And In Other News, The Sun Set in the West

James Maule notes the stunning news... THE TAX CODE IS TOO COMPLEX! Stop the presses...

In her just-released Annual Report, the National Taxpayer Advocate of the IRS has concluded that "The most serious problem facing taxpayers and the IRS alike is the complexity of the Internal Revenue Code."

No. What a shock. What a surprise.

Congress itself, in section 7803(c)(2)(B)(ii)(IX) of the Internal Revenue Code, requires the National Taxpayer Advocate, in its required annual report to the Congress, to "identify areas of the tax law that impose significant compliance burdens on taxpayers or the Internal Revenue Service, including specific recommendations for remedying these problems."Nina Olson, the National Taxpayer Advocate, explains that:

Focusing on the tax system as a whole, this is an easy mandate to
fulfill: Without a doubt, the largest source of compliance burdens for
taxpayers and the IRS alike is the overwhelming complexity of the tax code, and without a doubt, the only meaningful way to reduce these compliance burdens is to simplify the tax code enormously. In the balance of this part of the report, we identify and discuss 20 additional serious problems encountered by taxpayers, as required by IRC §7803(c)(2)(B)(ii)(III). Most serve as case studies that illustrate the consequences of tax law complexity.

To do this, she has issued a 630-page report.

630 pages. She definitely knows how to get in the spirit.