That is a pretty ridiculous statement, it may be complex but people do understand it, and in fact become expert at it esp within their own little niches. I feel like I "understand" the present system well enough to start and operate a business just fine.
Is it perfect, or super efficient? No, it needs to be reformed and made simpler. And we need to get a handle soon on the spending side with SocSec or this whole tax reform discussion is like rearranging the chairs on the Titanic.
"That is a pretty ridiculous statement, it may be complex but people do understand it, and in fact become expert at it esp within their own little niches."
Oh, is it ridiculous? Please explain the following results, then. Money magazine used to do a test of the income tax system. They sent the same set of fictitious tax input data to professional tax preparers all over the country and requested that they fill out 1040s based on that info. The last time they did that was for tax year 1996 (if memory serves), with results published in March 97. They recived 47 different tax returns complete by 47 different professional tax preparers and they recieved 47 different answers back. They weren't off by a few dollars - they were wildly different. That year was only slightly higher than the norm for the results they recorded during the 10-12 years they did the test.
The tax system is far more complex now than was the case for 1996. Unfortunately, Money no longer does that test. I guess they felt they had proven their point. Apparently, there are a few unconvinced diehards.
As far as your contention that people become experts at it within their own niches, it wasn't clear if you were referring to tax professionals or business people. If you were referring to business people, are you saying that business decisions should be dictated by the necessity of staying in their tax "niches"? If you were referring to tax preparers, does that mean you have to use multiple tax preparers as your business grows, who are specialized in the various areas of the Code that your business takes you into? Actually, that is what happens to a certain extent when you use the more sophisticated regional or national CPA firms. What a collossal waste of human resource!!
"No, it needs to be reformed and made simpler."
Which is what we have been trying to do for a little over 90 years now. I once heard insanity defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.