A Call for Tax Simplification

This month, the head of the Taxpayer Advocate Service released her annual report to Congress, which said the complexity of the tax law is the most serious problem facing taxpayers. This certainly is not surprising. The report found that:

• Taxpayers spend about 7.6 billion hours a year complying with tax-filing requirements.
• Taxpayers spend $193 billion a year complying with income tax requirements, an amount that equals 14 percent of the total amount of income taxes collected.
• The number of words in the tax code has reached 3.7 million.
• Over the past eight years, changes to the tax code have been made at a rate of more than one a day – including more than 500 changes in 2008 alone.

Let's hope Congress listens. The complete report is available at http://www.irs.gov/advocate/article/0,,id=202276,00.html.