There is never a good time in America to discuss tax reform. Come the spring, gloom and panic descend. In the throes of the annual tax-preparation ordeal, the prospects of a simpler, fairer system are so remote from the lunatic reality, and the country’s pitiful taxpayers so visibly oppressed and demoralised, that raising the subject seems indelicate. Once the horror of April is over, who in his right mind would want to think about the subject again? This recurring cycle of mass dismay and collective euphoric paralysis is the only way to explain how Congress has been permitted to twist the American tax code, some 20 years after the last great simplification, into its present cruel and unusual condition.

Ronald Reagan’s tax reform of 1986 significantly improved the system. Since then Congress has made a few changes – 15,000 at the last count: new credits, deductions, exemptions, preferences, phase-outs, phase-ins, limits, restrictions and extensions.