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An History of US Tax Code Complexity within Computer-Based Return Preparation

The current income tax system in the United States is extraordinarily complex. Efforts like the tax law changes in 2017 have done little to lessen the overall compliance burden. There are a variety of reasons for this – some intentional and some accidental. This paper examines one of the accidental reasons - the history of growing computer technology over the past 50 years and its effects on increasing tax complexity in the US. A “black box” phenomenon of tax preparation that exists today has grown from an inconspicuous start by merely desiring arithmetic on the tax forms to be accurate. Decades later, it is easy to conclude that absent this enormous growth in computer technology, US lawmakers could not possibly have passed and continue to pass laws into such a convoluted tax system. Whether it is optimal for a tax system to be so “disguised” from the taxpayer is debatable, particularly with other parties, like the Internal Revenue Service and tax preparation companies like Intuit having so much now invested in this electronic process