Tax Tip: Understanding the Tax Code

— -- If you have trouble understanding the tax code, you're not the only one.

"The code is essentially legal language," says Internal Revenue Service spokesman Eric Smith.

"It's really an instruction guide for reducing taxes," says Tom Wheelwright, CEO and founder of CPA firm ProVision.

It is an enormous one, at that.

"The tax code, just the code itself, is 5,800 pages," Wheelwright says.

So what does it all say?

"There’s one line that says all income is taxable unless we say it isn’t," Wheelwright says. "And there’s about 29 to 30 pages of charts and tables on how much tax to pay. But the remaining 5,770 pages is literally a road map for reducing your taxes."

The IRS and tax preparers agree that understanding the tax code is not easy. The best way to understand it is to either hire a professional or use a computer program.