April 14, 2008
Investor's Business Daily editorial
If moving Election Day would unburden the nation of its annual tax nightmare, we're all for it. The federal tax system is miserable. Not only are we taxed too much (government should not be free to help itself to one out of every five dollars), the way we are taxed borders on criminal.
So does the complexity of the tax code. Our "voluntary" system is hopelessly byzantine, with regulations that go on for more than 9 million words across thousands of pages. This year, Americans will spend roughly $325 billion to comply with them. Next year it'll be nearly $350 billion.
There's also a lot of valuable time, more than 6.6 billion hours a year, wasted by individuals, business and nonprofit organizations on tax preparation.
For those who think of April 15 as just another day, or that scrambling for last-minute deductions and racing to the post office to beat the deadline are annual rites that will be over in a few hours, consider that Tax Freedom Day, the day we've earned enough to pay our federal, state and local taxes, as figured by the Tax Foundation, is still eight days away. [Read the full article.]