Like so many of you, I find tax season to be one of the most frustrating times of the year. We all spend too much time, money and stress leading up to this day and it’s past time for a common-sense solution to this convoluted problem.
At nearly 75,000 pages, our outdated tax code stands as one of the largest impediments to growth for our economy. The rules are so complex and the language is so convoluted that taxpayers and businesses have to spend billions of hours slogging through requirements. It’s tedious, wasteful, inefficient and well… taxing.
I continue to hear from many of you who are struggling with burdensome forms, complicated rules and lost time.
That’s why I support completely overhauling our current tax system to make it simpler, fairer and flatter. With far too many hard-working individuals living paycheck to paycheck, tax reform is needed to bring us certainty and allow taxpayers to keep what is already rightfully ours.
We have an incredible opportunity to advance bipartisan tax reform that empowers you and your family to keep more money in your pockets and more time spent together.
Republicans in the House of Representatives have a plan to reform the tax code, but President Barack Obama will entertain our proposal only if we agree to raise taxes an additional $1 trillion. This isn’t going to happen. The federal government already takes too much of your money.
Despite the president’s refusal to work with us on comprehensive tax reform, we have successfully worked together to enact an expansion of college savings accounts to help individuals save for higher education. We have extended “bonus depreciation” to help farmers and businesses invest in new equipment, and the House of Representatives has passed several bills to advance our tax reform priorities, including an issue I have championed to repeal the immoral death tax.
Working on your behalf, we’ve also enacted legislation to stop IRS abuse and hold agency employees accountable for misconduct. This includes enacting the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which is a critical set of basic rights for taxpayers that now hangs in every IRS building across America.
After the Lois Lerner scandal, we prohibited IRS employees from using personal email accounts for government business. Additionally, we enacted legislation that made targeting of a taxpayer or group based on their political beliefs by IRS employees a fireable offense. These are just a few of the steps we’ve taken to make the tax code work for you, but there’s much more work to be done.
Just last month, we were all shocked to learn from the nonpartisan and independent Government Accountability Office that the IRS is unprepared to protect taxpayer data from hackers. This means that our private personal and financial tax return information could be at risk. The GAO recommended multiple reforms to protect taxpayers, and the IRS simply said they would look at the recommendations and circle back.
This response is simply not good enough, and last week IRS Commissioner John Koskinen was grilled by several of my Republican colleagues on the IRS’s poor response.
Clearly, the IRS must do better and it should start by immediately implementing these reforms. I will continue to work with my colleagues on tax reform and IRS oversight proposals that empower and protect you and your family.
Rep. Richard Hudson, R-Concord, represents North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District, which currently includes Anson County.