claim: "we spend half a trillion dollars a year in tax preparation."
author: rick perry
evidence_1: apr 17, 2017 ... this is one of the great — and often overlooked — tragedies of our tax code:  congress spends billions of dollars each year on a tax program that is making  wealth inequality worse. according to research by the corporation for enterprise  development (cfed), every year the federal government spends ...
evidence_2: jul 25, 2017 ... in may 2012, tomdispatch featured a piece by chris hellman and mattea kramer , both then analysts at the national priorities project, headlined “war pay: the  nearly $1 trillion national security budget.” the two of them ran through the  figures for the cumulative annual budget for what we still mysteriously ...
evidence_3: sep 3, 2017 ... we can reduce and reform the over $1.5 trillion in yearly tax breaks (there has  been some encouraging talk from the white house about doing this); we can  create a new revenue stream (i favor a carbon for corporate tax trade) or we can  cut spending. one of the biggest ironies of this tax cut versus tax ...
evidence_4: dec 17, 2015 ... budget austerity takes a back seat as the house passes nearly $700 billion in  unpaid-for tax cuts. ... congress' half-trillion-dollar spending binge. budget  austerity takes a .... and this year, republicans struck a deal with democrats:  make some of our tax breaks permanent, and we'll do the same for yours.
evidence_5: jul 16, 2017 ... an analysis of irs data by the taxpayer advocate service (tas) shows that  individuals and businesses spend about 6.1 billion hours a year complying with  tax-filing requirements. “if tax compliance were an industry, it would be one of the  largest in the united states,” the report says. “to consume 6.1 billion ...