"Inconvenient": local filmmakers tackle tax tangle

The multi-thousand-page U.S. tax code is a labyrinth that seems to swallow good intentions and to give up nothing but frustration.

In a new movie about tax reform, we hear tax critic and millionaire Steve Forbes explain "In the last 20 years, we’ve amended the thing 14,000 times and added three  million new words."

Tackling the code was the goal of Atlanta filmmakers Vincent Vittorio and Nathaniel Thomas McGill, whose documentary, "An Inconvenient Tax," tracks the growth of tax law, and the protests that taxes have incited, from the Boston Tea Party to the current Tea Party.

Both graduates of Dacula High School, Vittorio and McGill faced two challenges as moviemakers: Comprehending the code itself, and convincing their interviewees of their nonpartisan approach.

"I can’t tell you how many times I got called Michael Moore," said Vittorio, 31, writer and producer. A few pounds shy of a Moore, the curly-haired Vittorio strived to maintain an objective stance, crisscrossing the country during the 2008 election, interviewing experts on the left and right to strike a balance and seek a solution. Now available on Video On Demand and soon to be released as a DVD, the movie features several Atlantans, including presidential aspirant Herman Cain, radio pundit Neal Boortz and former Congressman John Linder.

National voices on the right (Mike Huckabee) and the left (Noam Chomsky) also speak their mind.

In April, Vittorio and McGill took the movie on tour, showing it at 60 colleges around the country, including Harvard, New York University, the University of Georgia and UCLA.