The 75,000 Page Horror Story

While most of the American government can be characterized by regulatory overgrowth, few areas loom larger in the public imagination than the Tax Code. This reputation is well earned, as the Tax Code seems to become more complicated each time people try to reform it. Hundreds of years of revisions have left American taxpayers in an unenviable situation. While tax rates are at historic highs, the complexity of the Tax Code itself presents enough problems to be worthy of a complete renewal. The first problem with the Tax Code complexity is that enforcement has become such a nightmare that even the well-funded IRS cannot begin to properly enforce it. The next problem is that the tax code’s complexity unfairly benefits those with time, resources, and ironically, money, to spend avoiding taxation, allowing the richest and most unethical to benefit from the web of confusion. The last problem with the tax code is that it creates a fundamental rift between the American people and the government through providing a realistic view into the complexity and self-contradictory nature of the state.

The IRS is much maligned by anyone who wants to keep their well learned money, yet one of their greatest problems they face is that they can barely keep their head above water organizationally. The tax code is so complicated that it is nearly impossible to carry out action plans, or even create strategic priorities. Any focus that the IRS chooses for a tax cycle can be contradicted by another part of the tax code. Administrations constantly adding in different elements and revisions of the tax codes mean that the source document for enforcement provides much less clear guidance than can be found at other agencies. Only a small part of the tax code can be enforced, and the subjective choice about what part that is allows a lot of room for corruption and uncertainty. Additionally, the IRS bears the burden of punishing people who unknowingly violated the tax code while being unable to hunt down those who use its complexity to their advantage. A simplified Tax Code would benefit the IRS both strategically and administratively. …