After reading TaxProf Blog's post about rolls of toilet paper with the Form 1040 imprinted on them, we wondered how many rolls one would need to put the entire Internal Revenue Code in toilet paper form. We have a one-volume version of the Code, printed on about 10,000 dual-column pages of ultrathin paper using what appears to be around 5-point font. Assuming you doubled the font size, and assuming that each column amounts to about one sheet of toilet paper, that brings you to about 40,000 sheets. One of our helpful interns determined that toilet paper rolls have between 300 and 1,000 sheets each, the lower number for the high-quality stuff and the 1,000 for the ones you find in dorm room bathrooms. So, if you printed the Internal Revenue Code on toilet paper, you'd need between 40 and 133 rolls (at 500 sheets per roll, it would be 80 rolls). That'd be a pretty big multi-pack at the grocery store. A few more rolls might be needed if proposals for even more credits, deductions, exemptions, and other complexity pass. We might pass on the 80 rolls and instead go for toilet paper with the EITC instructions, the AMT worksheet, the capital gains worksheet, the phase-out of itemized deductions and the personal exemption, or Schedule A.
