Neil Irwin Quotes

The complexity of a tax system is every bit as damaging to competitiveness as the overall tax rate. The more convoluted the tax code becomes, the more time we have to take off work to comply with it.

Look at the current tax code. It’s a 10 million word mess..

Our tax code is arcane, burdensome and unwieldy. In the years since Ronald Reagan's 1986 Tax Reform Act, the code has gone from fewer than 30,000 pages to more than 70,000.

I don't know why anyone would prefer a more complicated tax code instead of a simpler one.

We can fight over what the taxation levels should be, but the tax system should be very, very simple and not distortionary.

We need to stop kicking the can down the road and rethink our entire tax system toward long-term, comprehensive tax reform.

The Tax Code today is more complicated than ever, and the very people on the Republican side who denounce the Tax Code's complexity are the ones that put together what they now call a convoluted monstrosity. They put it into effect.

What sensible people want from a tax is to raise as much money as possible with the least disruption to the economy.

Our 15 thousand page tax code is incomprehensible and unenforceable.

No average citizen in America today can figure out the tax code.

Someone in Washington needs to get serious about fixing the tax code. That is what needs to happen.

There is regressivity built into the tax code by virtue of its complexity.

We spend millions of hours doing taxes and spend so much money doing our taxes. It should be very simple.

For years, people have begged Washington for a tax code that is simple and easy to understand.

Simply looking at the status quo and suggesting that the tax code is sacrosanct and can never change, and that decisions made in the '80s and '90s can never change, is absurd.

The tax code is just too big.

Before we start making blanket statements about abolishing the IRS, I think it's important to focus on what the tax code for the 21st century should look like.

The problem with wanting the tax code to be 'simpler, fairer,' and 'pro-growth' is that it's impossible to achieve all three at the same time.

As American taxpayers know too well, the tax code is incredibly complex and compliance is all to expensive.

The nation should have a tax system that looks like someone designed it on purpose.

I doubt God would want to touch America's tax code, since it is already located in the third rung of Hell.

Simplicity just isn't a word synonymous with taxes.

Tax reform laws … are like sand castles built next to the ocean. They get washed away.

The Internal Revenue Code is like a tire that has been patched over and over…. At this point however, it is more patch than tire.

Actually, I'm a strong supporter of comprehensive tax reform.