One of the few drawbacks of residing in the US is the annual encounter with Form 1040, which is to personal finance as waterboarding is to asking some questions. Today is the deadline for declaring your income and taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. In early April, as the sun shines and the blooms appear, the mood of the country visibly subsides. Citizens reach for their anti-depressants and tax-preparation software.
The lunatic complexity of the US tax code is proof of legislative incompetence. It is something you cannot gaze at too long without falling into despair. And yet – how pathetically one clings to these hopes – it is also an opportunity. If ever there were a free lunch, if ever there were a dollar lying on the sidewalk, it is tax reform. The timing, could hardly be better.
Consider the context. The chances that Washington might strike a deal on budget policy looked slim before Barack Obama’s intervention last week; afterwards, they looked slimmer. The Republican party is intransigent, and Mr Obama responded in kind. He said that the deficit needed to be brought down faster, but dismissed the Republicans’ proposals with unusual ferocity, and promised never to budge on the things Democrats care most about. Joy on the left was unconfined. Paul Krugman of the New York Times said that he “could live with it”. Rarely does Mr Krugman get so carried away.