24,000 Pages?!
That was the length of General Electric’s 2005 tax return. You heard me correctly, 24,000 pages. Astounding...
The Internal Revenue Service today announced significant progress in its corporate e-file program, including the successful May 18, 2006 e-filing of the nation’s largest tax return from General Electric (GE).
On paper, GE’s e-filed return would have been approximately 24,000 pages long. After filing, GE received IRS’ acknowledgement of its filing in about an hour. The file was 237 megabytes.
“Having GE file electronically shows the program is working,” said IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson. “Having the largest tax return is a major milestone for the corporate e-file program. I appreciate GE’s work to get this done.”
Yeah, it saved a lot of paper. That’s probably not reflected in the paychecks GE paid their team of tax attorneys to prepare the return, or the boatloads of money the Treasury will have to print (or “loan”) to pay the salaries of all the federal employees who will have to look this one over. My tax return took an afternoon to complete. How man man-years did this take?
It’s got to stop. It’s time for the FairTax.
Hat Tip: The Wrightwing
To put this into terms most web surfers will understand I created a file in PhotoShop. 400 inches (33.3 ft) by 400 inches at 72 dpi and saved it with the least amount of compression possible. The resulting jpeg was a mere 52.6 megabytes.
If we are going to get fair tax passed we must lobby the congressmen we have and support individuals with a good chance of being elected who advocate the fair tax. I reccomend Chuck Ahner from the Kansas Third Congressional District. Chuck is running in one of the few competitive districts left in the country, and is building the momentum necessary to win election in November. He is a strong advocate of the fair tax, and if we all support him, we will have a major voice in Congress.
I saw Chuck speak in Wichita on June 8, and I agree that he is the best FairTax proponent I have seen running for office this November. With his help, H.R. 25 should be able to pass the House and help us get rid of this ridiculous 24,000 page tax code.