Taxes not only fund a functioning government, they fund a variety of public services that benefit all Americans. Over many decades, our tax system has grown nightmarishly complicated, unnecessarily bloated, confusingly inconsistent, and simply unfair. It’s a frustrating headache for everyone. True tax reform, not just tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy, is essential to make the tax code more fair and easier to understand.

RATES: The Trump administration slashed rates for businesses and wealthy individuals. Now the deficit is ballooning. It is essential that we fix the rates so that they are fair to everyone and we can still pay our bills.

LOOPHOLES: We can make things simpler and fairer by removing deductions and loopholes, like we did in 1986 when “Tip” O’Neill, Bill Bradley, and Ronald Reagan achieved the last major reform of the US tax code.

INCOME: One way to make a fairer system is to treat all income, be it from employment, capital gains, or carried interest, as the same. Add up all income no matter where it came from, then find the bracket that matches and you’re done!

RETURN-FREE: If we are making taxes easier, let’s go one step further. It is time to move to a “return-free” tax system in which the IRS completes the tax process for an individual, and the individual just checks it and corrects anything that is incorrect. These have existed for more than 70 years in other countries (e.g. Japan and the United Kingdom) and have even had successful tests in states like California.