Income Tax Time

Its income tax time and two delinquent cases are in the news. One guy in Virgina, reportedly worth about 30 million was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to a year and a day in prison. His lawyers asked for home detention and the maximum was about 10 years. The other case involves Wesley Snipes, movie star, who is accused to not reporting 38 million in income over a period of about 5 years.

I wonder what would happen if an ordinary person with average income and a family failed to report income? Nothing much happened to Marion Berry or Elinor Holmes Norton for failing to even file tax returns. I file my tax return every year, on time, because I fear the IRS and going to jail. I think everyone should pay their fair share, but what is fair? Is it 10%, 25%, 28%, 30%, 35%, or even more? One thing is very clear to me, the income tax laws in the US are much too complicated, more complicated that they need to be. All political candidates ever talk about is raising or lower tax rates, very few talk about making the tax laws simpler.