GAO way off base!In regard to your front page article titled "Whatever happened to tax reform?" (Sept. 4-17, 2006): I thought the Internal Revenue Service sank to a new low when they published a fee schedule telling the taxpayer what a professional tax preparer should charge, but the Government Accountability Office has one up on them.
In the last three paragraphs of the article, the GAO tries to put the blame for failure to pass a tax reform act on the tax professional. This is like blaming firefighters for a fire in a slumlord's building. Whether simplified tax reform is passed or not, taxpayers are still going to seek out tax professionals to assist them in the planning and preparation of returns.
Irwin A. Rozen, EA, ATA,
CSA, CLTC
I.A. Rozen & Associates Ltd.
Skokie, Ill.
A different belief
M r. Mason sees something wrong with the picture of the Wal-Mart founders being worth billions, while at the same time people line up for free meals in New York City ("This I believe," Sept. 18-Oct. 1, 2006, page 6).
Let me try to repaint it and see if Mr. Mason likes this version better: Sam Walton drops out of school and becomes an alcoholic, drug addict and petty criminal. There is no Wal-Mart and the nation's gross domestic product is 1 percent lower. There are still homeless derelicts in New York but, like Mr. Mason, they now have to find something other than Wal-Mart to blame all their problems on.
Colin Cooper, CPA
Tustin, Calif.
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