European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 31, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Columns tax questions ask or bark by Dave Barry Knight Ridder newspapers this is the just a Friendly reminder to you taxpayers out there april 5is right around the Corner. It s time to Sharpen those pencils gel out All those irs forms and instructions ill then slab yourself fatally in that vital pulmonary artery with those sharpened pencils. A i a just a Little lax humor actually you should feel darned Good about paying your axes because your government uses your Money to pay for Many Fine programs such As the program utter which government employees attempt to explain to you what the tax Law says. The Way this program works is you Call a  loll free internal Revenue service number with your lax questions and specially trained lax ass stors give you answers. In sonic cases those answers actually turn out to be Correct. I found out about this exciting Public service from a recent associated press article that i am nol making up. Here s what it said a general accounting office study.  iks employees whose Job it is to fake questions by Telephone Ore giving wrong answers even More often than a year ago when their accuracy rate was just 79 percent. Informal spill checks of the 4,500 iks ass stors found that the tax Law changes enacted in i9b6 Are so far reaching  one third to one half of the answers Are wrong. Of course this n .1 typical example of negative journalism comparable to Lite Way the press is always trying to link attorney general Edwin Meese to one crime or another without Ever pointing out thai there Are literally dozens of crimes committed every year that the attorney general probably had nothing to do with As far As we know. Simple arithmetic tells us that if the iks taxpayer assistance personnel Are in fact pm flu Wiso simple now giving the wrong answer half the Lime that Means they also Are giving the right answer a whopping half the Lime which is a darned sight belter than president Reagan does at press conferences when Pesky negative reporters ask him Tricky questions such As what the foreign policy is. I know what you re thinking wait a minute. If they re giving out wrong answers Why should i even bother with the iks taxpayer assistance program Why should t i answer my own questions via some random method such As flipping a Coin that s what i was going to do but i thought i had belter first Check with the iks so i called the toll free number. Really. Here s How it went me is it Legal to answer your own tax questions by flipping a Coin irs expert laughing no. Nol  of course based on the Odds there s a solid Chance thai this answer is wrong and the Coin flip is Legal. But just to be on the Safe Side i have decided to use a method that is even More random namely my dog Earnest. She is the most random creature on the planet. When i have a tax question i go to her. Earnest i say holding an american express Carbon to her nose do you feel that this is a legitimate deductible expense to indicate yes simply sniff it and wag your  thanks to Earnest s grasp of Little known provisions of the tax Law i have discovered that i can legally write off a great Many things i would never have thought were deductible such As Beer snorkel equipment cheer its ski Ball and life in general. Also i have found that Earnest gels More efficient with practice she has now reached the Point where she can Render a Quick Concrete decision on a whole handful of american express carbons All at once. In fact. I am seriously thinking of franchising this concept under the name or bark. I would set up a Bunch of Booths in shopping malls and staff them with professional tax advisers trained to Analyse lax related documents without eating them. You the taxpayer would be Able to get instant answers to your important tax questions and these answers would be backed by the famous or bark guarantee which Stales if for any reason the advice you receive causes an unfortunate situation such As your getting arrested your adviser will accompany you to trial and make a Good Faith Effort to relieve himself of herself upon the  what do you think pretty Good concept huh if you live in either the Northern or Southern hemisphere it just so happens that we still have some franchise territories open near you so if you like to become member of the or bark family you should immediately report to Federal prison. That s where i expect to be once this column is published. Nervy waiter deserved to be promptly reported by miss manners United future Syndicate dear miss manners an Odd thing happened to me in a Nice restaurant the other evening. I was out with another girl just having dinner. Our waiter a sensible looking Man in his late 30s, teased us throughout the meal. He was not being Friendly he was saying things that might have been funny from a close Friend but were just Plain unnerving from a stranger. We were floored when after our main courses arrived he looked at mine the Day s special and did you know i be been wanting to try that. Would you mind if i tasted yours i stared dumbstruck at him and said that i guessed it would be All right. As i looked around vaguely for a spoon he stuck his Index Finger in the sauce and declared it very Good. Then he smiled told us to enjoy and walked away. What was i supposed to do throughout the meal he was cordial and reasonably attentive to our needs. I truly believe that if i had reacted by leaving