About IRS Publications

If you are working on your taxes or talking to someone that is in the business of tax preparation you will hear the talk about IRS Publications or pubs. These are not nice informative little flyers that the government sends out in order to keep people abreast of the inner workings of the Internal Revenue Service.

What they are is book sized instructions and data on specific things in the tax world that take a lot of explaining because they are so complicated. In addition almost all forms are covered in or by a publication. It seems like the government way to under simplify things.

For example, filling out your tax return manually if it is fairly basic requires that you fill out a form 1040, 1040A or 1040EZ for the most part. The associated publication that explains every detail line by excruciating line is known as IRS Publications 17 or just plain old pub 17. For the year 2008 this was a mere 299 page document designed to allow you to fill out the one or two page version of the 1040.

Granted it covers everything in detail and also explains the tax tables and the additional forms that you might need depending on your circumstances. But it is none-the-less almost 300 pages worth of IRS Publications that bear witness to the overkill that the federal tax code has become. That would be similar to having a 300-page manual to show you how to operate a vacuum cleaner. Its just more information than is needed for the task.

Everything that they do if it is related to information is available as an IRS publication. The good thing is that the publications are quite in depth and explanatory so you can actually get all the information in one place. The bad thing here is that unless you know which publication covers what, it can be more than just a little difficult to figure out which publication actually has the information that you are after to sold whatever problem you have.

While they are all listed in fairly good depth on the IRS website figuring out which IRS publication is which is not usually as simple as finding a cross reference chart and typing in your form needs and having it spit out the number of the publications that are referencing that particular form. If you are lucky and the form is popular is may be fairly easy to locate, such as the Publication 17 we spoke of above. However if is it s more obscure form you may spend a fair amount of time just trying to locate the correct one for your needs.

IRS Publications are both a blessing and a curse and something that we are going to have to endure for many years.

I suggest you check out my other guide on irs tax help and like kind exchange

Irs Publications

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About IRS Publications

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