[Congressional Bills 108th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4109 Introduced in House (IH)]






108th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 4109

To allow seniors with Social Security and pension income to file their 
income tax returns on a new Form 1040SR without regard to the amount of 
               interest or taxable income of the senior.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 1, 2004

  Mr. Burns introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                      Committee on Ways and Means

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To allow seniors with Social Security and pension income to file their 
income tax returns on a new Form 1040SR without regard to the amount of 
               interest or taxable income of the senior.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Simple Tax for Seniors Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds the following:
            (1) More than 35,000,000 individuals are prohibited from 
        using Form 1040EZ to file their income tax returns simply 
        because they are age 62 or older.
            (2) The Congress should aggressively seek to end age 
        discrimination in Federal tax regulation.
            (3) The Internal Revenue Service reports that each year 
        seniors file more than 11,000,000 tax returns claiming only the 
        standard deduction. Because some tax returns are joint returns, 
        standard-deduction returns represent close to 15,000,000 
        seniors. Many, if not all, of these seniors would appreciate 
        the option of a simple and less time-consuming Federal tax 
        return.
            (4) The Internal Revenue Service reports that processing a 
        Form 1040 costs the Government--and, therefore, taxpayers--50 
        percent more than processing a Form 1040EZ.

SEC. 3. FORM 1040SR FOR CERTAIN SENIORS.

    (a) In General.--An eligible senior (and, in the case of a joint 
return, such individual's spouse) shall not be treated as ineligible to 
use the form referred to in subsection (b) to file the return of tax 
imposed under section 1 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 for any 
taxable year beginning after the date of the enactment of this Act on 
the basis of--
            (1) such individual receiving any social security benefit 
        or any distribution from a retirement plan,
            (2) the amount of such taxpayer's taxable interest income, 
        or
            (3) the amount of such taxpayer's taxable income.
    (b) Form 1040SR.--The Secretary of the Treasury shall develop a 
form for purposes of carrying out subsection (a). Such form shall be 
similar to Form 1040EZ, known as ``Form 1040SR'', and a single page 
which is 8 \1/2\ inches by 11 inches in size with clear and reasonable 
type.
    (c) Eligible Senior.--For purposes of this section, the term 
``eligible senior'' means, with respect to any taxable year, any 
individual who has attained age 62 as of the close of such taxable 
year.
                                 <all>