A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System

Placeholder author icon
By T.R. Reid ’66

Published Feb. 9, 2017

  The tax code works for no one, and so we rip it up and rewrite it every 32 years. The next rewrite is due in 2018 — and this time we can write a code that is simple and fair by learning from other wealthy democracies like New Zealand or the United Kingdom. In A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System (Penguin Press), Reid travels the world to find out what makes for good taxation and brings it back to the U.S.

Paw in print

Image
The January 2026 cover of PAW, featuring a man and a woman and the headline "Empower Couple."
The Latest Issue

January 2026

Giving big with Kwanza Jones ’93 and José E. Feliciano ’94; Elizabeth Tsurkov freed; small town wonderers.