Short answers, pulled from the story.
Alan Siegel, born on the 26th of August 1938, is the founder and chairman emeritus of Siegel+Gale and the CEO of Siegelvision. He is best known as the leading voice of the plain English movement, which pushed for simplifying complex legal and financial documents, and for redesigning IRS tax forms in 1979, which produced the 1040-EZ form.
The 1040-EZ form is a simplified IRS tax form that resulted from Alan Siegel's work with the Internal Revenue Service in 1979. The IRS hired Siegel to overhaul its existing tax forms, and the 1040-EZ was the outcome of that project.
Alan Siegel and designer Robert Gale founded Siegel+Gale in 1969. The two had previously worked together at Sandgren & Murtha. Gale sold his share of the agency in 1974.
At TED 2010, Siegel argued for making clarity, transparency, and simplicity a national priority. He closed his talk by stating: "There is no way that we should allow government to communicate the way they communicate. There is no way we should do business with companies that have agreements with stealth provisions and that are unintelligible."
Siegelvision is a brand identity consultancy Alan Siegel founded after retiring from Siegel+Gale in 2012. Unlike Siegel+Gale, which served major corporations such as Dell, American Express, and MasterCard, Siegelvision focuses on nonprofits, educational organizations, and foundations, including clients such as National Public Radio, the Legal Aid Society, and the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation.
Alan Siegel co-wrote Simple: Conquering the Crisis of Complexity in 2013, with Irene Etzkorn, Siegelvision's chief clarity officer. Strategy+Business magazine named it the best marketing book of the year and one of the best business books of 2013.