Some Data on Tax Compliance Costs

If there’s one tax issue that unites the political spectrum, it’s the harmful effects of tax complexity and high compliance costs—they’re both regressive and economically wasteful, making them hard to defend on both fairness and efficiency grounds.

Here are some interesting charts from our study released yesterday on the compliance costs of the federal income tax. Just click to enlarge the images:

The Regressive Nature of Federal Income Tax Compliance Costs

Federal Income Tax Compliance Costs as a Percentage of Revenue

Growth in the Number of Words in the Internal Revenue Code

Click here to read the full study.