Complex Tax Law

[Robin Perplexos]

I am a tax accountant in Australia. Like most accountants in this field, I work in public practice as a self-employed practitioner rather than as a corporate employee. I note this is primarily a US site but I understand the US tax system is as every bit as complicated as ours. In Australia, there is a general acceptance and public discussion among Tax Accountants that tax law is unnecessarily complex. Despite this however, there is also a noticeable reluctance by Tax Accountants to acknowledge that this complexity can mean they may not always be getting it right when advising clients. Interestingly enough the Australian Taxation Office (our IRS) tracks and puts information out, into the public domain, that more than a few Tax Accountants are making mistakes when lodging tax returns on behalf of their clients. It raises the question that, as accountants, we deal with a lot of information - are we getting to the point where the bureaucrats, who write tax law, are simply out-of-touch and not realising that fewer and fewer accountants have the time to read all the analysis, rules and laws they keep creating?