A simplified code is nice, but we have 535 congresscritters, 100 Senators, and a gang of lobbiests who will fight everyday to muck it all up. Reagan cleaned up the income tax code quite a bit, but it did not last. The current bill already as some exemptions for education, next will be prescription drugs, then certain food....
My beef is really with the social credits, namely the "Earned-Income-Tax-Credit." It is an insidious measure that takes a tax base who not only already doesn't pay (little or none) income taxes, and then "makes believe" that they really paid more taxes on a larger income, hence "earned income" credit, and then GIVES it back to them. There is even a provision for these "taxpayers" to calculate what their EITC payment would be at the end of the year and the government FORCES the employer to pay this out over the year in equal payments. The government does not however give the employer any interest for the us of his money throughout the year.
Early this year I was with a friend in rural Alabama at a general store (feed, seed, and other nik naks) and while we were there at least 10 low income people came in with those IRS checks, averaging about $3-4K a pop. The owner cashed them after taking his cut. All I could think of was that I didn't get a chance to donate MY tax money (definitely a portion of that doled out) to the charity of my choice; the government decided that for me.
EITC fosters single-parenthood and encourages (if it can be said that) idleness. It is one of the worst programs that was ever instituted, coincidentally by a Republican President.