Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste is joining the effort to ensure that effective tax reform is on top of the American agenda. On December 7, 2000 a press conference will take place on Capitol Hill to discuss this topic with many of the top voices within the tax reform movement.

Despite talking about reforming the current tax code this bipartisan coalition will attempt to deal with the issue head on.  CAGW feels that this is the first step to simplifying a tax code that most Americans don't even understand.

According to a Harris Poll conducted in 1999, nearly 60 percent of all taxpayers seek assistance to file their tax returns each year.  Over 6 billion hours are spent filing out question after question of these never ending forms.  Tax day is easily one of the most dreaded times of the year for Americans.

 "," CAGW President Thomas A. Schatz said.

There are 7 million words and close to 102,000 pages of IRS laws and regulations.  This leaves a giant door wide open for waste and fraud to occur.  Innocent taxpayers are often the loser in the tax equation.  It is estimated that tax evasion will cost up to $200 billion a year, which factors out to lost revenues.  When Money magazine asked 46 professional tax preparers to calculate a hypothetical family's tax return in 1997, they responded with 46 different answers.   Clearly, there is something wrong when professional tax preparers can't even come up with equal numbers.

Former IRS commissioners also agree that the tax code is too complicated.  Shirley Peterson, who headed the agency in 1992, noted in 1995 that "We have reached the point where further patchwork will only compound the problem.  It is time to repeal the Internal Revenue Code and start over."  And her predecessor, Fred Goldberg, commented in 1997 that "Blaming the IRS is a lot like blaming the doctor when the patient dies from an incurable disease… Tax Reform— not IRS bashing— is the only way to liberate the American people from a system that is grotesquely burdensome and monstrous."

"Clearly it is time to begin to look a bit closer at the true intent of the 16^th Amendment of our constitution," Schatz added.  "CAGW believes that this alliance is leading in the right direction for the future of fair tax reform for all Americans."

CAGW is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization with over a million members and supporters, dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in government.