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I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but I think GP's frustration is with the pain of the process and not the pain of paying. Think about, there are two p

I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but I think GP's frustration is with the pain of the process and not the pain of paying. Think about, there are two pains occurring here: 1) the pain of parting w/ money 2) the pain of preparing taxes and fearing you made a mistake The pain of preparation is caused in large part by the complexity of the code. Nothing in the American system is deterring politicians from adding new rules and more complexity. In fact, creating loopholes in the tax code is one of their biggest sources of lobbying dollars.

bluGill 9y ago
it isn't just lobbying dollars. Loopholes are created to drive behavior. An example, if you want to do something about global warming you need to get people/companies to buy efficient things, but such things have a higher up front cost (in many cases the difference is not repaid if you invest the difference). One thing you can do to encourage the behavior of buying more efficient things is to make the tax code encourage it. There are of course many other options, and each will get a different class of people to change behavior. Debating which is best is a side discussion you may have.