Not Taking Liberties

Oscar Hammerstein (quoted by Stephen Sondheim in Finishing the Hat):

A year or so ago, on the cover of the New York Herald Tribune Sunday Magazine, I saw a picture of the Statue of Liberty. It was a picture taken from a helicopter and it showed the top of the statue's head. I was amazed at the detail there. The sculptor had done a painstaking job with the lady's coiffure, and yet he must have been pretty sure that the only eyes that would ever see this detail would be the uncritical eyes of seagulls. He could not have dreamt that any man would ever fly over this head and take a picture of it. He was artist enough, however, to finish off this part of the statue with as much care as he had devoted to her face and her arms and the torch and everything that people can see as they sail up the bay. He was right. When you are creating a work of art, or any other kind of work, finish the job off perfectly. You never know when a helicopter, or some other instrument not at the moment invented, may come along and find you out.

Do Not Insult the Poor

As you welcome the taxpayer, be friendly and respectful, have materials organized, and speak clearly and simply.

I spent a couple of days earlier this year in an IRS training course getting certified to help poor and elderly residents fill out simple tax returns on the computer. Here’s the main thing I learned: no tax return is truly simple.

Did you live with your spouse during any part of the last six months of 2011?

I smugly thought I knew a lot about taxes and that volunteering would be a snap. For a couple of years in the 1970s, tax was the main part of my law practice, and I’ve been preparing computerized tax returns since the days of punchcards. But the training was no snap. I had some expertise about business taxes and about taxes of comfortable, stable, middle-class families, but I quickly discovered that I was a complete ignoramus when it came to taxes of poor people. I knew more about collapsible corporations than I did about splintered families, more about green-energy credits than about green cards, more about the AMT than about the EITC, and more about qualified dividends than about qualifying relatives.

Were you physically present in the United States on at least 183 days during the 3-year period consisting of 2009, 2010, and 2011, counting all days of presence in 2011, 1/3 the days of presence in 2010, and 1/6 the days of presence in 2009, but not counting days you regularly commuted to work in the United States from your home in Canada or Mexico or the days you were a foreign government-related individual, a teacher or trainee who is temporarily present under a J or Q visa, a student temporarily present under an F, J, M, or Q visa, or a professional athlete temporarily in the United States to complete [I think they mean “compete”] in a charitable sports event?

The computer program was no snap, either. Many taxpayers are eligible to use either the IRS’s program or a free version of Turbotax. Turbotax is slicker by a lot—the IRS program stalled for several minutes for one of my clients and froze completely and had to be rebooted for another [Note to self: remember to save after every step!!]—and I know my way around Turbotax because I’ve been using it since it was Macintax. But, for reasons I forget, volunteers can type information into the IRS program but cannot type information into Turbotax—we have to watch and offer helpful advice as the taxpayer types. Unsurprisingly, when the screener asks clients if they would like to type in their own information or have us do it, they choose us and therefore get the worse option, the dreadful, clunky IRS program.

Did you have a Post-1984 and Pre-2009 divorce decree or agreement that is applicable for 2011 and states that the non-custodial parent can claim the child as a dependent without regard to any condition, such as payment of support; that the other parent will not claim the child as a dependent for the year; and the years for which the non-custodial parent can claim the child as a dependent (see Step 4 footnote for the items the non-custodial parent must attach to his/her tax return), or did you have a Pre-1985 decree of divorce or separation maintenance or written separation agreement between the parents that provides that the non-custodial parent an claim the child as a dependent, and the non-custodial parent provides at least $600 for support of the child during 2011?

The few clients I met were not exactly taxpayers; they were tax filers. They needed to file only to collect the earned income tax credit or retrieve taxes their employers had withheld. They did not earn enough to owe taxes; they did not earn enough to live in even minimum comfort. Those politicians who, despite having sworn never to raise taxes think the poor should pay something to have "skin in the game,” should try to live a year on the little these people make.

An unrelated person who lived with the taxpayer for the entire year can also meet the member of household or relationship test. If the relationship violates local laws, this test is not met. For example, if the taxpayer’s state prohibits cohabitation, then that person cannot be claimed, even if all other criteria are met. Note that a person is still considered living with the taxpayer as a member of the household during periods when that person or the taxpayer is temporarily absent due to special circumstances such as illness, education, business, vacation, military service and placement in a nursing home; cousins can meet the relationship test for qualifying relative only if they live with the taxpayer for the entire year; and qualifying relatives can be unrelated as long as the lived with the taxpayer all year.

Almost every complication in the tax rules is understandable. You can figure out why each wrinkle and convolution is there and what mischief would be possible if you took it out. There's a logic to most of it, but the result is a trap, a system that is too complicated even for citizens with the simplest, most minimal finances to negotiate safely without expert help. The country should accept the risk of a little mischief to change that, designing as close as possible a return-free filing system for the poor.

A married person who files a joint return cannot be claimed as a dependent unless the joint return is filed strictly to claim a refund and there would be no tax liability for either spouse on separate returns.

Tax simplification for the poor will never happen if it gets entangled with loftier controversies about mortgage interest, capital gains, the AMT, carried interest, and other tax features that annoy the well-off. It needs to be an entirely separate legislative project.

