[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Page 5173]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                TAX DAY

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, recently we had a day called Tax Day. I 
think most of us thought a lot about taxes. We talked a lot about the 
process of filling in our tax forms and paying our taxes. I do not know 
about everyone else, but I came out of that with the renewed notion 
that we certainly need to take a look at making taxes more simple and 
that we need to simplify the Tax Code. The problem is, of course, that 
we are moving just exactly in the opposite way. We spent 7 or 8 years 
talking about simplification of the Tax Code, and every year it becomes 
less so. I hope we can address making the Tax Code simpler. The purpose 
of the Tax Code is to raise money in a fair way.
  The definition of a tax is a charge of money imposed by authority 
upon persons or property for public purposes. You have to have taxes. 
No one argues with that. But it is not a voluntary act. It is an 
imposition of authority upon people, and the imposition--in many cases, 
because of the process--is unreasonable.
  I am persuaded that the current Tax Code remains overly complicated, 
burdensome, and frustrating to the American taxpayer. I believe we find 
ourselves often more in the business of trying to manage behavior 
through taxes than we are of fairly raising money. If we have something 
we want done, and if someone wants to wear a red shirt and part their 
hair in the middle, we say: We will give you a tax deduction for doing 
that. All of that makes it much more complicated than in the past. It 
is now inefficient. It is inefficient in the allocation of financial 
resources for communities. Certainly, we are not able to supervise it 
and audit it very easily because it is so complicated.
  I am proud to have supported President Bush's tax relief bill last 
year. We made some effort to reduce the burden of taxes. Certainly, 
that doesn't help in terms of the complication that goes into filling 
out tax forms.
  One hundred and four million individuals and families will receive a 
tax reduction of about $1,000 from that action. That is good. Nearly 43 
million married couples will receive an average deduction of $1,700. 
That is very good. Thirty-eight million filers with children will 
receive an average deduction of about $1,460.
  However, we certainly have not finished our work. Obviously, there 
needs to be an effort made to make permanent the inheritance tax, or 
the death tax. That has to be done. I think we need to simplify the Tax 
Code. We need to continue to do that. I know that is easy to say and 
much more difficult to do. We need incentives to make that happen.
  But the other side of that is that taxpayers spend, according to a 
report, over 6 billion hours filling out IRS forms. The estimated cost 
of compliance is close to $200 billion annually. That is a drain on 
resources. That should not happen.
  I hope we can take a basic look at where we want to be in terms of 
this issue. It is too complicated, it is too expensive, and it is 
hopeless to figure out how much we owe. That shouldn't have to be the 
case. We have worked on it and talked about it at least for a number of 
years, but we have not done much.
  Another important area in which we need to make substantive changes 
is health care. We talk about cost and who is going to pay for it. We 
need to give more thought to how to make substantive changes. The same 
is true with taxes. We ought to go back to the basics: Here is the 
amount of money that has to be raised. What is the fair way to do it? 
We need to do it in a simple way, and we need to sit down in a 
reasonable time and do it.
  Some have said Paul O'Neill, Secretary of the Treasury, said the tax 
laws are abominably full of absurdities. He is exactly right about 
that. We have about 17,000 pages in the code. Most of it, of course, 
comes from the Congress. Each day practically, we try to do something 
more with taxes to affect behavior.
  I think it is time we take a clean look at that and say the purpose 
of Tax Day is to support the necessary functions of government. It 
should be simpler for people to comply, and we ought to start with that 
premise and do it.
  I hope we can move forward to do that. I appreciate the opportunity 
to speak.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from California is 
recognized.

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