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We don't have many yet, but of course the 2018 tax bill ("Tax Cuts and Jobs Act") hasn't quite passed yet. But - we probably will, I imagine, get a fair number of questions given that this has substantial impact on both itemized deductions and on filing for those who don't have employee status.

Is it appropriate to have a specific tag just for questions about how to handle these things in 2018 (and forward), and if so, what should it be called?

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  • Good question, but I think we need a much bigger discussion: Do we want to continue to allow questions about proposed bills that aren't law yet. An even bigger discussion that needs to happen is what we are going to do with all the old tax Q&A that gets invalidated once the new bill becomes law.
    – Ben Miller
    Dec 18, 2017 at 18:48
  • I have tried twice to write an answer but I am not sure what I think will work. Close them? lock all the questions after the bill passes, and only unlock those are still relevant after the bill becomes law?
    – mhoran_psprep
    Dec 19, 2017 at 13:39
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    Ok, the bill's passed. Now what? :)
    – Joe
    Dec 20, 2017 at 19:22

3 Answers 3

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The problem with having a specific tag for this bill is that once it becomes law, it is law. It will not be temporary or tied to a specific year. All future United States income tax questions will need to take this law into account.

I don't have a complete answer for what should be done with past income tax questions and answers, but I do not think that a special tag for this bill is useful, especially since it looks like the bill will inevitably become law very shortly.

We have gotten some questions about what should be done preemptively this year before the new law takes effect, and we may get a few more, but if we had a tag for that class of questions, it would theoretically only be useful for another 11 days.

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  • I think it'll be useful for a few months; I'm not just talking about people making changes to their behaviors in 2017, but also people asking about how they'll have to modify things in 2018 as well. I think we'll get people who want to search specifically for questions about the new bill for a few months at least; thus it is probably useful, at least for now. Obviously future tax questions wouldn't have this tag - just questions now, about how it's different from previous.
    – Joe
    Dec 20, 2017 at 21:26
  • @Joe I do see your point about this being a unique class of questions, and maybe you are right. But here's what I'm struggling with: Is a question that says "Given the new tax law, how can I improve my tax situation" really any different than any other tax question that says "Given the tax law as it is at the time I ask this question, how can I improve my tax situation"?
    – Ben Miller
    Dec 21, 2017 at 2:12
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I'll suggest one, to get the voting rolling:

I'm not sure if it would need to indicate 'US'; I imagine any question should also have so that is unnecessary. I didn't want to use the full name (because it's silly, long, and the actual official name changed anyway due to ... something byrd act something); so the simplest is the above. Discoverable and reasonably usable?

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I was going to propose

but I agree with Ben, that it will quickly just be the regular tax tags.

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