The US Has More Tax Preparers Than Cops and Firemen Combined: Is It Time to Simplify the Tax Code?

But also eliminate loopholes while simplifying it, rather than making a single loophole so big one could drive a truck through it.

You think this is bad? Try to work out HM Revenue taxes, they're impossible! How difficult is it to say "Count up your earnings. If you earnt between x1 and x2, pay x3%. If you don't, we will put you in prison".

Ya think?

I can't comprehend why a tax code would need to be more than 10 pages long. Count up all your income for the quarter. If you earn between this and this, pay this. If you don't, we'll put you in prison. In how many words do you need to put this?

Exactly!

I had no idea we had so many police officers. Not really sure that we need more though. How many prison and jails do we really need. You know that there is a problem when there is a unpropartional amount of races and poverty struck people in jail. I totally could see how we could use more firefighters and EMT's though. If you do not like that amount of tax preparers we have perhaps you should do your own taxes! Did you know that there is a direct correlation between ice cream sales and heat stoke victims. If not maybe you should go back to school, unless you are one of those inbreed hillbillies, we do not want to mess up the gene pool! Great idea to fix deficit btw get rid of more jobs and spread corruption idiots! Defiantly not Progressive. OR IF YOU CAN NOT HANDLE THE TRUTH CLOSE YOUR EYES AGAIN. http://www.americanprogress.o...

Flat tax or tax on all purchases, so everyone pays and no need for an irs.

flat tax and shut every loop hole in the book.. scrap the 666 plan that we have now

Howeer, I haven't hear of any viable system yet.

Actually it's heard!! Rushing too much.

How about everybody above the poverty level pay the same percent. No loopholes. It's fair, and cheap. We can save billions on IRS and accountants. Imagine the joy and peace.

Could be ! Maybe a scale from $10 to 10 million depending on your income. I'd have to see the details.

My idea is making the first £12,000/$18,000 of anyone's income pa tax free, and pay 25% of the next £78,000/$132,000 in tax, and 35% of any further income.

Yah, dummy there are more tax preparers not because it's too hard but because people are too lazy to use their own computers an do it themselves

That is one of the original issues in my Campaign and still is. Our Tax system is badly broken for many years and only gets worse with time. Please read my blog on real Tax Reform for an explanation of what real Tax Reform should look like.

I would really appreciate all of the support that anyone gives my Campaign for the American People so that we can win for YOU. My Campaign has ALWAYS Represented the best interests of ALL of the people and can be supported at the above address and found at:

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When you have endured the gauntlet of laws and tax laws written by the likes of Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and others who enabled our six year fiscal nightmare, it should be obvious to everyone that the code must be changed.

We can see that the 6% who voted here are tax preparers firmly disagree. There is no need to make the average tax return so complicated that and stressing that three IRS agents or CPAs can do the same return and come up with different numbers. Certainly, those defrauded out of their returns by identity theft can't possibly be pleased with the process either.

With would all be better off with a simpler system that has a greater portion of the population paying a smaller amount in taxes. Of course, we need jobs for that to happen. If you need to elect someone based on creation of jobs, Romney's work saved many, created some and lost some, but with a positive number overall. Obama just has ACORN who play a significant role in this drawn out fiscal calamity.

Taxation is theft. Simplifying theft is not the answer. Get rid of all taxation and let people pay for the government "services" they want. All of the real services that people actually want would be fully funded and the government wouldn't have any money to spend on all the phony services. People would soon discover that everything they want, including security, justice, and roads, can be provided much better and cheaper by a voluntary market than by a coercive government.

But not by a flat tax. I know, I kkow...but because politicians are politicians, they won't do away with the existing tax code entirely, because they will still need to "give" people something i.e. tax breaks, to buy votes, and then we will just have ANOTHER layer to complicate things even more...like Europe, with VAT and service tax, etc.

Look, even though I'm a tax preparer, it really isn't all that difficult to figure out how to do your own taxes! People that come to us are basically idiots.

But I also support a flat tax based on your income, and that should be income irrespective of tax shelters, deductions, exemptions, etc. Perhaps unearned income should be taxed at a greater rate, but earned income should be subjected to the same percentage across the board.

See, you already are suggesting two different tax rates. No politician will be able to resist the pressure to give something to get something...

Still pretty simple.

Say what??

''People that come to us are basically idiots.'' You seem surprised by that. You are aware of the election of barack, right?

I prepare a few hundred a year. They're not difficult. However, when you try to explain what is going on with people's taxes to them, they don't want to hear it. All they want to know is how much are they getting back (for those getting a refund) and how soon.

The ones having to pay usually want to know why they have to pay, and even after you explain it to them, they don't seem to understand.

Then you have the people that think that if they lost money on a stock, they get to take it off their taxes. No, if you have a net capital loss, then you can take some of it off your AGI, but it doesn't come off your taxes. Your AGI is lower, and the taxes assessed on it are lower, but it doesn't come off your taxes. And that's only if you have a net capital loss--you could lose money on a stock and still wind up with a capital gain if you have other stocks that did well. The max that comes off the AGI in a year is 3,000. Anything over that is carried over to following years. So if you had a 30,000 loss, you have ten years of carryover. Assuming no other gains.

I'm not one of those ''baisc idiots'' you are talking about. I do my own taxes.
AND I SPEND WAY TOO MUCH TIME DOING THEM AND SEARCHING FOR WAYS TO REDUCE THEM.
The current tax code should be tossed in the trash where it belongs and replaced with a fairer tax. And take no offense but you and your kind should be out of work. You add NOTHING to the GDP, just a drag on it.

No offense taken--I do agree with a flat tax withheld from the paycheck, do away with all the deductions, exemptions, and all the other credits that they play around with now. But it really takes just a basic intelligence to deal with taxes, that's why I chose to go into doing it--because it's really that simple to do.

And stop taxing savings and interest. Privatize SS so a person that dies at 65 can leave his benefits to his survivors.

Do away with Social Security entirely. Why should someone get paid for not working?

Because all the ''someones'' paid into the system.
But only those that paid into the system.

I'd be fine with ''doing away entirely with SS'', but I want every penny I've paid into the system and the match my employer paid for the last 40 Years I've been in the workforce by forcibly having SS removed from my salary. And a modest return on my money would be nice too.
I know, I know......fat chance. There is Nothing in the SS trust.

I don't want any of that money. That's a government handout and nothing else. I'll work until I die, and if I can't work, there's no reason to keep living.

I have a plan for simplifying the nightmare caused by the I.R.S - just tax everyone 3% of what their assets are.

lol......I can see it now.

IRS: What are your assets Mr. Rockefeller?

Mr. Rockefeller: Uh, around $10,000.

Dah, everyone will rent...lease, own in some elses name. there will always be loopholes...

I don't own anything.

Congratulations your right up there with the wealthiest citizens-exempt

It's not time to simplify it, it's time to abolish it. It was never legal and it is still not, nor will it ever be legal under the Constitution.

Don't believe that? Take a few minutes out of your pathetic little lives and watch this video. Do it now before it's taken down, again. Every time it pops up, it magically disappears????
You will see why if you watch it.

http://video.google.com/video...

And there are times that I'd like to practice civil disobedience and not pay them at all.

Eliminate the corporate income tax altogether as quickly as possible but tax all dividends sent out, even if the person getting them is not an American.

Then people will just re invest their dividends...

Perhaps. is that a problem?