Americans spend about 6 billion hours a year collecting the data and filling out the forms. We spend $10 billion to H&R Block and other preparers. And on top of that, $2 billion in tax preparation software, which still takes hours of work. It's outrageous the burden we put on people, and guess what, you go to Europe, you go to Japan, it's 15 minutes and costs nothing.
T.R. ReidStarting in the '80s or so, after the United States sharply cut its rates, other countries decided they better do it too, and here's how you do it: you just wipe out the exemptions, the deductions, the credits, the depreciation allowances. And people complain, "Oh my God, it's terrible," but you give them much lower rates and you give them an easier form to file, and people accept that tradeoff.
T.R. ReidWhen it comes to taxation, Americans are still banging out letters on a typewriter and dropping them in the mail box while everybody else has moved on to texting and Instagram.
T.R. ReidThe income tax only taxed the Rockefellers, the Morgans and the Vanderbilts. It was aimed at the top 4 percent, and the top rate then in 1913, was 7 percent. Woodrow Wilson had a big ceremony and said, "I'm delighted to be president at the creation of this popular new tax."
T.R. Reid