He was not saying that lobbying was completely ineffective. He was saying that lobbying rode supported an ideological belief that taxes should not be simplified, and the cost to lobby against the combination of the 5MM in lobbying plus the ideology is a lot more than 5MM. His evidence was that the relatively low value of 5MM hasn’t been outspent by an interested party, there being so many such people who could afford it. I don’t know if that is the case but I would like you to address the central claim. I don’t have a theory of my own.

I would suggest the burden is on proving that there is a legitimate group of people who think taxes should be complicated for ideological (not political) reasons. You readily accepted that premise without any provided evidence. It seems to me that politicians are making a calculation that it is advantageous politically to have complicated tax filing process. Oddly, in the recently passed tax bill the House GOP campaigned heavily on the idea of taxes filing so easy it could be done on a postcard, an admission that people want simplicity. When the law ultimately passed, they didn’t follow through on that promise, maybe due to lobbying maybe for political reasons.

No party has as much direct interest in this issue as tax preparers. That they haven’t been outspent is not itself evidence of anything.

I did not accept the premise. Please don’t mistake my attempt to improve the discussion as agreement with anyone. I just want this discussion to be better. I don’t think demanding burden of proof is a comment worth making; could you at least explain why you think there can’t be such people?

I do agree it is interesting that the GOP campaigned that way, incidentally. Regardless of what degree of support for complicated taxes there may or may not have been, support for simplified taxes in the large, populist wing of the Republican Party plus presumably broad support in the Democratic Party should mean more changes to tax collection soon.

==could you at least explain why you think there can’t be such people?==

It's not that there can't be such people, it's that there hasn't been any credible evidence provided to prove there actually are such people. That both sides of the political spectrum use the same language is pretty strong evidence that there is broad support ideologically for a simpler tax code.

Bringing up Grover Norquist seems like a red herring, as he is himself a lobbyist. His organization, Americans for Tax Reform, describes itself as a group that "believes in a system in which taxes are simpler, flatter, more visible, and lower than they are today." [1] Yet, they are used by rayiner as an example of an organization ideologically opposed to simpler taxes and tax filing. If anything, we should be adding ATR's own $5 million of annual spending to the total lobbying dollars being spent against a simpler system.

==should mean more changes to tax collection soon.==

This is the central point. The tax code was just completely overhauled and it included almost zero simplification, even though it's main proponents used that exact messaging in their sales pitch.

The article suggests that the lack of action is, at least in part, because of lobbying. It provides the evidence of lobby spending related to this topic and the ultimate death of those bills. The also have a quote from Former California Republican legislator Tom Campbell, he says he "never saw as clear a case of lobbying power putting private interests first over public benefit."

[1] https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Americans_for_Tax_Refo...