The deadline for filing federal income taxes was pushed back two days this year because April 15 fell on a Saturday. But despite the extra days to complete tax forms and mail payments, U.S. taxpayers are not getting a break. The federal income tax code is hopelessly complex, favors special interests and has a compliance rate that is so low that honest taxpayers are increasingly being made to feel like chumps.

The tax code itself and the avalanche of accompanying explanations of deductions, exemptions, credits and loopholes now cover some 60,000 pages. And the complexity and confusion found in those estimated 9 million words of bureaucratic verbiage come at great cost.

The literal cost of compliance has been estimated at $125 billion by the Treasury Department. Other estimates are as high as $260 billion but, whatever the figure, the millions of hours spent by taxpayers themselves and professional tax preparers around the nation are essentially wasted effort. With a simpler tax code, that time and effort could be used for more productive purposes.

Another cost of today's loophole-ridden tax code is found in the issue of fairness. There is a growing perception that the 60,000 pages of the tax code are laden with many special tax breaks — exemptions and loopholes bought and paid for by special interests who wine and dine members of Congress and support re-election campaigns.

There are several explanations for resistance to reforming the tax code. For one, many special interests have now gained preferred treatment and special breaks in small-type provisions in the tax code — and they will use their influence with Congress to retain those lucrative breaks. Thus, any talk of a simpler, streamlined tax code, stripped of nearly all loopholes, triggers immediate lobbying on Capitol Hill to retain the status quo.

Another reason real reform has not happened is that Congress uses the tax code to help friends and hurt enemies. The power to tinker with the tax code — to sell favors — is one way incumbents attract campaign contributions. Lawmakers who view the tax code as a vehicle for selling favors to valued constituents and favored special interests are not interested in any change that minimizes or eliminates their favor-granting power.

Finally, there is no groundswell for reform because taxpayers themselves are so suspicious of federal lawmakers and bureaucrats that they suspect any reform of the current, unfair tax code will result in a system that is worse. Based on previous congressional efforts at simplifying the tax code, they have every right to be skeptical.

Clearly, the income tax system in the United States is badly broken. It has been abused by elected officials — something taxpayers should remember when hearing complaints about the IRS. It is Congress, not the IRS, that passes the tax laws, creates the loopholes for special interests, and adds complexity.

The unnecessary complexity of the code is the reason billions of dollars in time and professional tax preparation are spent every year by Americans preparing their federal income tax returns. The complexity also is the main reason that IRS officials staffing help lines provide incorrect answers to taxpayers' questions more than 25 percent of the time. Further evidence of the complexity came in an experiment by Money magazine in which documentation for a fictitious tax return was presented to 45 different tax preparers — who produced 45 different answers for the bottom line, the amount of tax owed.

The complexity of the federal income tax code also is partially to blame for uncollected (but owed)taxes estimated at between $250 billion and $300 billion. Some of the uncollected federal income tax is due to intentional cheating — simply not filing, underreporting income or over-reporting expenses and deductions. But some of the so-called tax gap also is due to people not paying the proper amount because the tax code is so complex that they make honest mistakes. Whatever the reason, uncollected taxes of $250 billion or more put a massive burden on those taxpayers who do pay what they owe. Today's uncollected taxes are significant;full collection would nearly wipe out the current budget deficit.

Based on past failures to reform the current system, the solution to true reform will come only when the current tax code is scrapped in favor of a national sales tax or a simple flat tax. Both of those options have pros and cons, but either would be better than what now is in place.