12/28/2024

Our Complex Tax Code Is Crippling America

‘The best solution would be to rip out the individual income tax and replace it with a flat tax that has no deductions or credits’

On the presidential campaign trail, the candidates seem far apart on tax policy. The Democrats favor tax hikes on high earners, and the Republicans favor tax cuts all around. But with voters currently struggling with tax-return filing, all the candidates should be addressing the tax code’s appalling complexity.

Donald Trump did complain that his tax return “would literally probably be 10 feet high if I put them together, it is so complicated and so terrible.” Most people have smaller returns, but federal tax-code compliance overall consumes more than 6 billion hours of time each year, which is like having a “tax army” of 3 million people just filling out tax returns year-round.

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