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The complexity is by design to make it harder to audit and easier to hide cheating. Given clear and straightforward code/laws, it becomes hard to cheat.

xadhominemx 7y ago
That is absolutely not true. Much of the complexity of the tax code is present in order to clearly prescribe rules in edge case situations in order to reduce judgement calls that would inevitably tilt in favor of the filer.
- cptskippy 7y ago
  The complexity isn't driven by the IRS, they've been pushing for simplification but lobbyist for businesses push for rules changes, and lobbyists for the tax filing industry push for rules to solidify the need for their industry. Just like Healthcare and Gun control, there are industries and 3rd parties with vested interests in keeping the system complicated and hard to track or enforce so they can profit.
sseveran 7y ago
The complexity is by design because congress for over 100 years has been creating laws one by one to give preferential treatment to various groups that they want to favor at the expense of others. The consequence is that for anything moderately or more complex there is actually no correct answer on what your tax liability is. What is the value of an intangible asset? How do you define novelty for the R&D tax credit? There are thousands of intersecting rules that change your liability and many of those are up to interpretation.
matwood 7y ago
> The complexity is by design to make it harder to audit and easier to hide cheating. You ascribe too much to malice, when it is typically just plain old politics. Representative will only vote to tax X if his/her constituent Y is excluded somehow. Add these types of items over many bills/years and you get what we have today.
- cptskippy 7y ago
  The tax industry lobbies heavily to influence tax code and laws to maintain their relevance. The IRS has tried many times to either simplify the tax code or offer services to tax payers to simplify reconciling obligations. Remember in 2016 when the IRS wanted to mail out prefilled tax forms that tax payers would just sign and send back for or with a check? Remember how the tax industry lobbied Congress to pass the Free File Act of 2016 which permanently bars the IRS from providing free filing services? I suppose that wasn't malice. What about when big corporations lobby Congress to not close loop holes? http://www.citizen.org/documents/corporate-tax-lobbying-report.pdf http://www.citizen.org/documents/corporate-tax-lobbying-repo... Call it "plain old politics" or call it "malice" but either way it's intentional.

xadhominemx 7y ago

That is absolutely not true. Much of the complexity of the tax code is present in order to clearly prescribe rules in edge case situations in order to reduce judgement calls that would inevitably tilt in favor of the filer.

cptskippy 7y ago
The complexity isn't driven by the IRS, they've been pushing for simplification but lobbyist for businesses push for rules changes, and lobbyists for the tax filing industry push for rules to solidify the need for their industry. Just like Healthcare and Gun control, there are industries and 3rd parties with vested interests in keeping the system complicated and hard to track or enforce so they can profit.

sseveran 7y ago

The complexity is by design because congress for over 100 years has been creating laws one by one to give preferential treatment to various groups that they want to favor at the expense of others. The consequence is that for anything moderately or more complex there is actually no correct answer on what your tax liability is. What is the value of an intangible asset? How do you define novelty for the R&D tax credit? There are thousands of intersecting rules that change your liability and many of those are up to interpretation.

matwood 7y ago

> The complexity is by design to make it harder to audit and easier to hide cheating. You ascribe too much to malice, when it is typically just plain old politics. Representative will only vote to tax X if his/her constituent Y is excluded somehow. Add these types of items over many bills/years and you get what we have today.

cptskippy 7y ago
The tax industry lobbies heavily to influence tax code and laws to maintain their relevance. The IRS has tried many times to either simplify the tax code or offer services to tax payers to simplify reconciling obligations. Remember in 2016 when the IRS wanted to mail out prefilled tax forms that tax payers would just sign and send back for or with a check? Remember how the tax industry lobbied Congress to pass the Free File Act of 2016 which permanently bars the IRS from providing free filing services? I suppose that wasn't malice. What about when big corporations lobby Congress to not close loop holes? http://www.citizen.org/documents/corporate-tax-lobbying-report.pdf http://www.citizen.org/documents/corporate-tax-lobbying-repo... Call it "plain old politics" or call it "malice" but either way it's intentional.