Don't Mess With Taxes

The 2019 tax year started awkwardly. The Internal Revenue Service is getting ready to open a filing season that involves the first major tax law changes in more than three decades but it's stymied by a partial government shutdown.

While we're waiting for the folks in Washington, D.C., to get their acts together, life and taxes go on. We still have to deal with the annual onslaught of forms and documents and, of course, numbers.

Then when that's done and we're assessed the damage, we have to make tax moves for 2019 so that our result will be less taxing this time next years.

All this means that we're going to be awash in lots and lots of tax-related numbers.

At least from my standpoint, all these figures provide plenty of fodder for the 2019 version of By the Numbers.

This is the ninth year for this numerical tradition here at the ol' blog.

And in keeping with the numeric posts of 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 2017 and 2018, I'll select a new figure each week.

The figures will range from tax rate percentages to dollar amounts to titles of tax legislation to raw numbers and much, much more. Basically, I'll choose any and every thing that can be counted in even a remote tax way as the weekly feature.

Again as in past years, I'll try to get the relevant figures up each weekend, usually on Sunday. But sometimes stuff happens, meaning the number goes up early or, more often than not, late.

Regardless of the timing, you can always find a link to the new number on the ol' blog's home page under the multicolored numbers box (pictured on this page, too!), as well as on this special page. The newest post each week will go at the top of the list.

So welcome 2019. Let's make you count!

• $1,000
  IRS offers tax penalty relief to some who didn't have enough withheld or paid too little estimated taxes (Jan. 20, 2019)
  
• 22*
  22 days and counting into the longest federal government shutdown ever (Jan. 12, 2019) *Day count will be updated, well, daily until the shutdown ends.
• 6
  6 top tax issues of 2018 and what to expect in 2019 (Jan. 6, 2019)