Today is April 15, the one day every year when most Americans think about taxes. So I thought I would take this opportunity to step back and look at the big picture of our tax system.

Let’s start with an obvious and often repeated point: the time has come to reform the system. It’s been 28 years since the last major overhaul of our tax code. What we have today is a complex maze of breaks and loopholes that favor those with the political stamina to push for special treatment. For example, the oil and gas industry has worked for a century to preserve the special treatment it receives that allows many big oil companies to pay a marginal tax rate well below the 35 percent statutory rate.

In addition to eliminating special interest breaks and creating a flatter, fairer tax code, it is also important to make the law simpler. It should be easy for every individual to file their own taxes, and exploitation of tax laws and strategies should not be seen as a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Businesses should succeed and fail on the merits of their products and management, not on the creativity of their tax lawyers.

[See a collection of political cartoons on the budget and deficit.]

There is good news and bad news to report on the prospects of actually reforming the code. The good news is that both the Senate and the House have put forth proposals for overhauling the tax code. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., put forth a fully crafted bill that has allowed parties on all sides to debate actual changes to current law. At Taxpayers for Common Sense, although we don’t agree with everything in the Camp proposal, we were thrilled to see a comprehensive proposal introduced to keep the conversation moving.

The bad news, however, is that there seems to be almost no political will to move forward with the hard work of tax reform. Instead, we see both the House and Senate using flawed tax extender proposals as a way to look at tax policy from the margins while preserving special interest tax breaks.

Finally, in thinking about reforming the tax code, it is important to consider how much revenue we need to pay for the government we want. For all the debate on spending levels and budget restraint since the passage of the Budget Control Act back in 2011 and the Bipartisan Budget Act in December of last year, one thing has become clear: almost every program in the government that has been targeted for cuts has been passionately defended by someone. Yes, there is waste to be cut in the federal government, but cutting waste requires convincing a majority of both chambers of Congress that something needs to be cut, a goal that has been elusive. As we debate reforming the tax code, we need to keep an eye on whether those reforms will further increase our debt and deficit or will help bring the budget closer to balance.

[See a collection of political cartoons on Congress.]

What will it take to reform the tax code? Nina Olson, the taxpayer advocate at the Internal Revenue Service may have said it best: "The road to true tax reform requires each and every one to be willing to stop protecting our own tax breaks long enough to begin a dialogue about what we want our system to look like, so we remain a vibrant nation with a tax system that is transparent to its taxpayers – one that is simpler to understand and to comply with."

This year on Tax Day, let’s all ask our members of Congress to start that dialogue in earnest.



