New Efficiency Department Suggests Simpler Tax Code; H&R Block, Intuit Stock Fall

A sign outside the IRS building in Washington on May 4, 2021. Patrick Semansky/AP Photo

The new, nongovernment Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy has turned its attention toward simplifying the U.S. tax code.

“In 1955, there were less than 1.5 million words in the U.S. Tax Code,” the department stated in a recent post on social media platform X.

“Today, there are more than 16 million words. Because of this complexity, Americans collectively spend 6.5 billion hours preparing and filing their taxes each year. This must be simplified.”

DOGE is an extra-governmental entity proposed by President-elect Trump to restructure federal agencies, slash wasteful spending, and cut down excess regulation.

Tax complexity is a major issue for American taxpayers. An Aug. 6 report by the nonprofit Tax Foundation found that complicated tax rules annually cost Americans $546 billion, which is nearly 2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

The National Taxpayers Union Foundation, another nonprofit, noted in a report that the “one factor behind the complexity and confusion associated with tax compliance is the sheer size of the tax code.”

The Treasury Department’s interpretation of the code is made up of 22 volumes on more than 17,000 pages.

Tax Filing Services

Meanwhile, tax filing service company shares fell based on market rumors that the efficiency department plans to introduce a free tax app, which The Epoch Times could not independently verify.

Shares of Intuit, which owns the TurboTax online tax filing platforms, fell by 5.1 percent on Nov. 19. The company earned more than $16 billion in revenues for fiscal year 2024.

Stock for tax preparation company H&R Block tanked by 8.2 percent. The company’s revenue for fiscal 2024 was more than $3.6 billion.

The IRS already offers Direct File, a free, online tax filing option, which was launched in March in a limited capacity.

Initially, only eligible taxpayers from 12 states were able to use the service. In May, the IRS stated that Direct File would be available nationwide for filing 2025 returns.

Focusing on Government Efficiency

Tax code isn’t the only target for Musk and Ramaswamy. The latter recently told Fox News that “there is massive waste, fraud, and abuse right now” in the government.

“We expect certain agencies to be deleted outright,” Ramaswamy said. “We expect mass reductions in force in areas of the federal government that are bloated. We expect massive cuts of all federal contractors and others who are overbilling the federal government.”

Since the announcement of the new department, Musk has been sharing reports of government inefficiency. On Nov. 18, he posted on X about a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that, in June 2019, found that 10 critical federal IT legacy systems were outdated or obsolete and collectively cost $337 million per year to run and maintain.

In a Nov. 19 post, he pointed to another GAO report, which found that 18 federal agencies made an estimated $247 billion in improper payments for fiscal year 2022.

“That is just the tip of the iceberg. The actual fraud and waste in government spending is much higher,” Musk wrote.

Most recently, the department pointed to reports suggesting that the Pentagon cannot fully account for $824 billion, that $200 billion in COVID-19 pandemic relief went to fraud or abuse, that there was $236 billion in improper payments in federal programs, and that the government cannot track $1 billion in aid to Ukraine.