Former GOP presidential candidate Steve Forbes warns that the tax code is about to become "more complex, more confusing and more corrupt" -- all for "miserly" tax relief amounting to only $17 billion a year out of more than $1.7 trillion in total projected annual federal spending.

The present tax code runs to 7.5 million words. But Forbes warns things are about to get even more complicated.

Here are some of the warning signals:

• The House Ways and Means Committee's official description of the tax cuts alone runs to 215 pages -- and that's not the entire legislation, but only a layman's overview.

• The description of the "tax simplification provisions" takes up 78 pages.

• The description of its "technical correction provisions" runs 31 pages.

• Altogether it totals 324 pages.

Just to return to the level of taxation which existed when President Clinton took office, Forbes points out, would require a cut of $160 billion a year -- more than nine times what's currently being offered.

Forbes, who ran on a flat tax platform, is proposing such a tax at a 17 percent rate, with exemptions of $13,000 for each adult and $5,000 for each child. Single parents would have an exemption of $17,000.

A family of four earning $36,000 now pays about $3,000 in federal income tax. Under Forbes' plan, it would pay nothing. There would be no tax on personal savings, Social Security, capital gains or estates.

Source: Steve Forbes (Americans for Hope, Growth and Opportunity), "Tear Down This Tax Code," Wall Street Journal, July 15, 1997.