Carnal Reason

I found this via Instapundit.

In response to the GAO report of retail tax preparer incompetence, Iowa’s Senior Senator had this to say:

“Any Joe can hang a shingle and prepare income tax returns. There are no requirements at all,” Senate Finance Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said. “It’s incredible that we have legal requirements for a barber to cut your hair, but there are no requirements for someone to prepare your taxes. Americans have a right to expect that when they hire a tax preparer they’re going to get honest, straightforward advice.”

Although not asked to respond, obscure tax blogger Joe Kristan had this to say:

Any Chuck who has spent the last 20 years on the Senate’s taxwriting committee has a lot of nerve ripping on Joe Preparer. As head Senate taxwriter, he should be wondering how the tax system got to the point that it routinely baffles people who make a living working with it. I’d like to see him try to prepare the returns the GAO used on those retail preparers.

Back to you, Chuck.

Roth & Company, P.C.

I filed my taxes yesterday. I think is unjust, it is criminal, to demand that people comply with laws that are essentially incomprehensible. I doubt there is one person in a thousand who could correctly file state and federal income taxes without software assistance. I doubt one in ten thousand could do so for small business taxes.

My experience working on fairly large software systems suggests that the tax code is far too complex to be internally consistent. I suspect it is not actually possible to comply with the law in many cases. The Senator’s “straightforward advice” is not to be had because it does not exist.

Joe Kristan’s comment cuts to the heart of the matter. The people who write the tax laws should have to demonstrate to independent reviewers that it is possible to comply with the law by actually filing selected cases. If the authors of the laws could not (at the very least) independently come up with the consistent answers, then it would be evident that the proposed laws violate due process.

Posted on April 6th, 2006 by pwyll
Filed under: law