An expert in cutting through gobbledygook is offering some free advice on how to cut the federal deficit and ease taxpayer anxieties: Simplify federal tax forms.
"Further simplification of tax forms and instructions - without compromising technical accuracy - is possible," says Janice Redish, a linguist. "The payoff would far exceed the investment.""Such a project has the potential to collect billions of dollars in taxes that are not now paid and the potential to change the public's perception of the IRS and of government in general," Redish told the House Ways and Means subcommittee.
Redish, who recently wrote a "user-friendly" owner's manual for the Ford Taurus, cited the basic 1040, the most common individual form, as visually overwhelming and incredibly crowded.
"It has 65 numbered items - and several unnumbered ones - all on one piece of paper . . . boxes on the left for some items and on the right for others. It means that IRS uses small type for most lines and then condenses that type even further to fit all the words in other lines," she said.
She got no argument from the subcommittee. Chairman J.J. Pickle, D-Texas, had the Ways and Means hearing room decorated with a copy of each of the 392 federal tax forms.
"Do you need so many?" Pickle asked a panel of IRS officials.
"I'm afraid so," replied Arthur Altman, who is in charge of the agency's tax forms coordinating committee.
IRS Commissioner Fred T. Goldberg Jr. said that as a result of the big tax overhaul that Congress enacted in 1986, the agency had to create 88 new forms and revise 162 others.
"So much for simplification," Pickle complained.