Rossotti Thinks Taxpayers are Paying Too Much

NEW YORK -- Charles Rossotti, who ran the Internal Revenue Service from 1997 through 2002, told MONEY Magazine that taxpayers are paying too much and added his thoughts on tax reform.

Rossoti told the magazine that the IRS is underfunded, with 20,000 fewer employees than in the early 1990s, even as in the past 20 years there have been 14,000 changes to the tax code.

“But you're paying the bill,” he said. “That $300 billion means you pay 20 percent more than you should.”

On the President's tax reform panel recent recommendations, Rossotti said the IRS would still allow people's mortgages to be given a significant tax benefit. He also said that he thinks the rising number of people getting stuck paying the alternative minimum tax spur reform, although he said he thinks it’s really about “getting rid of a system where no one understands what happens to them.”

Rossoti said he’s not sure if tax reform can get done, but there is precedent.

“I'm not a politician,” he said. “All I know is that in 1986 everyone said major tax reform couldn't be done and it was done. But President Reagan and key Democrats got behind it. That's what it takes.”

-- NYSSCPA.org News Staff

Posted on 11/16/05

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