Tax Day: IRS red tape costs 797,000 years of labor

In a new study of IRS forms most Americans file every April, the taxpayer watchdog revealed:

“Citizens spent 6.989 billion hours complying with IRS forms and record-keeping requirements – 74 percent of the entire federal government’s imposed paperwork load! Nothing else Washington does – whether enforcing labor laws, administering loan programs, or issuing environmental edicts – comes as close in requiring so much effort from Americans to understand and fulfill.

“Some perspective may help gauge how time is taken through tax code compliance. Think of it this way: the amount of time spent is equal to over 291 million days and over 797,000 years. It would take 68,386 American workers, who begin employment at age 18 and labor every single work-week of their lives with no days off, until reaching the full Social Security retirement age of 67, to account for that much time.”

The dollar cost may be just as eye-popping. The NTUF put the price at $363 billion. “This amount is larger than the annual revenues of all but one Fortune 500 company, and surpasses the annual GDP of over 150 countries, including Chile, Finland, and Portugal,” said the group.

Their report, written by Demian Brady, the NTUF’s director of research, was one of several sizing up the cost of filing taxes. Tuesday is the filing deadline.

Earlier Monday, American Action Forum put the paperwork burden at 8.1 billion hours and $170 billion.

“IRS currently imposes 8.1 billion hours of paperwork and generates more than 1,000 tax forms. To put these incredible burdens into perspective, that is 25 hours per person in the U.S. or 54 hours per taxpayer. In other words, the average working American spends more than a week sifting through paperwork and preparing to file,” said the AAF.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]