USANews版 - Congress Discovers That the Sun Rises in the East |
|---|
|
|
|
|
|
|
l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 1 Congress Discovers That the Sun Rises in the East: GAO Finds Link Between
Tax Complexity and "Tax Gap"
by n*****[email protected] (Dan Meyer)
The Government Accountability Office recently released a study which
indicated that the voluminous amount of content in the U. S. Tax Code and
Regulations can lead to errors and understated taxes.
While the GAO said that some of the complexity could lead to properly
measuring income or identifying risk areas for noncompliance; they also said
that compliance costs were in excess of $100 billion per year, that
economic efficiency was doubtlessly damaged by tax complexity; that errors
on the IRA deduction ALONE probably led to over $6 billion in underreported
income and that, as Senator Hatch pointed out, complexity probably undercuts
willingnes to comply.
It should be noted that Senator Max Baucus deserves some credit for pointing
out the potential kick-start to the economy that a less complex tax system
might produce.
Ya think?! Numerous tax bloggers have already discussed tax complexity and
its economic and compliance costs; perhaps (or am I being too optimistic
again) Congress can be shaken to its senses by the possibilty that tax
revenues might be "sitting on the table" while the U.S. reaches devastating
levels of debt and deficit.
I think that Mike Huckabee's and Neal Boortz' FAIR tax is politically a step
too far (though probably not a bad idea theoretically) but certainly the
GAO recommendations of eliminating some tax expenditures and standardizing
IRS definitions are politically possible (though not necessarily sufficient)
. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
