Tax Reform I’d Like To See

I filed my taxes on time again this year.  Same as every year since I started earning an income.  Every year, it is a bigger and bigger pain.  I used to do it by hand, and very early on started using a computer program that would do the calculations for me.  Years ago I switched to TurboTax, primarily because it integrates nicely with Quicken.  Even though it has that nice integration, and now downloads all kinds of information from my employer, mutual funds, and so on automatically, all that automation is just lipstick on the pig.

Could we please make the tax system easier?

I don’t want to try to define easier right now, because I know that everyone won’t agree on what that is.  But I do want to propose how to get there, with one (and only one) change to the tax laws:

All elected officials are required to prepare their own tax forms by hand.

That’s it, the only change we need to make.  If you’re elected to public office, you must do your own tax forms, and you may not use a computer program to assist.

If we could get that passed into law, you can bet the tax laws would get simpler to manage every legislative session.