Jack Kingston: “First of all, let me say, we want to talk about the IRS. The criticism is not to the employees, the criticism is to the…”

“First of all, let me say, we want to talk about the IRS. The criticism is not to the employees, the criticism is to the system. Right now, that system has a Tax Code that is two volumes total and 1,378 pages. It is an IRS that has 480 tax forms, and 280 forms that tell you how to fill out the 480. In 1994, the Tax Foundation estimates that businesses spent, listen to these numbers, 3.6 billion hours and individuals spent $1.8 billion preparing their tax returns. It is too complicated. One final statistic and then I will yield to the gentleman, because it is all up to the members of the Committee on Ways and Means to get this straight. According to a study of Daniel Pilla of the Cato Institute, the IRS gives out wrong answers to more than 8 million taxpayers a year. It is too complicated. What can we do to simplify the tax system?”