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NTU tcomplexity study shows absurdity of progressive taxation

POSTED April 15, 10:26 PM

Imagine how different things would be for all of us if all we had to do to file our taxes was fill out a simple, one-page return as part of a flat tax system? No spending hours tracking down all those receipts and other documents to insure that you get all of the deductions you are entitled to, replacing lost forms, going blind trying to read those endless, confusing IRS explanations of how to compute this and calculate that, sorting through a computer software program to prepare your return, etc. etc. etc.

We won't be freed of those burdens until Congress gets with it and abolishes the present monster of a tax system and replaces it with the justice and simplicity of a flat tax that treats every taxpayer equally. For now, we're stuck with the monster.

The National Taxpayer's Union released its latest study of the cost and complexity of the tax system and the study provides page after page of documentation of how abusive and costly the system is, making you marvel that taxpayers continue to put up with this absurdity.

NTU's Andrew Moylan notes these "lowlights" detailed in the study:

Individual taxpayers will spend about 3.55 billion hours complying with income tax laws this year -- up from 3.18 billion hours last year. The value of this time is worth $92.6 billion.
They'll also spend a lot of money this year: an estimated $27.7 billion for tax software, tax preparers, postage, and other out-of-pocket costs.
Americans filing a Form 1040 with common schedules this year will confront 155 pages of instructions, nearly quadruple the number in 1975 and nearly triple the number in 1985, the year before taxes were "simplified."
The average long-form taxpayer paid $268 last year for out-of-pocket filing costs -- an 11 percent increase over two years. The average self-employed taxpayer paid $444 in out-of-pocket costs -- a 9 percent increase over the same period.
As of March 15, the average per-client fee of H&R Block (which prepares one in seven tax returns filed by all Americans) was $169.15 -- a 5.5 percent jump from the same time last year.
Corporations spend about $170.4 billion on tax compliance -- equivalent to 43 percent of corporate income taxes collected in FY 2007.
Treasury Department paperwork, which consists almost entirely of tax forms, imposed a burden of 6.97 billion hours on Americans in 2006 and a projected 7.2 billion hours in 2007. The latter figure is the equivalent of some 3.5 million employees working 40-hour weeks year-round without any vacation.
A new study from the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Bank found that the U.S. ranks 122nd worldwide (out of 175 studied) in ease of corporate tax filing compliance; an American company would spend 325 hours filing taxes, compared to companies in Hong Kong (80), the U.K. (105), and Germany (196).

How much longer until people say "enough" and demand action in Congress?