include collecting information of a taxpayer as single,married filing separately,head of household or widow/widower. New Form 1040 categorises or defaults to single with one name and married filing jointly with two names unless mentioned otherwise.

b.Form 1040 consists of second page for collection of income,allowable deductions and credits and tax due figure and reported in new schedule 1.Earlier Form 1040 would include collecting information for taxpayer schedule reconciliation from each of schedules C,D,E and F.

c.The New Form 1040 consists or shows presidential election campaign fund checkoff allowing individuals to see and contribute that the federal government debits $3 of the amount it receives to the fund.

d.In the new Form 1040 personal exemptions are omitted from the first and second pages of the 2017 Form 1040 through 2018 to 2025 owing to amendment in tax policies.

We can conclude,the new form 1040 has simplified the tax filing process by consolidating various tax items and removing tax items which have been abandoned. It has been deviced at convincing citizens that government had corporated something new. The new form is far too longer from 2017 Form 1040 moving lines and boxes under new schedules. Eliminating old 1040A and 1040EZ, taxpayer only filing for income and standard deductions find new Form complicated at large. For manual filing done by taxpayer one needs time to get used to the new form reforms.