Non-COVID Topic - Form 1040-SR And Data

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Written by Annette Nellen | Posted in TaxConnections

I’ll return to COVID-19 tax legislation policy topics soon, but wanted to note an item I noticed a few weeks ago in filing my own return. In messing around with TurboTax, I discovered that it defaults to preparing a Form 1040-SR if the taxpayer or spouse is age 65 or older. I assume that likely confuses many affected people because they never heard of the form and might think it means they are paying more or paying less.

There is no difference between the 1040 and 1040-SR besides the “SR” and font size. The SR form is not the idea of IRS who was already working to get rid of the 1040-EZ and 1040-A when Congress added 1040-SR starting for 2019 returns. For more on that, please see my 7/29/19 blog post.

Perhaps other tax prep software is doing the same – defaulting to 1040-SR if the taxpayer is old enough, rather than giving a choice or defaulting to 1040.

I just note this because if we later see data on lots of seniors filing 1040-SR and thinking that means they like it, that data would be suspect of not really measuring liking the form.

For simplification and easing administrative burden for the IRS, it would be great to see the 1040-SR removed from the law AND to move towards filing systems using technology that makes filing so easy that it doesn’t really matter what the tax form is called. It could be like online banking or ordering from Amazon in its ease and transparency (for more, see my 2019 post).

What do you think? Annette Nellen

Annette Nellen

Annette Nellen, CPA, Esq., is a professor in and director of San Jose State University’s graduate tax program (MST), teaching courses in tax research, accounting methods, property transactions, state taxation, employment tax, ethics, tax policy, tax reform, and high technology tax issues.

Annette is the immediate past chair of the AICPA Individual Taxation Technical Resource Panel and a current member of the Executive Committee of the Tax Section of the California Bar. Annette is a regular contributor to the AICPA Tax Insider and Corporate Taxation Insider e-newsletters. She is the author of BNA Portfolio #533, Amortization of Intangibles.

Annette has testified before the House Ways & Means Committee, Senate Finance Committee, California Assembly Revenue & Taxation Committee, and tax reform commissions and committees on various aspects of federal and state tax reform.

Prior to joining SJSU, Annette was with Ernst & Young and the IRS.