@ihashblox, if you were planning to write something to help keep 1040EZ filers from overpaying, please do so! I look forward to seeing it. My post here was just meant to alert people to the dangers of putting too many of their eggs in the pretax basket, while the second half will offer some thoughts on how to invest outside of pretax accounts. In other words, these two posts are about making tax-efficient choices in investing, whereas it sounds like what you're talking about is how to optimize your taxes when filing each year.