Congressional Idiots

I don't like to get too political on my blog, for fear of offending my 8 loyal followers.  So, without getting too political, let me just say this:

Congress:  You're all idiots!

Oh sure, you might think there are some Senators or Representatives who are smarter than the others, or who do a better job than the others, and you would of course be wrong.  As far as I'm concerned, they have ALL failed the American public.  Every last ~bleeping~ one of them.

You see, Congress has this nasty little habit of waiting until the last minute to make retroactive changes to the tax laws.  This makes it impossible for anyone to make any type of tax plans.  Congress (and the rest of America) has known since 2001 (when the EGTRRA tax laws were passed), and since 2003 (when the JGTRRA tax laws were passed), that many of those tax laws would be expiring this Friday (or before)!

With their knowledge of the so-called "sunset provision," did Congress do anything to make those tax laws permanent or extend the tax laws or do anything productive?  Nope!  They had at least 7 years to try to do something -- anything -- with these tax laws, and they DID NOTHING!  They even had the opportunity this past October to work on the tax laws, but what did they do?  They voted to go to recess so they could go home and try to get re-elected.  They had to go back to their states to tell them that they are making a difference, rather than staying in Washington and actually making a difference.  When the bell rang and they came back from their recess, did they make taxes a priority?  No, they did not.  They instead chose to argue over whether TV commercials were too loud and should, therefore, have a Federal law mandating a certain decibel level.

You know... real important stuff.

So what's the big deal?  You ask.  They passed the 2010 Tax Relief Act just the other day.  Isn't the problem solved?

No.  Not in the least.  They only postponed the problem another 2 years, so that in December 2012, they can realize they ignored taxes again and will have to pass another last-minute law.  But what should I expect from a bunch of idiots that care more about getting re-elected than they do actually serving the people that elected them?

What really makes me mad about all of this is that with all of the uncertainty in the tax laws, the IRS has had no idea how to program their computers for the upcoming tax season.  As a result, I got this dandy little email from the IRS last Thursday:

"Following last week's tax law changes, the Internal Revenue Service announced today the upcoming tax season will start on time. . . but taxpayers affected by three recently reinstated deductions need to wait until mid- to late February to file their individual tax returns.  In addition, taxpayers who itemize deductions on Form 1040 Schedule A will need to wait until mid- to late February to file as well."

For a lot of people this won't be a problem.  However, I am a CPA.  I do tax returns for a living.  Most of my clients have a mortgage and donate to charity, therefore, they itemize deductions.  So, because Congress is full of morons, my busiest time of year (the three and a half months from January 1st through April 15th) has now been shortened to -- at best -- 2 months (from February 15th to April 15th).  Or, if you go off of the late end of their schedule, it's been cut to one and half months (from February 28th to April 15th).  That's assuming that this government agency's estimates are correct, and that they can finish programming on time.

Stated another way, I work about 980 hours from January 1st to April 15th.  It's about 15 weeks, so that works out to be a little more than 65 hours a week, on average.  If I now have to get the bulk of my work done in 8 weeks, instead of 15, then that works out to about 122 hours a week, or just over 20 hours a day on a 6-day work week.  That's not going to happen.  I'll have to figure something else out.

So, to our idiot Congress: thanks for nothing, and I hope you all get audited!