Keep It Simple, Max

Everyone knows our tax code is excessively complicated (please—give me something written by the post-modern essay generator any day). But sometimes it’s striking to see just how complicated it really is. Here’s Sen. Max Baucus in today’s Washington Post talking about a proposed tax on equity:

“I’m looking at it,” said Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the tax-writing finance panel. “But it’s a very complicated subject. I want to make sure we know what we’re doing.”

In other words, the top tax-writer in the Senate isn’t entirely sure he knows what he’s doing with the taxes he’s about to implement. Yes folks, it’s that complicated, that Byzantine, that utterly, impossibly confusing and complex, that even the guys charged with designing the system start scratching their heads when they open up the hood. It shouldn’t be. It doesn’t have to be. But it is.

Addendum: The good news (or at least not outright bad) is that Charlie Rangel’s idea for a surtax on top earners doesn’t look likely to pass in the Senate:

Another possibility raised by Rangel to generate substantial revenue is to impose a surtax on the highest-income Americans, those who earn more than $250,000 or $300,000 a year. Baucus, however, was not optimistic about that proposal. “It will be difficult for that kind of provision to pass the Senate,” he said.