Everyone's a crook

When filing your return is too complex, law-breaking is assured | Joel Belz

If you knew that just a couple of minor slipups in the filing of your tax returns over the next three months might both cost you your job and land you in federal prison, you'd probably give the task a few more hours of attention than those you've already grudgingly allotted.

Modestly assuming that 100 million typical taxpayers devote just 10 hours each to completing this year's federal returns, that's the equivalent of having the U.S. government assign 500,000 people full time for the next year to the filing of tax forms. What an incredible waste of human energy! But even that won't be enough. Millions of these taxpayers will give up and go get professional help, at significant personal cost. And even then, IRS will employ tens of thousands more people to check the accuracy of what gets filed and to chase down those who make mistakes, innocent and otherwise. Consider what it would mean for society to have all that vigor focused on something truly worthwhile!