Jacob Sullum on Ted Cruz's Tax Reform Ideas
If you have not done your taxes yet, do not count on getting help from the Internal Revenue Service in answering any last-minute questions that may arise. The IRS estimates that only half of the anxious and bewildered taxpayers who call the agency this year will get through to a "telephone assistor," and those who do "could easily wait 30 minutes or more for limited service."
Jacob Sullum says those numbers reflect a deeper problem that Ted Cruz tapped into on Monday, when he announced that he is seeking the Republican presidential nomination. Although the Texas senator's dream of "abolishing the IRS" may be unrealistic, Sullum says, he is right to focus on the Internal Revenue Code's excruciating complexity as a scandal crying out for reform.