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The tax system is complicated not because of the taxes themselves, but because of all the tax credits created to incentivize behaviors.

The vast majority of tax cuts are really just government spending in disguise -- pork for a special interest group that gets allocated by the constituents' accountants instead of in a spending bill, and adding directly to the national debt instead of through the budget.

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This nails exactly what wrong with the tax system. In the history of civilization, the ebb and flow of empires has always consisted of tax disputes wedging factions into alliances who fight for more control. Taxes cause this process! It doesn't matter what the tax is, who pays, or who is paid, just that there's all this extra drain on the natural activity of flowing capital.

The logic is Microecon 101: Taxes are the equivalent to the a transaction+holding cost of using Uncle Sam's currency. Use gold, well, then you're paying to store and transport it. If Uncle Sam was smart about his paper, he would make the Federal Reserve into Federal PayPal, having the Federal Gov't charge, oh say, a 0.001% transaction fee on any exchange of US currency. Same difference, amirite?

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