WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator John Barrasso, R-Wyo., spoke out against the broken tax system on the Senate floor. Barrasso made the comments as millions of Americans labor through their tax returns and write checks to the government before the clock strikes midnight.

“Taxpayers deserve a system that is simple, provides certainty, and encourages success and innovation,” Barrasso said. “Americans deserve a system that is based on what is in their best interests, and not the best interest of the government.”

“The reform envisioned by Congress in 1986 failed to achieve its desired result. The tax code is even longer today – 6,000 pages and 2,800,000 words, and it’s growing.”

Barrasso’s comments were made on the 20th anniversary of former Wyoming Senator Malcolm Wallop’s speech on the tax burden Americans faced. During that speech, Wallop submitted a guest editorial written by Barrasso, who now occupies Wallop’s Senate seat. The editorial in the Casper Star-Tribune addressed the flawed tax-reform bill of 1986.

“When we passed the ‘86 tax act, it was labeled tax reform,” Senator Wallop said. “Many of us, when asked to celebrate the reform, found very little to celebrate.  And we were proven right. The Tax Code is too long, too complex, and it still does not give the average citizen confidence that people preparing the tax code had ever prepared their own taxes."

The IRS estimates that the average amount of time an American taxpayer spends filling out their tax return in 2008 is nearly 30 hours. More than 6 in 10 Americans hire someone to help prepare their returns. Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent annually to try to comply with complicated tax laws.

“Americans work day in and day out to pay for Washington programs they wouldn’t wish on their worst enemies. In too many families, one parent works to put food on the table and the other parent works to pay for the Washington bureaucracy. The government is too big and it spends too much.”

“Reforming the tax system is not an easy undertaking, but a necessary one. It must be fair, simple, uniform and consistent. After all, the money belongs to the hard-working people of Wyoming and the rest of the nation. It is the people’s money. It is not the government’s money. The American taxpayer deserves better.”