Before seeing taxpayers off, show as much concern and interest as you did at the start of your time together.

I Don't Have to Wait

I don't have to wait until March 15; I'm ready to confr now.

Marion Beck, 1924-2012

Marion Beck, who was lost to dementia eight years ago, died Thursday. Marion was rambunctious and fun and, as D. said, constantly and magnificently generous even when she had little to be generous with.

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Dead Friends I Think Of Often

Steve Ingersoll, 1966
Steve Kelsey, 1967
Margery Pierce, 1967
John Trotter, 1967
Al Furniss, 1968
Brooke Halsey, 1969
Frank Frederick, 1970
Fred Fox, 1981
Bob Lamberton, 1985
Jim Swan, 1986
Jim Markham, 1989
Bill Taylor, 1992
John Simpson, 1993
Alan Kirschner, 1994
Valerie Battle, 1995
Larry Katzenbach, 1997
Jeff Moss, 1998
Welford Farmer, 2002
Don Winn, 2003
Bill Layton, 2007
Tom Tinkham, 2009
John Hooley, 2010
Connie Hansen, 2011
. . . to be continued

Fleðilegt Nýtt Ár

Iceland is an amazing place to welcome in the New Year. It has more fireworks per capita than any other place on earth. Iceland's volunteer rescue squads fund their operations chiefly through the sale of fireworks, so it's a civic, charitable duty to buy fireworks, and competition is keen among neighbors and neighborhoods for the most flamboyant, combustible, noisy, dangerous displays. Here are a few pictures from the trip we took with the Nullets and Wenzels.

Audit and Legal: A Special Relationship Since 1914

At his retirement luncheon on Tuesday, Bob Wetzel claimed that every time he and I had a conversation, he always came away wiser. That's not true, of course, but he did always come away much better informed.

Merry Christmas to all.

Her Brother Was a Saint

We celebrated the installation of Phoebe Roaf as the 22nd Rector of St. Philip's Church this evening. St. Philip's is the South's oldest historically African-American congregation in the Episcopal Church, established at the beginning of the Civil War, and Phoebe is the granddaughter of Bill Layton, who had been one of my particular friends and heroes. I was glad for the chance to catch up with Bill's widow Phoebe, animated and entertaining at 94, at the reception after the service.

Allen Robinson, Rector of St. James in Baltimore, gave the most compelling sermon I've heard in years--he was entertaining but not letting anybody off the hook; Michele Hagans travelled down from Washington to read the gospel; and I couldn't help but wonder if Bishop Johnston knew how ridiculous his hat looked. They were serious about their music—it's the first time I've seen a drum set used in a sanctuary—and the good-fellowship and conviviality of the congregation was on display during the reception, alongside its hospitality.

St. Philip's new rector comes to Richmond from Trinity Episcopal in New Orleans, and it's no wonder she took up a religious vocation. It's a family tradition: her brother Willie was a saint (more precisely, an offensive lineman for the New Orleans football club, 1993-2001, the most awarded player in Saints' history).

All in all, a great occasion.

Common Ground

The one issue both Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street agree on:

He Didn't Get the Memo

Or maybe this azalea bloom got the October memo intended for the camelias.

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Why wait? In your rear-view mirror, his sign reads "MOVE OVER —>." They might as well give out the speeding ticket preemptively in advance.

Driven From Ideas

Michael Tomasky in the current NYRB: Usually a political movement is driven by its ideas. Then it chooses the rhetoric it thinks best advances the ideas. … Sometime in the 1990s, this normal process reversed itself on the American right, and rhetoric began driving, and even elbowing out, ideas. Once this wall is breached, compromise on any important issues becomes impossible, and responsible policymaking nearly so. … When you call someone an "enemy" enough times, when you say enough times that the person across from you doesn't have simply wrong ideas but wicked ones, how can you tolerate compromise with such a person? … The proposal for an individual mandate [to buy health insurance] came in no small part from, of all places, the conservative Heritage Foundation in the 1990s. The Heritage conservatives argued that each family should be required to take responsibility for its health care and not depend on handouts. A party more interested in ideas might have claimed victory in seeing a Democratic president come around to its way of thinking; it might then have worked with the administration to arrive at a bill that included still more of its ideas, to which Obama would no doubt have been amendable. But the rhetoric prevented that. The base insisted that compromise was treason, and the party establishment agreed. The same process will play out again this fall [on Obama's payroll tax reduction proposal.]

Venice, 50 Years Later

August 7, 2011: July 4, 1961:
In Venice, Mr. Mack reported, "In the middle of the concert, after our rendition of the Negro Spiritual 'Set Down Servant,' the audience rose and shouted so loud, we thought for a moment we were being booed. We discovered they were shouting 'sing it again, sing it again' in Italian. We had to stop the show and repeat the number."

Sue Lewis was to cover Venice, but her letter had not been received by press time… Jim McAfee did send a few lines from Venice—

I'll title these Venice notes "water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink." The water is safe only in the hotel. We have a lottery on who gets dysentery first. Venice is really amazing. There is one intersection where a policeman directs the boat traffic and there is a stop light.

