In 2002 Americans spent around 5.8 billion hours complying with the federal income tax code with an estimated compliance cost of over $194 billion (that's "B").
That doesn't include the cost of tax planning or any state tax compliance costs. It's just the cost of filling out tax and information returns of all types (business, personal, payroll, non-profit, etc) for the federales.
That's a 20.4-cent tax-compliance surcharge for every dollar the income tax system collects.
Nice touch.
Source: Tax Foundation
As Ever,
TWC