Abstract Everyone is more or less reconciled to the prospect of a relatively large Federal budget in years ahead. No one expects that taxes will be greatly reduced immediately even if and when the happy day comes which sees free spenders kicked out of seats of authority. But the burden of taxes is not to be described merely in terms of the amount of money collected. The total burden includes the cost of compliance on the part of taxpayers and administrative costs incurred by the government. In constructing a system of taxation a serious effort should be made to minimize this additional burden, the taxpayer should be separated from his money with the least possible bedeviling, harassment, and expense. The system, however, could hardly be worse if deliberately designed to maximize the direct and indirect cost of compliance, and to produce gross inequities to boot. No one is in a position to estimate in dollars the amount of the annual burden which represents a total loss to the national economy in the form of excessive compliance cost, but that this unnecessary load is a serious matter can not be questioned.
William A. Paton (Sat,) studied this question.