yes.
"The tax code is huge because accounting is complicated"
I'm not sure I buy that. How much active coordination is there between legislators and the Financial Accounting Standards Board for example? If the board says I need to keep records quarterly, does that necessarily imply that taxes must be collected quarterly? If I declare revenue as part of one fiscal year or the next, but the reality of when money hits my bank doesn't change, does that mean tax law must follow the accounting reality and not the bank's reality?
I'm sure you're right that "innovation" in the accounting space is taken advantage of in tax law, but I'd like to hear more about the degree of causal relationship that truly exists.
Tons of people in cheaper areas pay so little in interest and property taxes that they don't even itemize their deductions.
I don't know how it ever seemed like a good idea. If everyone can afford x% more housing cost, what happens? Housing costs get bid up by x%.
Accounting in large part is complicated because of the tax code. Revenues - Expenses = Profit is not complicated otherwise.
Also, the idea of government creating a complex tax code just for funsies is naive. The tax code is huge because accounting is complicated, and taxation is basically a superset of accounting. The GAAP rules are 25,000 pages. That's probably the lower bound in how much you can simplify the tax code (without incorporating the GAAP by reference, which basically would outsource writing tax law to a private organization).