I know what many of you will be doing this weekend, and it is not watching the Masters Golf Tournament.  Of course, that annual event was last weekend, but regardless of what is in store on the Tube or around town, you will be involved in another annual activity:  preparing your income tax return.  Or, as is the case for a few of my friends, many returns. 

Two of my compatriots will prepare eight (8) and nine (9) returns, respectively.  You can imagine their glee.  How is this possible, you may ask?  Each has children and parents.  Both take it upon themselves to prepare family members’ federal and state income tax returns as well as their own.

You are probably noting that this is an extreme case of the sitting-at-the-kitchen-table-late-at-night preparing your tax return and rushing it down to the electronic or brick-and-mortar Post Office before midnight April 15^th (the 17^th this year).  And you would be correct.  I have no data on how many taxpayers “enjoy” the bind that my friends have put themselves in, but I would hope that the figure is not too high.  Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.

Yet, why is preparing one (or 9) tax returns so cruel and punishing?  It is because of the plethora of published rules and regulations.

A reader sent me a recent USA Today article proclaiming that the U.S. Tax Code is comprised of 67,204 pages!  When I began working at IRS in 1971, I believe the Code was a mere 2,000 pages or so, which is not an insignificant number.  Not all pages apply to any one taxpayer, of course, but when you read such accounts, you come to only one conclusion.

Complexity.

Saying that the tax laws have become (hopelessly) complex is not news.  Such has been self-evident to millions of taxpayers who have struggled with this civic Rite of Spring.  Yet, there are always two sides of any story.  Aspiring accountants and tax preparers view these tax laws as lifetime employment guarantees.

A majority of taxpayers (nearly 60%) choose to pay others to prepare their returns.  Whether it is to avoid ulcers or not have IRS breathe down their necks, taxpayers are opting out of an exercise that only occurs once a year.

Imagine those self-employed people – like me — who must constantly monitor their incomes, figure likely taxes due, and make quarterly tax deposits during the year.  It is not fun, although the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS; www.eftps.gov) is easy to use after a somewhat time-consuming and torturous enrollment process.

This article cannot begin to address all the reasons for the length of the Tax Code and its subsequent complexity.  The point of this week’s offering is not merely to be topical with our national April 15^th ritual; it is to elevate the challenges of those at the IRS, as Executive Branch officials, in administering the tax laws. 

When you are preparing your taxes and pulling out your hair, think about the thousands of Executive Branch workers who must take these laws and make them reasonably understandable, especially for tax practitioners whose livelihoods depend upon filing clients’ returns accurately.

So, if you figure your taxes are difficult to figure, consider how much harder they would be if we did not have hard-working employees making the experience as easy as legally possible. 

Remember the adage.  It could be worse.

Fred Apelquist, contributing editor

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