> He has decided that making taxes easier to do would make people more okay with tax increases ...
I'm sympathetic to this point of view -- in theory, bearing the pain of taxation, the taxpayers will be amenable to solutions to simplify the tax code to make that pain lessen.
I think, though, at this point, we can say that this has empirically failed. Ironically enough, TurboTax and its ilk have rendered this part almost moot -- the government can keep increasing the tax code complexity, and the software will gloss over the difficulties. Small, gradual simplifications to the tax code will have absolutely no effect, since people will still just use electronic systems to assist them.
In addition, the payroll tax withholding is probably responsible for the remainder -- it's hard to get clear visibility into how much you're actually paying. I only just did my taxes, and I could tell you what my refund was, but I couldn't tell you what I actually paid in taxes offhand.
I'm sympathetic to this point of view -- in theory, bearing the pain of taxation, the taxpayers will be amenable to solutions to simplify the tax code to make that pain lessen.
I think, though, at this point, we can say that this has empirically failed. Ironically enough, TurboTax and its ilk have rendered this part almost moot -- the government can keep increasing the tax code complexity, and the software will gloss over the difficulties. Small, gradual simplifications to the tax code will have absolutely no effect, since people will still just use electronic systems to assist them.
In addition, the payroll tax withholding is probably responsible for the remainder -- it's hard to get clear visibility into how much you're actually paying. I only just did my taxes, and I could tell you what my refund was, but I couldn't tell you what I actually paid in taxes offhand.