Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!dptcdc!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!csri.toronto.edu!clarke
From: clarke@csri.toronto.edu (Jim Clarke)
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: income tax: what's this nonsense?
Message-ID: <8903301453.AA07596@russell.csri.toronto.edu>
Date: 30 Mar 89 14:53:57 GMT
References: <144@mindlink.UUCP> <1989Mar29.002321.5939@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> <1107@apss.apss.ab.ca> <1989Mar29.212532.22054@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu>
Distribution: can
Organization: University of Toronto, CSRI
Lines: 31

In article <1989Mar29.212532.22054@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> kocic@gpu.utcs.UUCP (Miroslav Kocic) writes:
>In article <1107@apss.apss.ab.ca> sph@apss.ab.ca (Shaun Hammond) writes:
>>
>>My feeling is that by going through the tax return in detail, you (sometimes)
>>get an idea of how the system works. You may not agree with it, but 
>>at least you get an idea of how to formulate your own personal "tax
>>strategy".
>
>Probably, but the formulation of tax strategies is what eventually enables
>loopholes and all sorts of other time- and resource-wasting nonsense.  Unless
>the point of knowing tax laws is to cheat, or to protect yourself from a 
>corrupt or klutzy government, I'm not sure why Joe Blow needs to know the Tax
>Laws at all, CONSIDERING HOW COMPLICATED THEY ARE.  I'd think differently if
>they were simple.

Simple or not, I think Shaun's right.  I worked in Britain for a year in
1976-77, and I agree with his impressions:  it's easy to have the government
calculate your taxes, but it doesn't give you the feeling you know what's
going on.  The tax return isn't *that* complicated, and working through it
-- and reading about the deductions other people can use but you can't --
gives you a better idea about what's costing you and how you're doing
relative to the rest of the world.

It's not Joe Blow who uses loopholes; it's Joseph Bleaugh, Esq.  (-- I just
made that up! --)  And do you imagine Joseph's British relatives don't find
loopholes, just because Joe's don't see the tax calculation?
-- 
Jim Clarke -- Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4
              (416) 978-4058
clarke@csri.toronto.edu     or    clarke@csri.utoronto.ca
   or ...!{uunet, pyramid, watmath, ubc-cs}!utai!utcsri!clarke