A Job-Destroying Tax Reform We Can All Get Behind

Taxes are, as Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, the price we pay for a civilized society. Fine. We need roads and schools and firefighters and a naval fleet. However, even if taxes are an unpleasant necessity, there can be no justification for the U.S. tax code's stupidity. Our tax system is needlessly complex, burdensome, inequitable, and inefficient. It should be reasonably plausible for the average American to do his or her own taxes without professional assistance. It's not. Instead, we spend an estimated $2 billion and 225 million hours in prep costs and time. Truthfully, unless you have complex investments or something, you shouldn't even have to do your own taxes. In several European countries, the government completes tax forms for most citizens. Adopting voluntary "return-free filing" is an idea that makes so much sense that it was once endorsed by Ronald Reagan and is supported by Barack Obama.