{"id":4786,"date":"2010-04-15T12:48:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-15T16:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=4786"},"modified":"2010-04-15T17:36:45","modified_gmt":"2010-04-15T21:36:45","slug":"the-case-for-tax-code-simplification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/4786\/the-case-for-tax-code-simplification\/","title":{"rendered":"The Case for Simplifying the Tax Code"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s April 15th \u2013 the date that millions of Americans who waited till the last possible day to file their tax forms with the IRS can wait no longer to feed the insatiable appetite of federal (and state) tax coffers.\u00a0 If you are like most of us, you try to struggle through the filing yourself &#8212; coffee and documentation at the ready &#8212; ultimately giving up and hiring an accountant, a tax-filing firm or downloading an online program.\u00a0 In any event, it is an annual chore.\u00a0 A monumental pain.\u00a0 And an expensive one, at that &#8212; especially if you get it wrong and end up owing penalties.\u00a0 Well, guess what, fellow tax-payers?\u00a0 You are not alone!<\/p>\n<p><em>The Hill<\/em> newspaper <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/house\/92377-few-members-file-own-returns\" target=\"_blank\">reports<\/a> that \u201cfew members of Congress prepare their annual tax returns, instead relying on professional preparers\u2026\u201d\u00a0 The article details how even Ways and Means Committee members &#8212; the very ones responsible for writing the tax code &#8212; need professional help to file their annual taxes. Of the 28 respondents, only one &#8212; Got that? One &#8212; Member of Congress said he did his returns by himself (and he was an accountant for 12 years).<\/p>\n<p>During an interview on C-SPAN&#8217;s &#8220;Newsmakers&#8221; program back in January, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman announced that he doesn\u2019t prepare his own tax returns either.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because, at least in part, he finds the tax code to be \u201ctoo complex\u201d to prepare them himself.<\/p>\n<p>If that is not a case for tax reform, we defy you to find a better one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s April 15th \u2013 the date that millions of Americans who waited till the last possible day to file their tax forms with the IRS can wait no longer to feed the insatiable appetite of federal (and state) tax coffers.\u00a0 If you are like most of us, you try to struggle through the filing yourself [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[84,1115,735,1113,1116,1114,71],"class_list":["post-4786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-congress","tag-douglas-shulman","tag-irs","tag-tax-code","tag-tax-preparation","tag-tax-simplification","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4786"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4805,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4786\/revisions\/4805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}