Feingold to President: "Don't Back Down from Tax Reform Pledge" Recent Reports Signal President's Reluctance to Live Up to Tax Reform Promise January 28, 2005 Washington, D.C. -- U.S. Senator Russ Feingold today, in a letter to the President, asked him to keep tax reform on his agenda for the new year. Recent news reports suggest that "key White House officials" are pushing to delay tax reform this year in favor of pursuing changes to Social Security. Feingold asked that the President live up to the pledge he made during the 2004 campaign and take steps to make the tax code simpler and fairer for the average taxpayer. "The complexity of our tax code puts an enormous burden on taxpayers, and reforming our tax code to make it simpler and fairer could go a long way toward relieving that burden," the letter read. "While there will be disagreement in Congress on the specifics of reforming our tax code, there is no dispute about the need for such reform." Wading through complex returns costs taxpayers billions of dollars. A report from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) found that roughly 80 percent of the time Americans spend complying with federal paperwork requirements is attributable to the 17,000-page federal tax code. According to the OMB's estimates, the tax code eats up roughly 6 billion hours of Americans' time every year. In 2002, the Tax Foundation estimated that complying with the tax code would cost taxpayers $194 billion that year, and by 2007, compliance costs could soar as high as $350 billion. To avoid tax complexity, many people use the standard deduction, even though they would save money by itemizing their deductions. The General Accounting Office recently estimated that on more than 2 million tax returns, taxpayers may have paid as much as $945 million more a year, or nearly $500 per person, than if they had used the itemized deductions schedule. "While it is important to make some modest changes to Social Security to strengthen that program, the need to make such changes is less urgent than reforming our tax code. Tax reform is a timely priority, and should not be put off," Feingold said. "I hope that the President repudiates these recent reports and stands by his original pledge of tax reform ."

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