Our tax code and its accompanying regulations total tens of thousands of pages, which are complicated, confusing and costly to comply with. Americans need a simple, commonsense solution. This is why I have introduced S. 1040, the Tax Simplification Act.

The Tax Simplification Act establishes a flat income tax of 17 percent on all income and places real spending limits on the federal government. The only exemptions would be a personal exemption of $12,790 for a single person, $16,330 for a head of household, $25,580 for a married couple filing jointly and $5,510 for each dependent. These allowances would be subject to change by being indexed to inflation. To prevent the double-taxation of income, earnings from savings would not be included as taxable income. This would result in an immediate tax cut for virtually all taxpayers.

Now is the time for significant reform of our tax code.

The complexities and inequities of the current tax system would be replaced by a system that threatens every taxpayer equally.

When the shackles of our burdensome tax codes are removed, we will truly see what our great economy is capable of doing.