Op-ed pick: Taxes are too complicated
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp authored a plan to simplify the tax code. It was released today.
In a column in the Wall Street Journal, Camp explained why he thinks the tax system needs to overhauled.
According to Nina Olsen, the National Taxpayer Advocate at the IRS, Americans overall spend over six billion hours and $168 billion every year to file their returns. This is stark testimony to the complexity of the tax code.
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What's in Camp's plan? He would increase the standard deduction, repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax, and restructure both corporate and individual rates.
First, the tax code will be made simpler—so every family can do its own taxes confidently, without fearing an audit, or wondering if someone else who can afford an expensive accountant is getting a better deal.
Today there are 15 different tax breaks for education—nine for current expenses, two for past expenses and four for future expenses. The IRS instructions explaining it all come to almost 90 pages. That isn't a tax code designed for working families; it is a tax code designed to make money for accountants.
Read the whole Wall Street Journal column here.
The New Republic say the plan is "ambitious, and probably doesn't stand a chance."