Couldn't disagree with you more, F. Lee. Over-regulation is a major reason that a lot of companies outsource in the first place. Consider the following:
There are approximately 700 separate sections of the Tax Code that apply to individuals. There are over 1,500 separate provisions that apply to businesses. As of May 2000, the Tax Code contained 1,395,028 words – nearly 319 times the number of words in the Constitution. IRS Regulations contain over 8,551,444 words – over 11 times the number of words in the King James Bible. The IRS produces 649 separate forms, schedules, and instructions with approximately 16,100 lines. Publications providing guidance to taxpayers alone total about 13,400 pages.
Ten years ago, the IRS said it took the average person 9 ½ hours to complete the 1040. Today, it takes 13 hours – time enough to complete at least 4 baseball games. This year, Americans will spend an estimated 5.8 billion hours complying with the tax code – 5.8 billion hours ago was 660,000 years before the birth of Jesus Christ.
It will cost taxpayers an estimated $194 billion this year just to comply with the tax code – that is enough money to buy 4.7 million brand new Cadillac DeVille 4-Door Sedans at retail price. The IRS’s budget is $10 billion a year – equal to the size of the budgets for the FBI, the DEA, and INS Border Enforcement combined.
As of last March, the IRS employed 104,900 people – four times as many people as work for the FBI. Yet, with all these resources, last year the IRS answered less than 60% of the phone calls they received requesting information or assistance. When they did answer, one out of every four answers they provided was either incomplete or incorrect.
Using the Tax Code to control the behavior of businesses and individuals is a bad idea. Placing an additional regulatory burden on companies would create more problems than it would solve.
Regards,
Scott
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