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The late great Albert Einstein once admitted that figuring out his U.S. income tax was beyond him—he had to go to a tax consultant. "This is too difficult for a mathematician," said Einstein. "It takes a philosopher."
Most U.S. taxpayers, being neither mathematicians nor philosophers, are baffled, too. by the intricacies of the income tax. Unless they take the straight and narrow path of the short form and the standard deduction, even conscientious taxpayers can never be really sure when they send off their returns whether they cheated themselves or their Government. A philosopher fares no better than an Einstein. If he were heroic enough to read all 929 pages of the tax code, he would not find in them what philosophers seek: order, coherence and principle amid the seeming chaos.
A Danger Point. Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee in 1958, Law Professor Mortimer Caplin argued in favor of reforms to tidy up the tax mess. "We must recognize," he said, "the hodgepodge fashion in which special relief has been granted to various groups and how favors to one have led to many balancing favors to others. Our tax laws have become unbelievably complex. They are riddled with exceptions and preferences." Because of the complexities and inequities of the tax code, Caplin warned, "we have reached a danger point which strongly evidences an undermining of the tax morality of large numbers of people. They appear to be developing a lethargy over tax enforcement, reminiscent of the former widespread attitude under the Volstead Act."
Last week President Kennedy sent his long and loudly heralded tax proposals to Congress, and they reflected Caplin's thinking. The "preferences and special provisions" of the tax code, said the President, "discourage taxpayer cooperation and compliance by adding inequities and complexities that affect similarly situated taxpayers in wholly different ways. They divert energies from productive activities to tax avoidance. Taxpayers with equal incomes who are burdened with unequal tax liabilities are certain to seek still further preferences and exceptions."
Kennedy's proposals, even if fully adopted by Congress, would still leave the tax code exceedingly untidy. What he wants most urgently is tax reduction to stimulate the long-term growth of the economy and reduce the unemployment rate, thereby improving his prospects for re-election in 1964. But he included in his tax message to Congress a batch of proposed revisions designed to make at least a dent in the tax code's melange of deductions and special-case provisions.
It was perhaps no coincidence that these revisions resemble proposals that Caplin put forward in earlier years. As a Senator, Kennedy talked taxes with Caplin. As a presidential candidate, he asked Caplin's advice on tax issues. And as President, he named Caplin to be Internal Revenue Commissioner of the U.S.