Section 12.4 Filing Taxes and the 1040 Form
We left out what might be the most important tax form - the 1040 form.
Subsection 12.4.1 The 1040 Form
By April 15th of every year, you must submit your 1040 form and any owed taxes to the IRS. Your 1040 form is essentially a worksheet that you use to determine how much you owe in taxes for the year and how much more you still need to pay (or how much you are owed). If you are wondering why the IRS doesn’t do it for you, the reason is that there is no way for the IRS to know what deductible expenses you had over the year. For example, they’ll have no way of knowing if you had $1,000 in gambling losses.
On the surface, filling out a 1040 is not particularly difficult. You enter the information from your W2, perform the required addition/subtraction, and compare what you paid in taxes over the year to what you actually need to pay.
The issue is that taxes can get really complicated for some. If you qualify for a credit, you’ll need to fill out the corresponding form. If you want to itemize deductions rather than take the standard deduction, you’ll need to fill out a form in which you do so. If you own a small business in which your personal and business taxes are intertwined, there is a lot that goes into figuring out your tax burden. There’s a reason tax accountants exist.
