“This is too difficult for a mathematician. It takes a philosopher.”
That’s Albert Einstein talking about out tax code.
Formally, federal tax law is a particular chapter (Title 26) of the United States Code. The federal tax law contains 11 subtitles, which among them comprise 9,833 sections.
The number of words in the tax code? No one knows. Seriously, no one knows. The lower bound seems to be 16,000 pages, and even that’s not definite. A conservative 250 words per page, and that’s 4 million words. Even counting the number of sections is exhausting. They go from 1 to 9873, and counting, but plenty of numbers are missing.
Politicians may tout the virtues of our “progressive” tax system, but it doesn’t really favor the poor over the rich.
Nor does it favor the rich over the poor, not when 40% of federal tax receipts come from 1% of the population. Fairly or otherwise, the tax system favors the diligent over the unprepared. (As most things in life, so maybe the system is fair.)
Specifically, the system favors independent businesspeople over salaried workers.
You can do what almost everyone can but few bother to: play the IRS’ game. Only make sure you’re on the winning team. Read my recent article in the Women’s Council of REALTORS e-newsletter.