(Archived Content)
Today is tax day - how many of you spent the weekend closeted up with your tax forms and a calculator? Or did you just give up and pay someone else to do it, out of sheer confusion?
Our tax code is an abomination. It's 9,500 pages of confusion and complexity. That complexity is costly - to taxpayers, to our economy, and to public confidence in the fairness of the system. We've got to fix the tax code so that it's simple, clear, and fair. Americans deserve to have a code that's understandable and treats everyone the same.
Today we are taking one small step to begin to address the headaches our tax code creates for working Americans. Did you know the tax code has five different definitions of child? Next year, there will be over 52 million taxpayers with children. They shouldn't have to sort out whether their child meets the appropriate definition to be counted as a dependent, and then have to examine an entirely separate definition to see if they can claim the child tax credit. And yet that's what our current law requires. Today we are proposing to fix this headache, and create one tax code definition of a child, so you can spend less time pulling your hair out over your tax forms, and more time enjoying your kids.