Each year Americans spend five billion hours completing their tax forms.

And just having tax returns prepared costs a collective $225 billion.

For years, Americans have complained about the mind-numbing complexity of our tax code. Efforts have been made over and over to revise the law to make it fairer and simpler. But that process is about like adding one room to your home at a time without ever drawing up an architect?s plan to show how the whole thing should look. Pretty soon you end up with a hopeless mess.

That's exactly what has happened with our tax laws. And that's why last week I voted for a completely new approach - simply scraping the entire federal tax code and starting over again. The bill, sponsored by my good friend and colleague, Congressman Steve Largent of Oklahoma, would call for a new code to be in place by July 4, 2004; and the current tax laws would expire on Dec. 31, 2004. It passed the House last Thursday, and hopefully, the Senate will also approve it.

There are two strong reasons for following the approach called for in Congressman Largent's bill, "The Date Certain Tax Code Replacement Act," which I am proud to co-sponsor. The first is that in life - and particularly in the life of the federal government - nothing ever seems to get done until someone sets a firm deadline. We set a deadline to eliminate the deficit, and not only did we end the red ink but we got the job done several years early!!!! So, the best way to make sure that we finally do something about the hopelessly messed up tax code is to simply set a date certain when it will be no more.

Another strong point of the bill is that it allows Congress and the President - and most importantly the American people - plenty of time for a full and careful national debate over what kind of tax system we want to replace the existing monstrosity. This plan allows plenty of time for our society to prepare for the new system.

And the bill does not predetermine the outcome of our national dialogue about the new tax structure. We could keep the current system, adopt a single-rate income tax or completely wipe out the income tax, amend the Constitution and replace the income tax with a national sales tax. The people need to voice their opinions and so do the candidates for President of the United States.

When you look at what has happened in the 87 years since the federal income tax was introduced, it's clear that unless we act decisively now, the code will only become more complex and an even greater burden on our people. Consider these points:

• The first income tax form in 1913 was two pages long backed up by 14 pages of law. It now runs to 17,000 pages - more than seven times longer than the Bible - and includes 703 different forms.
• In 1986, Congress reformed the tax code with the goal of simplifying it and making it fairer. But fully 6,000 changes have been made since then. Now President Clinton is proposing even MORE changes, including 93 tax increases and 42 user fees.
• Money Magazine did a survey in 1998 and found out that when 46 professional tax preparers were asked to complete a hypothetical family's tax returns, they sent back 46 DIFFERENT answers - all of them wrong!

This is a crazy and wasteful system. It is long past time to end the whole thing and start over. The Date Certain Tax Code Replacement Act is the best way to begin this process of reforming our tax code!