Inflation tops tax worries, according to one survey

Millions say "no, back off," to their taxes every year, as Tax Day nears. They get an extension to delay doing their annual returns. They also have some strong feelings, as the survey discussed below reveals, about taxes and the filing process. (Photo by Alena Shekhovtcova)

Tax Day 2023 — that's Tuesday, April 18, in case you forgot — is almost here.

As of April 7, the latest date of tax filings the Internal Revenue Service has tallied for its filing season reports, the agency has received just more than 101.3 million returns. That down almost 2 percent from the same time period in 2022.

If this year's filings do continue to essentially follow 2022's pattern, the IRS is expecting a rush of last-minute returns over the next few days.

It's also expecting a lot of the folks who've yet to submit a Form 1040 to get a filing extension. That's OK with Uncle Sam, since he gets, or is supposed to, the tax money due with those Form 4868 extension requests.

Also, for your information, although the form's official name is Application for Automatic Extension of Time To File U.S. Individual Income Tax Return, the IRS doesn't ask you to justify why you want to wait to completer your return, and the application approval is automatic.

Annual tax thoughts: Also automatic every filing season are the surveys that ask us taxpayers what we would rather do than file our returns.

WalletHub's 2023 tax survey found that as far as the actual task of completing returns, 49 percent of us would rather server on a jury; 36 percent would prefer to talk to their kids about sex; and 26 percent said they would miss a connecting flight if it meant not having to mess with their taxes.

To have a totally tax-free life, respondents to the WalletHub queries had some even more interesting answers. To guarantee a tax-free future they would —

No judging here, but I think that the questions say as much about the people who came up with the choices as do the percentages of folks who picked those answers.

The infographic below has more highlights. You also can read about the full survey and what experts think of the answers at WalletHub.

Source: WalletHub

Inflation more than IRS: There also is a bit of good news for the IRS. This year, taxes aren't the biggest worry of those surveyed.

WalletHub found that tax worries in 2023 are taking a backseat to stress about inflation. The survey found that 81 percent of people are more worried about the increasing cost of, well, everything more than taxes.

That's why 81 percent is this weekend's By the Numbers figure.

You also might find these items of interest:

• Form 4868, the tax procrastinator's best friend
• Tax-filing tips for the last weekend before Tax Day
• Estimated taxes: Why, when, and how to pay them

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