Jack Kingston: “we wanted to touch base on the tax situation, with April 15 approaching quickly. I will yield to the gentleman from…”

“we wanted to touch base on the tax situation, with April 15 approaching quickly. I will yield to the gentleman from Arizona on this, but I want to start off with a couple of fun facts, first, about out tax system, because if you are like many of your American friends this last week or two, you took time filling out your tax form. On an average, it takes 12 hours for you and your family to fill out your tax forms to the degree that you can, and then you take it to your accountant, and pay anywhere from $150 to $700 or $800, depending on where you are and how much you own and so forth. If you are a small business, it takes you 22 hours. Here is a statistic that I really like, Mr. Speaker. The IRS has 480 tax forms, and 280 of them are forms that tell you how to fill out the other forms. That is absolutely absurd. The West Publishing Co., one of the official publishers of the Federal Tax Code, published the 1994 Tax Code in two volumes. Volume 1 contains sections 1 through 1,000, and it is printed in 1,168 pages. Volume 2 is page 1,500--1,500. We have a 1,564-page Tax Code, Mr. Speaker. It is absolutely absurd. The need for tax reform is urgent, it is great, it is right now. It is appropriate to look at while we are trying to balance the budget.”