Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation
For Immediate Release
Monday, April 16, 2012
202-285-0244
www.freedomandprosperity.org
Popular CF&P Video Highlights Costly Hidden Burden of Federal Tax Compliance
(Washington, D.C., Monday, April 16, 2012) As Americans scramble to finish their federal taxes before Tuesday’s deadline, the Center for Freedom and Prosperity (CF&P) reminds taxpayers, politicians and voters of the tremendous hidden burden placed on Americans by the complicated federal US tax code. In a popular video first released in 2010 as part of CF&P’s Economics 101 series titled, “The Onerous Compliance Cost of the Internal Revenue Code,” narrator Hiwa Alaghebandian examines how corrupt loopholes and rising paperwork force taxpayers to devote ever larger amounts of time, energy, resources, and money in hopes of figuring out the right number to put on their tax returns.
The video has been updated to reflect the estimated cost of tax compliance for 2012 from the Tax Foundation. Costs have risen from $338 billion to $410 billion, an increase of 17.5% in two years. Due to the inability of politicians to fix the tax code, the video remains relevant today.
Link to the video: YouTube
“Although the video was initially created two years ago, it’s just as relevant today as ever,” noted CF&P President Andrew Quinlan. “If I’ve learned anything about politicians, it’s that they’re an especially dense crowd. They rarely learn a lesson the first time so it’s necessary to be repetitive.” He concluded, “Simply put, Americans are tired of bearing the burden of complying with a corrupt and onerous tax code that serves the interests of politicians, and not taxpayers.”
Brian Garst, Director of Government Affairs at CF&P, added, “We hear a lot of talk about fairness from lawmakers, but these same politicians apparently find nothing unfair about demanding that taxpayers comply with 4 million words of federal tax law. They should all be locked in a room, forced to watch this video, and not let out until they fix the tax code.”
Executive Summary
The tax system is a complicated nightmare that forces taxpayers to devote ever-larger amounts of time, money, energy, and other resources in hopes of complying with the internal revenue code and avoiding IRS persecution. This CF&P Foundation video shows that this corrupt mess is the result of 99 years of social engineering and industrial policy that began almost immediately after that dark day in 1913 that the income tax was created.
This video, which first appeared on the Internet in April 2010, is part of CF&P’s Economics 101 video series, which is designed to explain free market concepts, with particular emphasis on reaching students and young people. There are sixteen videos in the series.
The other Econ 101 videos: The New Deal Was A Failure: Hoover and FDR Prolonged the Great Depression with Big Government; The European Fiscal Crisis and Lessons for America; Free Markets, Not Redistribution, Is Best Way to Reduce Poverty; Seven Reasons Why Tax Increases Are the Wrong Approach; Tax Competition: A Powerful Force to Restrain Big Government; Four Reasons Why Big Government Is Bad Government; Keynesian Economics Is Wrong: Economic Growth Causes Consumer Spending, Not the Other Way Around; Indexing the Capital Gains Tax to Protect Taxpayers from Inflation; Repealing Obamacare and Restoring a Free Market in Healthcare; The Job-Killing Impact of Minimum Wage Laws; Deficits, Debts and Unfunded Liabilities; Cost of the Internal Revenue Code; Lessons Learned From Sweden; Government Monopolies; Moral Hazard; and Don’t Copy Europe’s Mistakes.
CF&P Foundation has also released more than four-dozen mini-documentaries since 2007. These videos include Tax Competition Primer, VAT-Hidden Tax, Global Flat Tax Revolution, Cutting the U.S. Corporate Income Tax, Promoting Prosperity, Obama’s So-Called Stimulus, Obama’s Deferral Proposal, Case Against Class-Warfare Tax Policy, President Obama’s Dishonest Demagoguery on Tax Havens, Six Reasons Why the Capital Gains Tax Should Be Abolished, a three part series on the Benefits of Tax Havens and another three-part series on the Laffer Curve.
Link: http://freedomandprosperity.org/videos/economic-lessons-series/
For additional comments:
Andrew Quinlan can be reached at 202-285-0244, andy@freedomandprosperity.org
Brian Garst can be reached at bgarst@freedomandprosperity.org
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