I very much agree with that statement. It's been a decade ago since I read the article about this - and I'll try to fine and post it after I post what I read.
It costs federal taxpayers around $500 billion dollars a year to file their taxes.
Why can't that be more efficient? That is a hell of alot of money that could be handed back to the taxpayers - or added to the federal budget.
Just to live, people are paying part of that. Just to be incorporated, corps are paying that. Just to file paperwork - and have someone cover it for you.
What if we could use that money to start focusing on solving cancer? Mental health issues. Instead - we pay that money and all we get is some paper that goes through a 1960's mainframe eventually (which nobody understands the IRS mainframes anymore), and risk having them just stress us out more. That doesn't help anyone.
It's a mess to get into. It's a mess if your successful. I'm not so sure this isn't a mechanism to suppress parts of our population (or all of it).
Very much worth mentioning that companies like Intuit spend money hand over fist each year to keep the tax code complicated.