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 wan

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.