ABSTRACT
Our tax system is a mess. We waste billions of person-hours and hundreds of billions of dollars administering, complying with, and seeking to avoid or evade taxes. Eliminating the current system would indeed add measurably to unemployment by destroying the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of tax preparers and accountants, lawyers, and lobbyists. It would also rid the economy of countless distortions that lead to the misallocation of resources between work and leisure, between saving and consumption, and among forms of saving and consumption and investment goods.
