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Well, yes. But the thing about tax simplification is that it would allow for governments to collect a higher share of taxes from the populace. Ryan Sager has a must-read op-ed describing this conflict.
Dating back to John Stuart Mill’s 1848 Principles of Political Economy, there has been an understanding that a less visible tax system may have a tendency to fuel the growth of government. The less the goose feels the plucking, after all, the more feathers the pluckers can collect.Government officials know this quite well. In 1942, discussing proposed changes to how the federal government collected taxes at a Senate hearing, treasury official Randolph Paul wondered aloud, regarding income tax withholding, whether “if we cut down the squawking under this method we could raise the individual tax rates?” Withholding was instituted, the squawking was cut down, and taxes indeed have risen as a share of GDP.
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