And as I suspected would be the case, some other folks have responded to my comment with a bunch of additional “simple” suggestions for what to do in this case. Which have hidden exceptions of their own, which will have unexpected impacts and loopholes, which will then elicit further “simple” suggestions for how to fix them, and before you know it we’ve got a complex tax code again.

There’s an old quote of unclear providence that I think applies here, “everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler”.