Our hotel is a beautiful new one several miles from Venice. It is opposite a railroad station and there is constant construction going on around it. Sleep is a luxury and hard to come by. Our schedule has been less demanding here than anywhere. We had only one concert, on July 4th, and our pace has slowed considerably. We all kept our hands in our pockets for fear of pickpockets on the crowded vaporetto, which is the sea-going equivalent of the New Haven.

And speaking of that, the head chaperone on our bus has warned all the girls about keeping a straight face if they are pinched. The policemen are notorious pinchers and, as someone pointed out, in Italy there is a difference between 'pinching' and 'arresting.' Walkways in Venice are narrow, dark, and picturesque, and often end in either a canal or building.

The weather has been beautiful, but so hot that we spent an hour at the top of the Bell Tower at St. Mark's catching the breeze.

I presume Sue has covered everything, so, as our gondola sinks slowly in the Grand Canal, we bid arrivederci to enchanting Venice.

Oops,almost forgot—we all went haggling the the Merchants of Venice with sundry successes.

"Ambition Must Be Made to Counteract Ambition."

Tonight’s televised debate reminded me what a smart little guy James Madison was:

A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning Government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for preeminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have in turn divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to cooperate for their common good.

So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions, and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold, and those who are without property, have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination.

A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interest forms the principal task of modern Legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of Government…

It is in vain to say, that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good.







Federalist No. 10, Nov. 22, 1787

Joe Coyne, 1928-2011

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joseph Coyne, who oversaw the public affairs operations at the Federal Reserve for more than three decades, has died. He was 83.

Coyne died unexpectedly on Sunday in Scranton, Pa., where he had gone to attend his 65th high school reunion.

A former reporter for The Associated Press, Coyne retired from the Fed in 1998 after a career that spanned four Fed chairmen — Arthur Burns, G. William Miller, Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan.

During his time as director of public affairs, the central bank evolved from a highly secretive institution to one more willing to explain its decisions on interest rates to the public. That process has continued under current Chairman Ben Bernanke.

The Fed came under heavy criticism in the late 1970s and early 1980s when Volcker was pushing interest rates to levels not seen since the Civil War to deal with high inflation triggered by the oil shocks of the 1970s.

Coyne, writing about those times, remembered that he had to deal with angry consumer groups, home builders mailing hundreds of two-by-four pieces of lumber from unbuilt homes to the Fed and car dealers sending in keys from unsold cars.

To deal with the protests, Coyne set up meetings for Volcker and other Fed officials to explain the central bank's programs which, Coyne wrote, "broke the back of inflation and laid the groundwork" for a sustained period of economic growth.

Coyne, who was born in Scranton, Pa. in 1928, graduated from the University of Scranton and received a masters degree from Fordham University.

After starting his journalism career at the Binghamton Sun in New York, he joined the AP, working first in Philadelphia and then Harrisburg, Pa., and Atlantic City, N.J., where one of his assignments was covering the annual Miss America Pageants.

In Washington, Coyne covered national and international economic news, becoming the AP's chief economics writer before he joined the Fed.

Coyne, who lived in Annandale, Va., is survived by five sons, Patrick, Michael, Dennis, Tim and Kevin, 13 grandchildren and two great grandchildren. Funeral arrangements were pending.

Richard Taylor, 1944-2011

Richard M. Taylor, 67, of Highland Springs, died August 21, 2011, with his loved ones at his side, at Retreat Hospital Hospice of Virginia.

He was born June 1, 1944 in New York, N.Y. He was the son of the late Robert B. and Helen J. Taylor, and was raised in Old Greenwich, Conn. Richard graduated from Colgate University in 1966 with a BA in Psychology, and earned an M.Ed from Springfield College specializing in Applied Psychology.

Not one to follow a conventional path, he lived in Denmark, Sweden, Spain, and Bermuda before settling in Richmond in 1978. He had many, and varied, occupations including locksmith, policeman, and fireman for 20 years; also, he was a rehab counselor and a psychologist for the government of Bermuda.

After retirement, Richard served as a substitute teacher and bus driver. Much of his life in Richmond was devoted to his beloved and closest friend of 25 years, Victoria Purdy and her husband, Jeff, her children Grace, Callie and Seth. Richard was a frequent volunteer the Crossover Health Clinic, and a strong advocate for organ donation. In his free time, you would find him at Sheltering Arms Therapy pool, in fellowship with friends of Bill W.; or watching sports with his buddy, Jeff.

Richard is survived by Tori and her family; his brother, Jonathan and wife, Kathleen of Wilbraham, Mass., their children, Shawn of Madison, N.H., Scott of Wilbraham, Mass.; Shannon of Breckenridge, Colo.; and his brother, Douglas of Westport, Conn. A memorial service for Richard will be held Saturday at 2 p.m. at Unity of Richmond, in Byrd Park. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial contributions for Hospice of Virginia, 1700 Bayberry Court Ste. 300, Richmond, Va. 23226 or Crossover Health Center, 8600 Quioccasin Rd. Ste 102, Richmond, Va. 23229.

Поздравляю, Kid!