According to Sam Batkins and Gordon Gray with the conservative American Action Forum, the IRS paperwork burden “is enough to force every person in the nation to spend 27.5 hours a year filling out forms.”
So what if the tax system were far simpler and you could get those 27 hours back? Here’s what you could do with that much time:
Work
As of March 2016, the average private sector wage in the United States is $25.43 per hour. If you spent an extra 27 hours a year working instead of filling out tax paperwork, you could earn an extra $686.61 a year (before taxes).
Listen
Hillary Clinton’s testimony to the House Select Committee on Benghazi took nearly 11 hours. If you were obsessive about finding errors in her testimony, you could listen to it nearly two and a half times in your extra 27 hours.
Watch
In 27 hours, you could watch approximately all of the first three seasons of “Game of Thrones.” Each episode is approximately 55 minutes long.
Build
Love Star Wars? Love Legos? You could spend 26 hours assembling a giant version of the AT-ATs from “The Empire Strikes Back.”
Walk
You could walk from the Washington Monument to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, spend an hour eating dinner, and walk back to the Washington Monument.
Read
You could read all of the “Lord of the Rings” novels in 26.3 hours.
Play
You could play at least 13 games of Settlers of Catan. According to BoardGameGeek.com, each game takes 60 to 120 minutes.
Breathe
The average person breathes 20 times per minute. That comes out to more than 32,000 breaths while filling out your taxes. Don’t even try to hold your breath for that long.
Drive
With 27 extra hours, you could take a roadtrip to Chicago from Washington, D.C. Roundtrip, the drive would take about 22 hours, so there’s enough time to catch a Cubs game and maybe grab a deep dish at Gino’s if you time it right.
Golf
The average round of golf takes about four hours. With 27 hours, you could play six full rounds of golf — seven if you hurry.
Ride
The Beast, a wooden roller coaster at Kings Island, has a ride time of about four minutes and 10 seconds. With 27 extra hours a year, you could ride the coaster 389 more times.
Drink
Simpler taxes doesn’t necessarily mean lower taxes. If thinking about all that money you have to pay makes you want to drink, you could drink a bottle of wine every two hours during your extra 27 hours. That comes out to 13.5 bottles.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
