European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 17, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Turf  part 4ti a Owr a Wjk.  a9 w v to Weg Iyow i 7 or act i a a. J tax advice own Dave Barry i Knight Ridder newspaper a return time is coming and 1 have bad news and Good news a a the had news is fax return Lime is coming. A the Good news is i figured out How to get Rich from it. My plan is to set up bad taxpayer advice centers. The Way these would work is taxpayers w Ould pay a fee and our trained personnel would.  incorrect information such As that they can deduct the full Cost of any item whose name contains two or More vowels. Examples a a boat is deductible. So is  but not a a phlegm or "cat.�?�. With this system you would enjoy the conf Tience of knowing you were getting incorrect advice As opposed to when you ask any of the so called tax experts who Are frequently wrong but not always thus leaving you with an insecure feeling. Although you can to really blame the experts. Nobody understands the . Tax code a huge Complex mutant or Garym kept in a heavily guarded basement Section of the internal Rcv nue service building. A a done to go in there a the guards warn people. A the tax code is in there Quot at night they throw meat to it. This is Why most of us taxpayers wisely elect to fill in our tax forms with essentially random numbers. Of Well be diligent at first. Well get out the cardboard Box where we keep our financial. Records and Well make an honest Effort to give accurate answers to the Early questions such As a taxpayer name a. But when we get to the Tricky questions such As How much Money we earned How we spent it and exactly How Many children we have we tend to develop looser standards especially when we real inc that our financial records consist of a 1982 receipt from Burger King and six increasingly desperate letters asking us Tiff new our subscription to Newsweek. A ,. So when we get to the question  much exactly we spent on a child care a we arc going to have some questions of our own including what about Captain skyhawk a Nintendo game that we purchased for. Our son for Christmas because we Are bad parents who wished to rot his mind it Cost $41.99, and we definitely View this As a child care expense on Rainy saturday afternoons when our son has what sounds like 73 friends Over and if they weren to totally engrossed in an Effort to get to the last stage of Captain skyhawk where you have to kill a giant eyeball that has. Tentacles then they would probably be putting spiders into the toaster. So we say to ourselves of that a $41.99 Worth of child care right there plus mileage to and trom a a a the mall plus psychiatric damage caused by looking for a parking space amid iday crazed Drivers who arc so desperate that not Only would they Park in a handicapped person s parking space but would Park on an actual Handt capped person. Pretty soon we realize that just this one item amounts to t thousands of dollars in tax deductible child car expenses and if the irs agents done to agree with our calculations then let them clean the charred spiders out of our toaster. But this probably will not be necessary because the Irsos always eager to accommodate us taxpayers to the Point where sometimes we could just scream with gratitude. A heartwarming exam i pie of this is an irs document that i received from Alert Reader Rick Gulden. Thirs issued this document last november to explain the tax filing procedure for people being held hostage in Iraq. I am not making this up. And its a Good thing in a not because when a person is taken Host age and realizes that he May never see his Home and moved ones again the first thing he says to himself is a huh of How am i going to file my Federal tax return a in ease you Ever find yourself in this situation Here a a direct quote from the irs document a individuals who Are detained by the iraqi government probably will be unable to file returns until their release.,. However those who arc  a foreign country against their will arc \ allow it additional time to file their Federal in come tax returns. The due. Date for filing is extended until the 15th Day of the third month following their  lit m whew. You talk about a Bigheart cd Bunch you talk about tying a yellow ribbon a round the old Oak tree not Only docs the irs have the sensitivity to recognize that people being held prison tax re turns but u also gives them additional time. Of i know what you re thinking. You re think ing a but  irs do More  it form a hostage taxpayer assistance commando task Force consisting of highly trained irs agents who would Parachute at night into the hostile nation quietly make their Way to the location where the hostages were being held overpower the guards and provide the captured taxpayers with the tax forms they a need to file their returns on time a a a. A. /. A a that a a very thoughtful suggestion but please done to take it the wrong Way when i Point out that its stupid. Because in order to provide All the forms and tables and instructions accessory to really do the Job fight the commando irs agents would have to carry an estimated 1,500 pounds of documents per hostage taxpayer. They a fall from the plane like rocks and strike the hostile nation at Well Over 100 Miles  hour. Innocent people could get hit. So we re probably better off Ondr our present system although there have been a number of important tax code changes this year that you should be aware of. Unfortunately i done to have enough space left to go into detail but to summarize the key facts a a there have been a number of important tax Law changes. A you should be aware of Thema you have to destroy the individual tentacles before you can kill the giant eyeball. _ _ Nicou Elo copyright �199. Cartoon its amp writers Syndicate no kidding Early names for 7 Rock groups supreme a the Pri Mettes Bill Haley and the comets a the Saddleman hollies a the Delta. J. Geils band a the hallucinations bread a pleasure Faire grass roots a the thirteenth floor. Three dog night a Redwood source world features Syndicate. Fido London a England Quot of John in be never met anyone like you before. Of Mark i be never met anyone like you before. Of Steve in be never met anyone like you before. Quot n a d o 3 a Ltd 3 n o 5"page 24 c sunday february 17. 1991 a. A a. A. A a a a. A a ? a a a. A. \ a a. A a a. T a i a a a. A