ONCE-EASY TAXES NOW CUT TO BONE : INCOMPREHENSIBLE SYSTEM EVEN CONFOUNDED EINSTEIN.

Byline: Joel Fox

TAX day is here. At the ides of April, most of us are feeling a bit like Julius Caesar at the ides of March. It's a knife to the heart, or at least to the wallet. Many of us, instead of ``Et tu Brute,'' cry, ``It's too brutal.''

Inevitably, tax day comes and most citizens pay what they owe or what they think they owe. Discovering what you owe can be a challenge. Don't make more than one call to the Internal Revenue Service asking the same question. You're likely to get very different answers.

But don't blame the poor IRS agents for that. Even this century's greatest genius, Albert Einstein said, ``The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.''

Americans have been paying an income tax since the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1913. The first year under the income tax, 357,598 form 1040s - as the form was called even then - were filed. The tax rate was one percent on incomes above $3,000 and rose to seven percent on incomes above half a million dollars. This first income tax affected only one percent of the population.

When the income tax was passed, an argument made in its favor was that it was simply a rich man's tax. Don't worry, the general population was told, you'll never have to pay it.

Arguing for adopting a national income tax, Rep. James Monroe Miller of Kansas said, ``I stand here as a representative of the Republican Party of the central West to pledge you my word that the great western states will be found voting with you for an income tax. Why? Because they will not pay it!''

It was generally believed that residents of five or six prosperous industrial states in the Northeast would pay nearly all of an income tax imposed.

Well, you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Some caught on quickly. Editors of The Nation magazine warned at the time: ``It is possible for a government to increase repeatedly the rates of such a tax.''

Rates were increased when those in power saw how much money the income tax could raise. Before the 16th Amendment, tariffs and excise taxes provided 90 percent of the federal revenue.

By 1920, the income tax was the dominant revenue raiser for the federal government. Tax rates eventually climbed to 91 percent before President John Kennedy proposed cutting at the top.

Of course, we need money to run the government. The argument is over how much. For the frustrated taxpayer, it seems that if a blank check were offered, it would be returned with a notation, ``not enough.''

On the facade of the mammoth IRS building in Washington, D.C, the words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes are chipped in stone: ``Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.'' It should be noted, however, that Holmes made his famous remark in 1904, before the income tax was sanctioned. Taxes at that time took seven percent of average incomes. Today they take about 40 percent.

Ours is a country founded on a tax revolt. In seeing how much we pay in taxes, taxpayers must wonder if we really won that tax revolution. As Thomas Jefferson famously complained in the Declaration of Independence about government under a king: ``He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.'' Sound familiar today?

Taxes are not avoidable and woe to one who tries avoidance. Al Capone got away with vice, and he even got away with murder, but he didn't get away with not paying his taxes.

So, if we have to live with taxes, can we at least make the system more palatable? One proposal is to create a flat tax so simple that income taxes could be calculated by postcard. Another proposal calls for eliminating the income tax in favor of a national sales tax.

Reform may come, but it won't be easy and it won't be fast. One small step can be taken by Congress, when it votes on an amendment to require a two-thirds vote to raise future taxes. Passing it will give taxpayers some hope on this tax day.