To the Editor:
The Internal Revenue Code now contains 3.8 million words, or the equivalent of 13,000 pages of a 300 words per page book. The Internal Revenue Service Rules and Regulations are about twice that size. With all the exemptions, deductions and incentives, this vast tax code is much too complicated and makes it very difficult for citizens and corporations to calculate and pay their taxes without computer software, or an accountant, or lawyer.
Borrowing the words of Henry David Thoreau, we must simplify, simplify the tax code and transform it into a fair, easily understood, progressive tax system. Most of the exemptions, deductions and incentives should be eliminated and those that remain should be accounted for as tax expenditures.
How about a goal of 100 pages, or 30,000 words for the tax code by 2020? The U.S. Constitution, as amended, has approximately 8,000 words.