I have spent more than 40 years working with the federal tax code, first as a tax law student, then as an I.R.S. tax attorney, and then as a tax lawyer in the private sector. As we approach a new tax season, I am compelled to reflect on the obscene complexity of our federal tax code.

Over time, most taxpayers have become fatalistically conditioned to accept this hopeless quagmire, watching the federal tax code along with explanatory I.R.S. pamphlets grow not by the number of pages, but by the pound. Neither the tax lawyers, nor the tax professors, nor the CPAs, nor the accountants fully understand the federal tax code. No credible tax professional will tell you otherwise. We muddle through endless complexities, enhanced by exceptions upon more exceptions. How many taxpayers still feel comfortable in preparing their own tax returns? For instance, how many nonprofessionals think they can adequately understand the complexities of at least six different capital gains rates, or of the phase outs for itemized deductions, or of the alternative minimum tax rules or of the applicability of kiddie tax rates (for just a few).

Don't blame the I.R.S. It is stuck trying to figure out what Congress has given them and it is no more omniscient than the rest of us in trying to figure out what all those words mean. Worse yet, the I.R.S. lacks needed resources to administer our overly complex tax laws. Without adequate resources, these laws can not be effectively administered. Without effective administration, revenues are lost and inequity results from lack of uniform enforcement. Congress does need to provide the I.R.S. more resources, but doing so remains self-defeating, as long as more verbal tonnage is added to the tax code.

If Congress cannot get the federal income tax code straightened out and pretty soon, it will die from its own weight, and without regard to the obvious inequity of its likely substitute, an arbitrary flat tax. Perhaps, the only way to achieve true tax simplification is for Congress to pass a new "two for one" tax law, requiring the deletion of two words for each new word added to the tax code. Or even better, why not demand a "common sense" tax law that would require each Congressperson to prepare and file his own tax form without any professional help, and if a senator or representative should make more than three mistakes on his self-prepared 1040, he would have to vote to repeal the law and replace it with a simpler one. What do you think?

Thomas C. Morrison is a Helena lawyer.