Is Our Tax System Corrupt?

Here’s an intriguing statement from an article in Time magazine:

“Most Americans believe that the federal tax code is highly complex and fundamentally corrupt.”

Certainly our tax code is “highly complex.”  There’s an understatement!

As the article indicates: “The federal code (plus IRS rulings) is now 72,536 pages in total. The code itself is 16,000 pages.”

Whoa. That’s a lot of pages. Enough to make my head spin, and deciphering this code is what I do for a living!

But what about the second part of this statement – “the federal tax code is fundamentally corrupt”. 

What do you make of that?  Would you agree? 

But back to the complexity of our beloved tax system. Even though we regularly hear talk in Washington of “tax simplification”, I don’t see any evidence that our tax code is getting less complex.

Do you?

I do see plenty of evidence of increasing complexity.

Every year. 

Every time Congress and the President pass yet another tax bill, what happens?

Tax simplification? Or more tax complexity? 

Your thoughts? Let me know what you think.

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3 Responses to Is Our Tax System Corrupt?

  1. Rob says:

    Corrupt? Yes, if you consider how politicians have a free pass to much of all of the law. Also, when an issue does come up with a taxpayer, he/she has little chance of getting a fair settlement, when the IRS law is established and enforced by the IRS. Talk about a vested interest!
    Complex? Unbelievable! I know of a person who has been audited and forced to change his computation on an issue of his return. This same issue the next year was audited, and he was forced to change it again, to the original way he computed this item! Proves to me that the IRS really does not have a method to universally define what it is doing.
    I know of many other issues that I cannot relate on this website. I previously worked for the IRS!

  2. gail seale says:

    And thanks to Obamacare, still another computation and boxes to check, and on and on. And I don’t ever see the tax tables changing because quite frankly, the amount to begin taxation is ridiculous.

  3. Yep, if you call the IRS (if you can get through to them these days) five times, you will get 6 or 7 different answers (figure that one out!).

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