Book Description

Because every nominal dollar of tax revenue really costs taxpayers $1.65, many of us who are supposed beneficiaries of federal programs are unknowingly engaged in what Payne identifies as self-subsidy - we are in fact paying in more than we get back, subsidizing the very help the government "gives" us. Moreover, while it is imposing hidden monetary burdens, the tax system is literally driving people crazy. Costly Returns recounts the sometimes extreme anxiety and stress suffered by citizens forced to endure the arbitrariness, invasion of privacy, denial of civil rights, and other abuses of a coercive tax system. Why has the tax system become so burdensome? The answer lies in the strangely biased policy-making climate in Washington, where tax officials dominate the debates on tax regulations and where the taxpayer point of view is seldom heard. Payne recommends a novel way to correct this imbalance: Require the IRS to compensate taxpayers for the private sector costs it forces on them.