America's 75,000 Page Horror Story
America's 75,000 Page Horror Story
https://www.schiffgold.com/commentaries/the-75000-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, https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Most-Serious-Problems-Tax-Code-Complexity.pdf
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 https://www.schiffgold.com/commentaries/trump-needs-the-money-printer
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.
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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 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-04-15/irs-job-cuts-will-slow-processing-of-returns-on-tax-day-and-beyond
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.
https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/tax-avoidance-top
. The IRS’ inability to enforce the Code along with the massive opportunity for abuse make complicated tax laws a boon for their intended targets.
At the root of the American identity is a repulsion to taxation. Of course some taxation is necessary for any government to exist, but https://budget.house.gov/press-release/cato-institute-poll-americans-want-congress-to-pair-tax-cuts-with-significant-spending-reforms#:~:text=Taxes%20Are%20Already%20Too%20High,spending%20to%20balance%20the%20budget.
but forcing a massive and extremely complicated set of laws to come into contact with nearly every American, every year, does little to repair the bond that has been severed. The worst stereotypes of the Federal Government are shown to be true in the tax codes’ bland display of bureaucratic rot and excess.
Before the level of taxation can be discussed, we must first recognize the blatantly terrible practicalities of the tax code. It is both theoretically and practically compromised. It does no good for those enforcing it or those it is being enforced upon.
While a simplified tax code might not provide a special case for every possibility in human life, https://www.schiffgold.com/guest-commentaries/free-markets-from-competition-to-cooperation
.
Some good things would not be as heavily incentivized by tax credits, but the deletion of the miasma of confusion that currently exists would allow Americans of all types to flourish.
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Mon, 06/30/2025 - 17:40
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/americas-75000-page-horror-story
