[Your Nightmare]

The amount of money spent to avoid estate taxes is part of the compliance cost I am talking about. Not the tax itself.

Then it is even more insignificant.

[Scotsman]

To short circuit your arguments ...

... assume, as you do, that there would be no benefits to the individual taxpayer in a change to the NRST and the elimination of the IRS.

The simple removal of the IRS from the individual US citizen's life and the consequent collection, storage, and dissemination of personal information across the governmental spectrum alone would be a lifting of a tyranny from our lives.

And there are other benefits, the totality of which we won't understand until the system is up and operating, but there will be other, financial benefits to all current taxpayers - only the gross amounts are in debate.

[groanup]

Maybe insignificant to you, moneybags. Not insignificant to a mom and pop company that wants to pass its legacy to children. Of course the generational transfer of wealth was one of the things the early communist leaders warned about.

Once again, compliance costs do not simply reside in CPA's fees. There are billions of dollars spent on tax advantaged oil and gas programs, housing tax credits, various other limited partnerships that are set up for tax reasons every year. Many of these programs exist because of taxes not because they are necessarily the best place to invest. Then there is the whole trillion dollar or so muni bond market that exists as a separate market because of the tax code.