No one likes Tax Day, except for accountants and Uncle Sam.  And as we’re just days away from the Monday, April 15 tax deadline, many are discovering that the paperwork required and the amount they may owe is going to be hard to swallow. Thankfully, we have something here in Fairfield and Suisun Valley to help – wine. Lots and lots of wine.

Suisun Valley and nearby Green Valley are home to over a dozen tasting rooms. All are open on the weekends and this Sunday is the annual spring celebration, Passport Sunday. Over 1,000 people will be in the valley for the sold-out event. Looking for one open on Monday after you file your taxes? Cheers! We have seven! Wooden Valley Winery, G V Cellars, BackRoad Vines, Il Fiorello Olive Oil Company, Vezer Family Vineyard’s Mankas Gardens and Blue Victorian, and Sonoma Harvest Olive Oil & Winery are all open seven days a week. Also open daily is Jelly Belly’s Wine & Chocolate Experience, where you can pair your wine with delicious confections made in the Fairfield factory.

According to WalletHub, over 150 million individual tax returns are expected to be filed in the 2019 tax season.  Approximately 90% of those returns will be filed electronically. The estimated revenue from the 2019 tax season is $1.76 trillion (compared to $1.68 trillion in 2018)! To put that in perspective, 92% of all federal revenue is brought in by the IRS.  Of course, not everyone will owe this tax season.  While the average refund in 2019 is $2,957, it’s estimated that because of the new tax laws, 4.6 million fewer taxpayers will receive refunds this filing season.

Did we mention we have wine – AND beer?  Check out all of our tasting rooms here!

Tax Day Facts

• Tax Day in the United States is the due date for filing personal income tax with the federal government each year. The Revenue Act of 1861 introduced federal income tax as a means to financially help the Civil War however it was held unconstitutional when challenged. In 1913 the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted and subsequently all incomes in the U.S. were legally taxable. The first tax filing deadline was March 1, 1913. The date was changed in 1918 to March 15, and then in 1955 it was changed to April 15. Tax Day in the United States falls on April 15 each year unless the 15th is a weekend or holiday, which means Tax Day is then the next non-weekend or holiday date.
• The Latin word for ‘tax’ is ‘taxo’. It means ‘I estimate’.
• In 1913 the federal tax code was only 400 pages in length but by 2010 it was 70,000 pages long.
• It is estimated that the average person works for the first 100+ days of the year to pay their income taxes.
• Federal income tax is not the only tax Americans have to pay. There are also social security tax, sales tax, property tax, alcohol tax, tobacco tax, gambling tax, and excise tax.
• There are several states that do not charge a state tax on top of the federal income tax. These states include Wyoming, Washington, Texas, South Dakota, Nevada, Florida, and Alaska.
• In 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. The next year Social Security numbers became available but these numbers were not required on tax forms until 1961.
• Americans spend 8.1B hours preparing tax returns. The average individual spends 11 hours filing a return. In comparison,  22 million hours went into constructing the world’s tallest building, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa
• Tax Day is not a celebrated holiday in the United States.  As Albert Einstein said, “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”