Last night, accepting the Republican nomination, President Bush said a "drag on our economy is the current tax code, which is a complicated mess, filled with special interest loopholes."1 Bush noted that the American people were saddled with "6 billion hours of paperwork and headache every year," and said that he was the candidate to create "a simpler, fairer" system.2 But during the last four years, Bush has pushed through changes to the tax code far more complicated and burdensome for taxpayers.
According to official Internal Revenue Service estimates from 2000 to 2003, "the time required for the set of forms associated with the 1040 has increased by 3 hours and 8 minutes."3 The average taxpayer spent 1 hour and 20 minutes longer filing his or her taxes in 2002 than in 2003.4
Worse, while the tax cuts themselves have gone overwhelmingly to the wealthiest Americans, "the increased time spent filling out forms has been more democratically distributed."5 Many taxpayers not getting much of a reduction at all have to fill out the same forms that save others millions.
Sources: "Text: President Bush's Acceptance Speech to the Republican National Convention ," Washington Post, 9/02/04. Ibid. "Economic Snapshot," Economic Policy Institute, 9/2/04. Ibid. Ibid.
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