They are because they have an interest in keeping tax filing difficult and unapproachable, to keep public animus against taxes at its maximum. Coincidentally this is 100% in alignment with the tax prep industry whose entire existence is based on products which solve and handle the complicated tax situation.
Simplifying the tax code is about tax prep. The simpler the tax code, the simpler to file. Though what you say about him wanting to lower taxes is possibly true, none of those posts are about that.
How so? You don't pay TurboTax per regulation. You pay them a flat fee to file your taxes.
I might buy that line of thinking for a corporation but the direct file program was about individuals. Elon gleefully tweeted about how that had been deleted. That's a direct give away to TurboTax and H&R Block.
The 1040 is already really easy to fill out for most people. But you can't just go on the IRS website e-file using the W2 that the IRS already received.
Thought experiment: taxes for everyone are $1 but you have to climb to the top of an icy glacier to place a single dollar bill in a collection box. Is it easy to file these taxes?
Not relevant because you exclude Elon Musk from the "they" who "have interest in keeping tax filing difficult and unapproachable"? Because he is clearly not one of them: "Simplifying the tax code will increase productivity", "Crazy idea: let’s simplify the tax code", "The tax code needs drastic simplification!", etc. And he seems to have quite a bit of influence in the Trump administration.
The people with complicated taxes are rich. Most people have dead simple taxes tax-code wise. W2, standard deduction, dependents, maybe some interest deductions. You’re just being obtuse now. Removing random capital loss carryover loopholes or what have you has nothing to do with mainstream tax prep.
That people don’t know how to do it and thus many pay companies to do it for them. Most of these people’s taxes are extremely simple from a tax code perspective.
The balance of actions taken by the Trump administration suggests it generally is in favor of doing whatever people who suck up enough and donate enough money want.
The history of lobbying on behalf of the tax prep industry is easy enough to find.
Is drawing a line through Trump's well-professed love of sycophants and people who make him money and that lobbying and motivation, to their current actions, so far fetched to you?
I think taking a wait-and-see approach to things like "Trump wants to get rid of income tax entirely" would be wise until we see where the implementation ends up. In the meantime lets talk about what has actually been done to date.
Heck, the Trump admin wants to get rid of income tax entirely, so they're hardly the natural allies of the tax prep industry.