Posted: Apr 25, 2005 By: Clark T. Irwin

Subject: Federal income tax

Comment: Dear Panel Staff:

I gave up on attempting to do our family taxes several years ago. Although I have had graduate work in statistics at Princeton and in banking at Rutgers, I concluded while wrestling with the IRS forms regarding our children's investment income and tha AMT that I had no had any confidence in my calculations, much less in my ability to check the work. So now we hand over more than $1,500 to a CPA to avoid the honor of becoming a house guest of the federal government.

I consider the federal tax code an abomination, so clotted with the debris of congressional brainstorms and pandering that no ordinary citizen can look upon it without anxiety and suspicion.

In conversations with fellow sufferers, I find enormous sympathy for the idea of a flat tax on income with substantial personal exemptions. It would infuriate the class-warfare zealots and the dispensers of poltical favors, but the rank undergrowth of the current is in dire need of a napalm strike and a fresh start.

Good luck on your thankless task.

Regards,
Clark Irwin