Comment by DarylZero
4 years ago
You should think of it this way. The reasons that tax policies are complex are that the government uses tax incentives both as a "carrot" to control people; and also to buy political support from interest groups who benefit.
The tax compliance and tax avoidance jobs should be understood to be part of one of these schemes. Either they're low-level enforcers in the government's heavy-handed tax-based system of control; or else they're co-conspirators in the influence-buying grift.
Those are some of the reasons taxes are complicated, but not all of them. In the US the tax compliance industry has directly lobbied to keep the tax system as complex as possible so they can keep extracting rent for doing bullshit work.
The "influence-buying grift" jobs are usually classed as bullshit anyways, so that source of the complexity doesn't change the assessment.
There are potentially valid policy goals served by various tax incentives, but it is still worth considering if there are different tax incentives or other regulatory approaches that would create fewer bullshit jobs. With the political problems of raising taxes, government often choose to offload the costs of policy goals onto the public via creating bullshit jobs that cost more overall but avoid the need for tax increases.