Economics 101 – Massive cost of the IRS tax code

Our featured video for the next few days. We’ve been neglectful on posting top-notch “training and development” videos. We also need to update the poll daily … but here’s a great video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation.

Hiwa Alaghebandian, a student at the College of William & Mary has the presentation honors. Alaghebandian was an intern for Dan Mitchell at the Center, and he adds the following commentary about the Economics 101 video.

In the video, Ms. Alaghebandian notes that a study from 1996 (back when the tax code was not nearly as complex) estimated that a flat tax would reduce the compliance burden of the income tax by 94 percent. In my video on the flat tax, I mostly focused on how a single-rate, consumption-base system would boost growth and competitiveness, but simplicity also would be a remarkable achievment [sic]. Not only would real tax reform reduce compliance costs by hundreds of billions of dollars, it would also put a big dent in the corrupt practice of distorting economic choices with deductions, exemptions, credits, preferences, shelters, and other loopholes. That’s a profitable game for politicians and lobbyists, but the rest of us pay the price because the tax code is even more of a nightmare.