Think of the IRS as an industry or a corporation with a mission statement and a goal of collecting as much tax revenue as it can while doing as little economic damage to the host as possible. Like any industry the overseers must be vigilant and there should be constant observation and tinkering to guarantee the utmost efficiency.
A CPA once told me that the unnecessarily complicated tax code is exacerbated by the mediocrity of IRS employees. He explained that the IRS is the employer of last resort for graduates, so they tend to draw from the bottom of the class…C students. Because the employees fail at their job, the job is bolstered with… more C students. Consider this, there are many more pages in the tax code dedicated to tax avoidance than there are to revenue collection. Not exactly sure how the mission statement is worded, or what the goal is but with this formula of extreme inefficiency, bolstered by an infrastructure of mediocrity it is unacceptable. I believe that the IRS business model is representative of our bureaucracies across the entire US government, and it is despicable.
Given our current set of circumstances and what it means to future generations, is our collective dumb shrug response to this appropriate? We need a vehicle, a mode of transport, that takes us from where we are to where we need to be. NORMAL is that vehicle, and I ask you to prepare to get onboard.