New Draft Form 1040 & Form 1040-SR

New draft forms are here we say — doo dah doo dah
How do you think the final versions will play? Oh doo dah day
Comments they will fly
Changes they will try
I’m bettin’ we won’t know until next July oh doo dah day!

Draft 2019 Form 1040

On July 11, the IRS released a draft of the 2019 Form 1040. The comment period ended on August 15.

Notable Changes:

1. Signature page moves back to page 2. Your signature indicates your numbers are accurate after you tell the government what your numbers are.
2. IRA distributions are separated from pension distributions
3. Capital gain line was added back to the 1040
4. Schedules are reduced from 6 to 3
5. The font size on the 1040 is slightly larger (no comment).

Draft 2019 Form 1040-SR

The IRS also recently released the draft of the Form 1040-SR, which is designed to meet the mandate of the Bi-Partisan Budget Act (BBA) to provide senior citizens with a simplified way to file their taxes.

Notable features:
(Sorry — -no fine Corinthian leather)

1. The only requirement for using Form 1040-SR is that the individual taxpayer be 65 or older by Dec. 31, 2019, or by the end of the tax year for which they are filing. (By the way, just to put “senior citizen” into context, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones is age 76 and Steven Tyler from Aerosmith is 71 years old).
2. No limit on income.
3. Tax deductions: Although the BBA directed the IRS to make Form 1040-SR “as similar as practicable” to Form 1040-EZ, the draft 1040-SR allow taxpayers to either claim the standard deduction or itemized deductions.
4. Tax credits: Users of Form 1040-SR can also claim both refundable and nonrefundable tax credits.
5. Oh by the way — the font size is larger on this one too.

Consider this…

As of May 23, 2018, IRS statistics for tax filing year 2017 show there were just slightly more than 134 million tax returns filed. Out of that number, more than 124 million were electronically filed. So we would like to thank the IRS for their diligent effort to aid the 7% of taxpayers who still file their returns by paper. As for the 93% who electronically filed for 2017, we merely say, Oh Doo Dah Day…

by Tom O’Saben, EA

Originally published at https://taxschool.illinois.edu.