Volcker-Led Economic Panel Pushes For Simpler U.S. Tax Code…..(One That The Average College Graduate Can Understand We Hope)!
Posted By thestatedtruth.com on August 29, 2010
Yep, this is a true fact….Lawmakers have changed the tax code more than 15,000 times since the last major overhaul in 1986. Unbelievable!
The current income tax forms (other than the 1040 short form) are so complicated that the average educated person still needs a tax preparer to do their taxes. This new report from Paul Volcker proposes a “simple return” that could be pre-filled by the Internal Revenue Service and mailed to as many as 60 million taxpayers who don’t itemize deductions and receive all their income from employers who report to the IRS directly. People could simply check it for accuracy, sign it and send it back in. The report now goes to President Obama and the deficit commission, as well as to congressional policymakers (this will usually kill anything that makes sense) and it’s unclear just how much influence this report will have…..(our hope is that the powers to be will understand the problem). The last time it was proposed was in 2005, when a panel developed detailed recommendations for changes to the tax system that were quickly shelved by President George W. Bush.
The summary below was taken from The Washington Post
American taxpayers spend 7.6 billion hours and roughly $140 billion a year to comply with the bewildering thicket of requirements in the federal tax code, according to a report released Friday by a White House advisory board whose members urged Congress to adopt their ideas for simplifying people’s lives at tax time.
In a 18-month review, the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board found that the complexity of the nation’s tax laws has increased dramatically in recent years. Lawmakers have changed the code more than 15,000 times since the last major overhaul in 1986. Meanwhile, instruction booklets for the standard Form 1040 have swelled from 14 pages to 44 pages last year.
The board also found that the profusion of credits, deductions, phaseouts and conflicting eligibility requirements frays the sanity of ordinary taxpayers just as surely as it complicates the calculations of wealthy families and business owners. The resulting 118-page report nonetheless offers dozens of ideas for improving the code, starting with simplification for average people.
For example, the report cites more than 20 tax laws that provide incentives to save for retirement and other purposes, such as education and medical expenses, and that together deprive the Treasury of an estimated $118 billion year. But their sheer number and conflicting rules leave taxpayers confused and intimidated, the report says, raising doubts about their effectiveness.
For the full 126 page report, go to:   http://wapo.st/b67U2u
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