So here's a pretty nice policy idea from John Edwards: if the IRS already has all the information it needs to do your taxes, as it does for about 50 million Americans, why don't we spare you the trouble and have the IRS do your taxes by itself? The IRS would then just send you "Form 1" in the mail, telling you how much you owe or how big your refund is, and you'd sign it and return it. Studies suggest that this would save Americans approximately 225 million hours of tax-related drudgery.
The folks at the National Review have objections, though. I particularly liked this from Steve:
I think one of the best things conservatives could do to make peoplerealize just how bad our tax burden is would be to require alltaxpayers to file and pay taxes quarterly. The current insidioussystem of employer withholding was designed to collect income taxeswithout taxpayers feeling the pain of writing a check.
Apparently he wants to build up government bureaucracy... so that peoplewill get mad and want to tear down government bureaucracy. Republican governance at its best!
