Ted Cruz claim about costs of tax compliance, military drew most PolitiFact Texas views in May
Ted Cruz tours a Texas vineyard and, lo, readers flock to our fact check of what he said there.
In May, our fact check of Sen. Cruz’s post-tour claim about tax compliance costs proved to be our most-viewed article.
According to a blog post on txwinelover.com, Cruz toured Becker Vineyards in July 2014 before holding a roundtable with wine industry representatives during which he agreed the tax system should be simplified.
“Every year,” Cruz elaborated, “we spend roughly $500 billion on tax compliance. That is roughly the budget of our entire military, entirely wasted on tax compliance.”
A reader asked us to check that cost comparison. And in the end we found both ends of the Texas senator’s statement squishy, making the full claim False.
Depending on how you value time, you can get to almost any total for what it costs Americans to prepare and file tax returns. However, most estimates run short of Cruz’s figure. Meantime, military spending exceeded $800 billion the year he spoke though the senator’s spokesman indicated he meant to not count spending on conflicts abroad and other items not in the military’s nearly $500 billion base budget.
