DailyKaizen

Today I thought I would talk about something different then Healthcare.  Something timely and fresh on my mind: taxes. 

Simply, I hate doing my taxes. I hate doing my taxes, because I always feel like I am cheating even though I am doing my best to be honest and follow the process.  I literally spend hours every tax season reading and re-reading the small print trying to determine if I qualify for a deduction or what number I should be subtracting from another.  Two years ago a went out and bought Turbo Tax thinking it would make my life easier, which eventually resulted in me getting frustrated with the software and returning to the hand written method. 

This year, knowing that I was going to receive a fairly large return motivated me to finish my taxes in late January.  Last week I still had not gotten a direct deposit so I called the IRS.  It seems that they decided to deposit my check in someone else’s account!  Can you say error proofing?

Why do taxes have to be so complicated?  Like healthcare, there is a lot of opportunity for process simplification and improvement.  To the IRS the tax payer is the customer and I believe they should treat us like one.