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The tax code's march toward complexity

Published April 18, 2006 at midnight

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We may fast be approaching the day when everybody's tax returns will be done by somebody - or something - else.

This year, over 60 percent of American taxpayers paid someone else to do their returns, and that doesn't include those who used computer programs.

David Keating of the National Taxpayers Union suggests that congressional tax writers spend at least 20 hours each trying to fill out the forms before throwing in the towel and handing them over to a professional.

The NTU, which takes a malicious glee in documenting this stuff, notes that the 1040 instruction book has grown from two pages in 1935 to 142 pages today. While Bush has preached tax simplification, the complexity has accelerated under his watch. The booklet was 117 pages when he took office.

Congress likes to pretend that the tax code and the Internal Revenue Service are something that just happened, like bad weather. But the tax code is purely and totally a creation of Congress.

Observed the NTU: "Paperwork burdens aren't the result of IRS bureaucrats mindlessly dreaming up new forms and regulations. Much of the burden increase is due to a flood of new tax laws . . . These laws did reduce tax bills for middle-class taxpayers, but significantly increased their paperwork burdens." We don't want to seem grasping, but couldn't we have lower and simpler?