Thanks, Debbie.  I have taken several tax law courses and I was just accepted to the Master of Laws program at Capital University Law School to get my Masters of Laws in Business and Tax.  I have really enjoyed learning more about our tax system.  Admittedly, from my experience as a business owner and taxpayer I have always thought that the Federal Income Tax system was terrible, inefficient, overly-complicated, and burdensome.  However, after studying it more in depth, I am not so critical of it. 

It is certainly complicated.  But, after reading a few cases from the Tax Courts, I can see why there are so many little changes throughout the Code.  I have read some cases where taxpayers took some pretty outrageous positions to court... and won!  It is a tough balance to strike between trying to treat all taxpayers fairly and not creating too many loopholes.  The complications have arisen out of necessity and for the most part, with good results.

There are a lot of changes that were made because of policy decisions to encourage or discourage certain activities.  I don't always agree with the policy choices that our government has made, but we are nation of laws and those policy choices are always prevalent - we will not all always agree with them. 

On another note... a friend of mine from school is working on her Master of Laws in Tax, now.  She has decided to write about the consumption tax for her thesis paper.  I asked her share it with me when she is done - it will certainly be interesting to see what she comes up with after her extensive research.

Best,
Robert A. Franco