It makes my mind boggle....
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The underlying problem is the sheer complexity of our tax code. A simple flat tax:
How much do you make?
Send it in!would work a lot better. Seriously, a flat tax after a set deduction would work. About 10 years ago I ran the calculations and determined that a 15% flat tax on all income over the Federal Minimum Wage would result in the same revenue as the current convoluted tax code and save Americans huge amounts of time and money trying to figure out and game the current system. Turns out this method is also "progressive" in that someone who makes just over minimum wage has a far lower effective tax rate than someone making $100,000 per year.
The problem is with the "How much do you make?" statement. There are so many forms of income i.e. paychecks, dividends, gambling, home sales, and so on. There are also MANY ways to hide income. There are also legitimate expenses --- consider retail sales (small business) there is gross income (the sales) rent, staff payroll, utilities, cost of goods, and so on. As much as we would all like to see obermd's version above, I don't think it is feasible.