“The tax code is longer than the Bible, but without the good news”

The U.S. tax code is long. “The whole tax code, students say, is longer than the Bible, the Talmud and the Koran combined,” Richard Strout wrote in the Christian Science Monitor in 1984.
   
U.S. Senator Don Nickles (R-OK) said in 1997:
 
“The present tax code is about 10 times longer than the Bible, a lot more complicated and, unlike the Bible, contains no good news.”
 
Nickles’ statement became very popular in Washington. “The tax code is 10 times longer than the Bible, without the good news,” Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) said in 2010. ““The IRS code is longer than the Bible, with none of the good news,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told National Press Club in March 2015.
 
The Bible contains about 800,000 words and would take the average person 54 hours if read from beginning to end.
 
   
Wikipedia: Don Nickles
Donald Lee “Don” Nickles (born December 6, 1948) is an American politician who was a Republican United States Senator from Oklahoma from 1981 until 2005. He was considered both a fiscal and a social conservative. After the Senate, he founded The Nickles Group, a lobbying firm.
 
Google News Archive
18 August 1984, The Blade (Toledo, OH), “Fresh Look AT Old Tax Problems” by Richard L. Strout (Christian Science Monitor), pg. 8, col. 6:
The whole tax code, students say, is longer than the Bible, the Talmud and the Koran combined.
 
Google News Archive
18 November 1997, The Daily Courier (Prescott, AZ), “Tax-overhaul drive just beginning” by Walter R. Mears (AP), pg. 5A, col. 6:
“The present tax code is about 10 times longer than the Bible, a lot more complicated and, unlike the Bible, contains no good news,” Nickles said.
 
Tax Foundation
Tax Humor
April 04, 2008
By Alicia Hansen
(...)
“The present tax code is about 10 times longer than the Bible, a lot more complicated, and, unlike the Bible, contains no good news.”
—Don Nickles, former U.S. senator,
   
Washington (DC) Post
Dave Camp’s plan: Taxes made simple
By George F. Will
Thursday, December 23, 2010
(...)
Dave Camp was 14, working for his father’s garage in central Michigan, when he made the acquaintance of FICA. Now 57 and about to begin his 11th term in Congress, he will chair the House Ways and Means Committee, where he will try to implement the implications of his complaint that “the tax code is 10 times longer than the Bible, without the good news.”
 
Google Books
The Debt Bomb:
A Bold Plan to Stop Washington from Bankrupting America
By Tom A. Coburn with John Hart
Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc.
2012
Pg. 238:
The code is longer than the Bible, but without the good news.
 
Google Books
The Malign Hand of the Markets:
The Insidious Forces on Wall Street that are Destroying Financial Markets – and What We Can Do About it
By John Staddon
New York, NY: McGraw Hill Professional
2012
Pg. 8:
“A recent count is 3.8 million words.”
 
No exact agreement, but clearly the U.S. Federal Tax Code is very large indeed—“Ten times longer than the Bible without the good news” as Congressman Dave Camp put it
   
Twitter
Laura Davison
‏@laurapdavison
The Internal Revenue Code is longer than the Bible without the good news. Lol, Koskinen, lol. #taxjokes #holyweek
12:42 PM - 31 Mar 2015
 
Twitter
JCorb
‏@JDCorbinPM
“The #IRS code is longer than the Bible, with none of the good news,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told National Press Club March 31
7:57 AM - 6 Apr 2015
 
Twitter
Davia Temin
‏@DaviaTemin
“Ways and Means Committee Chairman says the tax code “is tax code is longer than the Bible without the good news”
― David Camp
9:57 AM - 15 Apr 2015