John Walker, who runs the Web site Fourmilab, where he has created a cross-referenced and searchable database of Title 26 of the U.S. Code, reports that there are more than 3.4 million words in the Internal Revenue Code. According to an article–Taxing Words–in the Wall Street Journal today, when you add in the regulations, that brings the number to around 9 million words:
The nine-million-word figure is arrived at by combining Title 26 with all the regulations that have been written to implement the law. The regulations are estimated to run to nearly six million words, giving us the oft-quoted nine million total. Last year, the White House noted conservatively that the tax code ran to “over one million words.” Mr. Walker arrives at a figure of approximately 1.3 million words if one excludes “all the auxiliary and supplementary material (lists of amendments, cross-references, transitional rules, etc.),” which is close to the White House figure.The larger point here is that, whichever number you pick, the tax code is monstrous. The 1986 Reagan tax reform cut the code in half, according to the National Taxpayers Union, but since then it has grown back like jungle brush, thicker than ever. A complicated tax code leads to wasted time and money as taxpayers and their advisers comply with its myriad rules. As President Bush’s tax reform panel winds up its business today, we assume that reducing complexity will be high on its to-do list.