The results are in. Scott Hodge of the Tax Foundation has computed the costs and hours it takes to comply with IRS regulations. (Drum roll please.)
A whopping 8.9 billion hours and $409 billion will be spent complying with IRS tax filing requirements this year.
Here are the facts:
Since 1955, the federal tax code has increased six-fold, from 409,000 words to 2.4 million words.
There would need to be 4.3 million full-time workers solely filing tax return paperwork to equate to the 8.9 billion hours spent complying with our outdated taxcode.
U.S. businesses and individual income tax returns make up the majority of the hours spent complying, clocking in at 2.8 billion hours and 2.6 billion hours respectively.
With the dollars spent complying with IRS regulations, taxpayers could have purchased:
2,045,000 Lamborghinis
744,990,892 iPhone 6s ($549 retail)
(That’s more than two iPhones for all Americans…or for your cat.)
166,938,775,510 Starbucks Venti Coffees
(That’s 525 large coffees for every American or more than a year and a half worth of coffee!)
House Republicans in their “Better Way” blueprint have introduced ways to simplify the puzzling tax code that will cut down on compliance costs and hours. Most notably, House Republicans have proposed a way that taxpayers can file their taxes on as little as a postcard. Now you can spend those hours on something less-taxing.