Saturday, April 16, 2016

The Real Tax Burden

Basis calculations can be a real bear. That's the dumb reason why I hang on to some assets way past their should-sell date---I don't want to plow through many years of tax return files to calculate the amount of gain (or loss). Unfortunately for me, in 2015 there was an involuntary disposition of an earning asset that I had held since the 1980's, and to which adjustments had been made for half those years. The good news was that the disposition resulted in a loss, hence my 2015 tax bill was reduced.

However, at this point in my life the dollars saved don't compensate for the headache:
If any of the political candidates had a credible program to simplify the tax code, I would support that candidate in a heartbeat even if it meant that my bill would be, say, 10% higher, and in our case we’re talking about an increase of thousands of dollars.
I think I'll hang on to those files a little longer.

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