The IRS double-checked my return. Do we really need to do our own taxes anymore?

They know it

It’s tax time again. I’m not sure why I have to fill out all these forms. The IRS obviously has all my data. Once, I erred on my return and 18 months later I was notified about an adjustment. Why couldn’t the IRS present me with my forms pre-filled and give me a chance to accept, contest or file manually? My recent online experience indicates the computers won’t let me make a critical error.

Tax Day drama seems so 20th century.

- William King, Spring Hill

Plaza neglected

I have lived on the Country Club Plaza for 13 years. I have never seen it looking so rundown. Crumbling and buckling sidewalks, potholes on cracked streets, broken glass on empty storefront doors, patches of yellow and white paint that used to be street markings, trash filling empty flower beds — these are just some of the eyesores that greet visitors and residents.

For several weeks, only one flag has been flying on the pedestrian bridge over Brush Creek — an American flag with a giant hole in it. Beautiful mosiac tiles on the bridge that used to display our sister cities are now either gone or broken. Steps leading to the bridge are hazardous because the concrete is so severely damaged and in need of repair. And there are so many empty storefronts.

It makes me sad to see the beauty of the Plaza fading away. I have sent pictures to the city. I hope to one day see the beauty of the Plaza restored.

- Janet Mays, Kansas City

Stadium options

Much of The Star’s recent news coverage regarding the possible relocation of the Royals and Chiefs has not mentioned three major issues:

▪ Proposals that would abandon a multi-hundred-million-dollar public investment in the Truman Sports Complex.

▪ Proposals that would replace that public investment with even larger public investments.

▪ Proposals that would create a new public expenditure need — funding the maintenance or replacement of a stadium desert in eastern Jackson County. Related, there has been little discussion of the two teams’ responsibility regarding these future costs.

The news stories failed to mention two obvious options that would make the existing complex more attractive and sustainable:

▪ The addition of the previously discussed rolling roof that would end rain delays and postponements for the Royals and muddy fields for the Chiefs.

▪ An extension of the Main Street streetcar to the sports complex, improving accessibility to the stadiums from downtown, Midtown and the Plaza.

- Dick Davis, Kansas City

The poor rich?

I was surprised at The Kansas City Star’s choice of publishing Jay Ambrose’s yellow journalism commentary of April 8. (8A, “Attacking rich means attacking the country”) Ambrose erroneously equates “hating the rich” with asking America’s wealthy to pay their fair tax share. He disparages President Joe Biden as “just another sly politician” Sen. Elizabeth Warren as “overreaching” and earmarks as “the practice whereby a member of Congress sells his vote.”

Although federal revenue includes corporate income taxes, excise taxes, payroll taxes, individual income taxes and more, Ambrose focuses on just one: individual income taxes. Without documentation, he claims that poor citizens receive more benefits from government than the wealthy. Recently, through the Republicans’ Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the wealthy received significant tax cuts for pass-through income, carried interest, investment income, reductions to the estate tax and the elimination of the corporate alternative minimum tax.

Earlier, the Donald Trump/Scott Pruitt EPA granted billionaires, such as Carl Icahn and others, a “financial hardship” waiver from the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard regulation.

Congress should institute a wealth tax.

- Angela Schieferecke, Prairie Village

This story was originally published April 13, 2022 at 5:00 AM.