Flat tax revisited - Editorials/Op-Ed - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

Flat tax revisited - Editorials/Op-Ed - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper: "Flat tax revisited

July 20, 2005

In his speech to the Republican National Convention in 2004, President Bush called for substantial reforms to America's fundamental economic systems, including the tax code, which Mr. Bush criticized as 'a complicated mess, filled with special interest loopholes, saddling our people with more than 6 billion hours of paperwork and headache every year.'
Traditional reform, however, may not be sufficient; adding provisions -- even those intended to simplify the code -- into what is already a 9 million-word tome could lead to more confusion, more creative interpretation and more detrimental loopholes. Americans now spend on average over 28 hours each year filing their personal income taxes, and the total cost of all compliance was a staggering $200 billion in 2004.