I don't see how the US Federal Tax Code could get more complicated without just inserting pure gibberish into it.

The thing is, most of the tax code doesn't apply to everyday citizen. The really complicated stuff only applies to a certain number and I'm sure they have well paid people doing their best to avoid those sections.

The easy way to get people riled up about taxes? Remove withholding from paychecks and force people to write that big check every April. Then you'll get an uproar since most people have no idea how much in taxes they pay. But that's likely not the point you're trying to make.

> "The easy way to get people riled up about taxes? Remove withholding from paychecks and force people to write that big check every April. Then you'll get an uproar since most people have no idea how much in taxes they pay. But that's likely not the point you're trying to make."

This would have the desired effect, but also others. Mostly that the IRS would suddenly have a lot of individuals who owed money to the government but couldn't pay it. I agree with this in principle, but the current system has trained (intentionally, I would argue) people to not think about what they pay in taxes or what it gets used for. Suddenly reverting to a system that demands financial planning and responsibility from individuals isn't workable. It takes time.

That number is already shown on W-2s and copied to the tax return. I guess it's easier to not care about the number than it would be to not care about a check.

One thing that would happen is that a lot more people would come up short at tax time.

And yet if you ask people how much they pay taxes they probably don't know.

They may know how much they take home and how much they get back on their return, but the dollar amount they pay in taxes? I would bet most don't know.

Oh, I agree with that. I was just pointing out that the information is already pretty available (It isn't actually on the W-2, that's just withholding, but it's a line item on the 1040). To me that at least hints at people not believing they can do much to change it, rather than being completely oblivious.

A flat tax is highly regressive and is basically a giveaway to the rich. A flat tax system that attempts to be fair ends up being a progressive rate system by another name. Either way, a flat tax system isn't any better than the current system because the progressive marginal rate structure isn't where the complexity of the tax code lies.

You are missing the incentive structure that results from over-complicating the tax code.

Getting angry about an over-complicated and taking productive action to change it takes effort. Lots of it, sustained over time in an organized and intelligent way. But people generally aren't passionate about taxes. They're passionate about hobbies, their families, friends, major life goals, and so on. Taxes are just an obstacle to move past.

When you overcomplicate the tax code, you create a huge market for companies willing to take on that burden for you, at a price. Because they operate at scale, they achieve efficiencies that no individual or small group can hope to achieve. Doing peoples' taxes is much more palatable when you're getting paid to do so. Meanwhile, John and Jane Smith can go back to what they're really passionate about.

For a price.

As a litmus test for a country's tax code, I propose: if a typical high school graduate with access to all necessary information cannot do his or her federal/national taxes in an afternoon, your country's tax code is too complicated.

They can if they literally just graduated high school. 1040EZ.

The problem is when you are a homeowner, have family, have a business, etc.

I totally agree. I spent about 6 hours today trying to sort through federal, state, AND city forms--3 levels of hell, really, with city being the worst. For city, I was denied the ability to e-file after going through a long sign-up process spanning many pages and questions. They asked for my SSN at least 5 times. At the end, with a simple 3-question form, they determined I wasn't eligible to e-file. Maybe they should have put that first.

The rules shouldn't be so convoluted that we have to pay private companies to untangle the mess for us. The government had a choice in the matter; they could have gone with simplicity instead of the Gordion knot. I guess I'm not surprised, since we're forced to deal with their system. We can't vote with our dollars, only votes at the ballot box, and last time I checked, simplifying the tax code wasn't on the agenda.

German citizen here. 70% of all tax literature is German, because our law is notoriously complex. Efforts to simplify it have largely failed. So, I wouldn't hold my breath.