To follow up on this with a point that's been made here on HN before: the problem with the tax is not so much the backend complexity as the user interface. Deal

To follow up on this with a point that's been made here on HN before: the problem with the tax is not so much the backend complexity as the user interface. Dealing with the kind of situations @rayiner describes above explains why we are where we are. But that's inevitable with a progressive tax code. The UI problem itself has largely been solved by TurboTax. It could be solved by government itself with a simple free web interface but that's not how America works, for better or worse. And, on review of the article itself, I see it's about simplifying tax filing, not the tax code itself. I'm not against the idea of cleaning up the tax code, removing the outdated cruft and making it more transparent, if that's possible. But simplifying taxes in the way flat-tax-proponents want will only make sure the rich get richer.