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I've nicknamed Karin, SoNot Normal, which, if you knew her well, you'd know is perfect. We left MD last Thursday and made it to Crossville, TN by dinner time, despite my transmission groaning up that last long grade to the top of the Cumberland Plateau. The day was overcast, but we like to travel with cloud cover so the sun isn't heating up the car through the windows. The mountains are always a pleasant sight to us flatlanders. Along the way, we stopped in Abingdon, VA and had an excellent Turkish Coffee. I had them make it with half the sugar they normally use and it was perfect for me. We stayed at a lovely AirBnB on a golf course in a quiet resort area near town. Our host, Brian, gave us a nice tour of the area to get us oriented. I think I got more disoriented, but it was nice to know what was out there. I had an excellent and reasonably priced steak and some craft beers at Spike's, our first night there. It was a great surprise after our long drive, because it looked like a dive bar from the outside, but it was so good, we went back the next night for more. We were pleasantly surprised on Friday to find a great coffee shop in Crossville, and a very good, reasonably priced lunch in town, too at Forte's. (I'm going to stop saying 'reasonably priced' because everything was so cheap compared to back home.) On Saturday, we took the big swan out for a spin on Lake Dartmoor. It was a bit breezy and the wind pushed the boat in circles a few times, but we made it back to dock eventually, and got in almost an hour of very pleasant exercise. I have to buy a pedal boat. I'd much rather pedal a lake or creek than deal with cars on a bike. The seat's more comfortable too. Saturday afternoon was the gathering at Rita's, where I and others survived a Rita hug. Those who haven't survived can be seen here: After much laughter, joke telling, feasting (thanks for the great food Rita & others!), and some really terrible corn hole playing, the group decided to try the Japanese restaurant Rita had recommended, and the laughter and story telling continued into the night, over another great meal. I had some excellent sushi and sake to round out the day. Very cool sake decanter with an ice chamber so the sake doesn't get watered down. On Sunday, Crossville was closed for church, so after discovering that the Quaker meeting was defunct, we drove to Cookville for coffee and then hiked a mile to see the Burgess Falls (more pleasant exercise - I did not gain any weight on this trip, which is always a good thing!). So cool that I accidentally captured a rainbow in that pic! While at the falls, a storm rolled by and one thunderclap sounded way too close for comfort, but we had no choice but to hike back out through the woods. SoNot's fitbit registered 6,000 steps and 20 flights of stairs! Our final dinner in Crossville was another round of sushi. We took the scenic route back through the mountains to Asheville, both to have a relaxing drive and to be gentle with the transmission. There were several scenic overlooks along the way, and we stopped at most of them. Spent the night in Asheville, NC with my nephew and his family, and had lunch downtown before heading to Durham, NC on Tuesday to spend the night with a client who had moved away. They had emailed me two weeks before the trip to thank me for my help and said, 'if you're ever down this way, we'd love to have you spend the night'. And I replied, 'well, as a matter of fact, we'll be by there in two weeks'. I bet they weren't expecting that! We got back to MD yesterday, early afternoon, well rested and still smiling from all the great times we had! Thanks again to the lovely Rita for hosting all of us wackos and allowing us a chance to meet and get to know each other better! I will remember this trip fondly for a very long time.

The camera on my pixel 2 phone is pretty amazing. And I finally got the hang of taking panoramas. I want to print this one and hang it on my wall.

This is simply a scam so politicians can push the false perception that taxes were simplified, when they were not.

About 8 years ago, Ohio simplified from 2 pages to 4. 2016 they added more worksheets/attachments, so now the common return has been simplified to 6 pages. Some "not so informed" salesman, sold the State scanners to read the "simplified" forms. It is so smart, it cannot read a duplex page if the second page is "upside down."

Perhaps you should explore a travel blog. I so wish I could have been there, your photos are amazing!

Am I missing something? Are we not still going to be e-filing these things? And many of the software packages are already schedule driven. I am just failing to see the big deal. The post card idea is nothing more or less than a summary of the tax return information of the supporting schedules, in my opinion.

Here in Louisiana I think the court allows for costs up to 50 cents a page.

Colorado went from one page to six pages in the last few years.

MD went from 2 to 3 and now 4 but really didn't add that much. I prefer compact but easy to read. The trend in computers is more spacing resulting in more scrolling. I'm looking at you, QuickBooks!

Google and I are your friends. Found the selection for the one to IRS.gov site. See page 52 here: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/i1040gi--2010.pdf

Thanks Judy. That calls for a need to find 2010 EIC tables. I'm sure it's on irs.gov somewhere. But that's the problem in putting gazillions of information on a huge website and thinking users can easily find something.

It is a big deal, because they could just have eliminated the alimony and the DPAD adjustment lines at the bottom of page 1, replaced the exemption line with the 20 % PTE Deduction at the top of page 2 and left the rest of Form 1040 unchanged. Then added 1 new form to calculate the PTE Deduction instead of creating 6 new supporting forms ? What a waste !

The Massachusetts return is now FOUR pages that are each 2/3 blank. Only the middle third has ANY information other than name. It is a royal PITA. So don't hold your breath.

It's not 'postcard sized', it's half a page, which is stupid. Just make it one page! And since we efile everything, this is an exercise in ridiculousness. I'm hoping the software companies will be smart enough to print it on one letter sized page and not two pages that are half blank.

I'm with you, @rfassett - that's what I was trying to say. It's just a more-summarized summary. Overdue, to my mind. The 1040 has been masquerading as a standalone, and unless your return is dead-simple (one W-2, no interest, dividends, gains, or doggone near anything else), it's not, and hasn't been that for decades.

That was great, so descriptive I could taste the steak and beer, heard the water going over the falls, and felt my stomach grumble after thinking of sake. This is what fond memories are made of, simply perfect. Sounds like SoNot is a fun travel companion, being so agreeable to the busy schedule you kept her on. Really wish I was there, so glad you all, I mean Y'all were able to do this.

Lynn has a great idea - there may be a state standard, so check it out and charge that amount!

Thanks to both of you. I have to file returns for the past 8 years for someone.

The IRS recently redid their site and the search on this page is pretty good: https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/prior-year Just type '2010 1040 instructions' since that's where the EIC table is.

Missouri went from 2 pages to 5 pages last year.

yes References: IRC 32(c)(2)(A)(i) and Treasury Regulation 31.3402(g)

Found this on google: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/31.3402(g)-1

Hopefully, the AICPA and all the other organizations, along with the tax software companies will fight this ridiculous move. And it's a big deal because we should not have be subject to these changes. As a preparer, I can only see this slowing me down. As a taxpayer, it's a tremendous waste of time.

It is a very large opening for scammers. Nothing else.

Correct, dependents don't get the new full standard deduction. From Rev Proc 2018-18 on the IRS site: I found it on this page on IRS site. Scroll to the section for "Income Tax" and look for that Rev Proc that contains the inflation-related amounts.

It basically turns the 1040 into even more of a summary page. Everything pertinent is on worksheets and subordinate forms and schedules. Meh.