Wednesday, April 14, 2010

A Few Interesting Points about Our Tax Code

Here are so very interesting bits of trivia regarding the US tax code.

1. Taxes used to be simple. In 1913, the first income tax form and instructions totaled four pages. By contrast, today's 1040 plus instructions totals 176 pages.

2. The tax code gets more complicated. The code is now 3,784,745 words long, not counting the 2009 and 2010 changes. It will get worse in the future.

3. Americans spend more than 7 billion hours trying to comply, according to a forthcoming study from the National Taxpayer Union (NTU). "That is the equivalent of 3.7 million employees working 40-hour weeks year-round without any vacation. That's more workers than are employed at the five biggest employers among Fortune 500 companies," writes David Keating in the NTU study.

4. "Counting time and money for individual taxpayers, the compliance burden would total an incredible $103 billion for individual taxpayers alone."

Don't get me wrong. I pay my taxes and realize that we have to pay for services that our government performs. However, I think our system of taxation needs to be completely overhauled. If I had my choice, we would move to a simple flat tax system and get rid of all of the deductions. I benefit from some of them, but I also know that people are paying for my deductions.