Influential constituencies like poor people or homeowners or anyone with a 401k.
(Policies regarding 401k's and homes can affect powerful people too.)
One of the oldest examples of tax simplification is the flat income tax. This is extremely regressive and disadvantages the poor and middle class. Any exemption would be “complication”.
If there’s good and bad complication then simplicity is the wrong dimension on which to focus.
Why is simplicity desirable in the tax code? Who does it benefit and how?
I agree, though using taxes is an efficient way to incentivize: If you want to fund home ownership, you can either identify each homeowner, cut checks, and mail them; or you can achieve a similar result by reducing taxes for homeowners.
I'm not sure the former isn't worth the extra hassle, for the reason you describe.
I think it helps democratically - people understand the code and could believe in its fairness.
> One of the oldest examples of tax simplification is the flat income tax. This is extremely regressive and disadvantages the poor and middle class.
I agree, but that's also a perversion of 'simplification'. If you follow that logic, the even simpler tax would be that everyone pays the same amount, not the same rate. E.g., everyone pays $10K, no matter what.
Obviously that's ridiculous, and so is the flat (rate) income tax. Simplicity and fairness is not equal tax or equal rate, but equal sacrifice.
Ok but to what benefit? Progressive tax codes are both complex and fair.
> I agree, but that's also a perversion of 'simplification'. If you follow that logic, the even simpler tax would be that everyone pays the same amount, not the same rate. E.g., everyone pays $10K, no matter what.
Ok, then what is true simplification?
This is where I don’t find the argument that taxes need to be simple compelling. What’s the benefit?