BUSINESS
\ it\
;is! Skrategies mo-t()91
Ernst &Yowl. ARTHUR YOUNG TAX (A. 'IDE 1991
Taxing Reading
Beats The Deadline
Although lacking the passion and plot of most
novels, guides to tax preparation and planning
can be helpful this time of year.
RON OSTROFF
Editorial Coordinator
J
ust when the world
started to look like a
safer place, it's tax
time again.
With less than a month to
the dreaded April 15 filing
deadline, those who haven't
completed their tax returns
are getting nervous.
Some will bring shoe boxes
full of receipts, cancelled
checks and other documents
to certified public accoun-
tants and tax lawyers.
Others have already given•
detailed records to tax
preparers and are trying to
stay as far away from the
process as possible. It's the
give-it-to-the-tax-preparer-
and-let-him-worry-about-it-
approach.
But many taxpayers
choose to go it alone.
They need to save money,
so they try to avoid hiring a
54
FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 1991
tax preparer. Or they believe
that their taxes are simple
enough that by using the
Internal Revenue Service
instructions, they can
prepare their own return.
All these taxpayers are
part of the audience targeted
by the publishers of income
tax guides.
Starting in the fall,
publishers issue new edi-
tions of preparation and
strategy guides for in-
dividuals and business
owners who want to do their
taxes or be more informed
when dealing with a tax
preparer. As the days inch
toward the filing deadline,
sales increase.
"Most of the books aim at
tax preparation and what
you need to know this year
to do your return — what's
new and what's changed,"
said Elliott Eiss, senior
editor at the J.K. Lasser In-
stitute, which publishes J.K
Lasser's Your Income Tax
1991. "It is probably true
that people buying at the
last minute are buying out of
some sort of semi-panic."
Many books like, Your In-
come Tax — believed to be
the first of its kind when in-
itially published 54 years
ago, take taxpayers through
federal personal • income tax
forms line by line. Some
preparation guides offer
year-round tax tips, usually
covered more extensively in
books devoted to tax plann-
ing and strategies.
Ernst & Young, one of the
nation's largest accounting
firms, produces both a
strategy guide and a prepa-
ration book.
The digest-size, 230-page
Ernst & Young's Tax-Saving
Strategies 1990-1991 is in-
dexed to life cycle events and
designed for tax planning or
last minute advice. Ernst &
Young's Arthur Young Tax
Guide 1991, a phone book
size 700-page volume, em-
phasizes filling out the
forms, but also contains
planning advice.
"You can't use either book
to answer all the questions,"
said Don Aronson, an Ernst
& Young tax partner in New
York who oversees prepara-
tion of the books. "If the law
and all the answers were
that simple that it could be
put into a book the size of the
tax guide, we would have
truly reached tax simplici-
ty"
That's a point of agree-
ment between many of the
tax book authors: None of
the volumes has everything
for everyone. The goal is to
concentrate on the areas in
tax law that come up most
often.
"We probably touch upon
everything that 95 percent
of the taxpayers get involved
in," said George W. Smith
III, a Southfield certified
public accountant and au-
thor of the 110-page The
World Almanac's Cut 'Your
Own Taxes And Save. "The
president of General Motors
could get a point out of it just
as someone on the assembly
line could."
However, for a reader to
get benefits from the tax
guides means study and
could require advance plan-
ning, the authors said. But
many taxpayers just want a
quick answer.
"People want instant
gratification — how to save
money on this year's
return," said Kevin McCor-
mally, author of Kiplinger's
Sure Ways To Cut Your
Taxes. "Tax planning is
hard. It's almost like medi-
cine."
Ann Gray Jakabcin, a tax
lawyer and co-author of J.K.
Lasser's Personal Tax Stra-
tegies 1991, said taxpayers
should consider whether it's
worth the effort of trying to
do their own returns.
"A small business owner's
time is probably more
valuable to the business,"
she said. "Even individual
wage earners should mea-
sure how valuable their time
is compared to what it would
cost to have a professional
prepare it."
"People want
instant
gratification — how
to save money on
this year's return."
Kevin McCormally
Myron Vansickel, chair-
man of the federal taxation
committee of the Maryland
Association of Certified
Public Accountants, warned
that although the guides
provide better instructions
than the IRS, the books are
for simple situations. And
they are not the.last word.
"The books stop short of
being an authoritative cite"
that can be relied on like IRS
rules and regulations, said
Mr. Vansickel. "I can't go
into the IRS and quote one of
these books as saying I can
take this deduction."