Broken record

There's lots of buzz these days about increased regulation of tax preparers, including recent posts from Joe Kristan, Peter Pappas, and Robert Flach.

My two cents on the matter of regulation is in an earlier post. I know I sound like a broken record, but I just keep coming back to what I believe to be the real problem: complexity.

As Mary O'Keefe says, "We need a tax code PEOPLE can understand."

The reason we haven't had significant reform is that people are not shouting for it. As Annette Nellen wrote, "one big roadblock (among many) is that the public is not crying out for simplification."

Why?

Because, as Mary O'Keefe puts it, "Americans are busy with their day to day lives. It's hard to get their attention on important long-term problems."

I hope the new movie "An Inconvenient Tax" will get the public's attention. Down the road, I'll be contacting the AICPA and the NATP to find out what they are doing on the issue. As I ponder ideas for a group of Tax Professionals for Simplification, I am inclined to think the group would need to agree on a plan for simplification. This, of course, presents a real challenge, but one I like to think we could overcome.

To all the tax gurus out there, what plan would you like to see tax professionals support?