With April just around the corner, millions of Americans are thinking about taxes and the April 17 deadline for filing federal income taxes.

But when most people think about federal income taxes they think about how complicated and riddled with loopholes the federal tax code has become.

During this presidential campaign there has been some talk about simplifying the tax code. There have been proposals to reduce loopholes and exemptions and to lower tax rates. But while lower rates are appealing to everyone, closing loopholes and exemptions are another matter.

The idea of ending loopholes and exemptions has wide support in the abstract. But when specific loopholes or exemptions are targeted, such as the mortgage interest deduction or the charitable contribution deduction, then it’s another story. Most people say, “Get rid of loopholes and exemptions, except the ones that benefit me.”

There is no doubt that the tax code should be simplified. The federal tax code today contains some 3.8 million words and has been changed 579 times, just in 2010.

The time and effort spent complying with the tax code is immense and mostly nonproductive. The IRS estimates that 6 million man-hours a year are spent in complying with tax code. The Economist magazine notes that’s “the equivalent of 3 million people working full-time, year-round — more than the entire federal work force.”

The tax code has become complicated and massive because of attempts at social engineering by Congress, using the tax code to encourage certain types of behavior, such as increasing homeownership and giving to charities. The other reason for tax code complexity, and probably the larger reason for all the loopholes and exemptions and pages of complicated language is special interests. Special interests, from individual companies to entire industries, have spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying for tax code favors — and they’ve gotten them in the many loopholes and exemptions.

The biggest obstacle to simplifying the tax code is the fact that the special interests that bought and paid for loopholes and exemptions will fight to keep them.

There is no doubt that a major tax reform effort would bring out armies of lobbyists working to preserve their client’s loopholes and exemptions — othewise known as “tax expenditures” because they cost the government money, just as as earmarks and other targeted spending costs the government.

It’s estimated that all the loopholes and exemptions cost the Treasury $1 trillion a year. That’s a significant figure, given that total federal government revenues in 2012 are forecast to be $2.5 trillion.

Nearly every politician supports tax reform and agrees with U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan’s statement that “The tax code has become a broken maze of complexity and political favoritism, overgrown with special-interest loopholes.” But the odds of getting real reform done are slim because of politics and money.

Another topic that taxpayers should consider at this time of the year is the so-called tax gap, which is the difference between the money is owed and what is collected. This year, the tax gap could be close to $400 billion. That is money not collected by the IRS through cheating or errors. But, regardless of the reasons for the tax gap, honest taxpayers are paying more in federal income taxes to make up for those who are not paying their fair share. Congress should boost funding for the IRS to hire more investigators to crack down on cheating and close the tax gap.

Given the fact that tax reform and tax simplification have bipartisan support at a time when that is rare in Washington, Congress should move forward with tax reform. And it should happen this year, to show Americans that Congress can actually accomplish something reasonable and useful.