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Tax System Burden: Tax Compliance Burden Faced by Business Taxpayers

T-GGD-95-42 Published: Dec 09, 1994. Publicly Released: Dec 09, 1994.
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Highlights

GAO discussed taxpayer compliance burden, focusing on the sources of compliance burden for business taxpayers and the reliability of burden cost estimates. GAO noted that: (1) the complexity of the Internal Revenue Code, compounded by the changes made to the code, is the driving force behind federal tax compliance burden; (2) a reliable estimate of the overall costs of tax compliance is not currently available and would be costly and burdensome on businesses to obtain; (3) reducing compliance burden will be difficult because of the various policy tradeoffs, such as revenue and taxpayer equity, that must be made; and (4) while business officials and tax experts acknowledge the legitimate purposes of the federal tax system, they believe several code provisions are problematic and need simplification.

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Federal regulationsFederal taxesFinancial disclosurePrivate sectorTax administration systemsTax lawTaxpayersVoluntary complianceTax complianceCompliance oversight