Tax review complexity and perplexity

Today we collected the final filed tax documents from our wonderful accountant.  After two hours of reviewing what he had filed jointly for us and individually for our daughters my head was spinning and I was thinking of moving to Idaho and joining some anti-government radical group.  It's hard to believe that until three years ago I chose to do all of this work on my own.  Now even reviewing a true professional's work is mind boggling and agitating.

This will take hours to understand over the coming week.  I have this overwhelming need to at least understand the process.  It seems like a citizen's obligation.  That also gives an opportunity to see the many misrepresentations and outright lies that the politicians, from the top down, tell us.  Every election season, meaning every two years, most of them include in their pitch talks comments about improving and making tax reporting more simple and understandable.  After the election season, special deals, earmarks, purposeful punitive changes, and perhaps a few well meaning messy changes only make the system ever more complex.  In short, Congress has zero integrity on this issue and there is no serious leadership from the top.

For the large number of people in our country who pay little in taxes because unfortunately their jobs are not at all lucrative, this is not much of an issue.  But for the middle class that Obama constantly harps on, expresses support for, and wants to build, this tax system is a real mess.  For the really wealthy, they hire lawyers and experts to work through the issues, often to their benefit.

For many of us, however, this tax system should be viewed as a national disgrace.  What can you do?  Accept it and realize that this is what America has become.  I guess that's about it.